Choosing Your Battles, Finding God in Hardship, and Owning Your Addictions ｜ ASK ME ANYTHING
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 3 minutes
Words per Minute
178.94241
Summary
In this episode, the brotherhood gets together to discuss what it means to be a man, and what it takes to be one. We talk about the importance of owning your mistakes and owning your failures, and why it s important to own them. We also talk about how important it is to own the mistakes we've made, and how we can learn from them.
Transcript
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I would probably consider the mistakes that you've made and just own them.
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I did this, and it eats at me, and I feel horrible about it,
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and I feel horrible because, and then you explain the things.
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and so these are the mistakes that I'm owning right now.
00:00:33.540
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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At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
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Maybe that's a dumb thing to notice, but it stood out.
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You know, at least you're aware of your surroundings.
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I have no idea why I'm telling you that, but I'm just looking at it now.
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I'm like trying to like get the angles, and I'm like, okay, do the cameras look good?
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At least everyone knows that we don't wake up calling each other to see if we match or
00:01:36.180
Well, it's good to see you after that really horrible intro, but you know, we don't knock
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Well, we got some, dude, you, you post some questions in the Iron Council, our exclusive
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We got lots of, lots of solid questions for the podcast today.
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Before we do, I want to go back to something we used to be doing, which was headlines.
00:02:04.280
And we kind of got away from that, I think just out of being busy and having questions
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to answer, but we thought we'd revive this a little bit.
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And I had, it's not so much a headline, it's just more of a cultural phenomenon.
00:02:15.660
I was watching YouTube with my kids this weekend and Mr. Beast, many of you probably know who
00:02:24.300
And it was actually a really interesting video.
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He took a prison inmate, a, a former prison inmate and a former either police officer or
00:02:33.600
And he put them in a makeshift prison that he built and said, if both of you survive together
00:02:38.720
as cellmates for a hundred days, then you'll split $500,000.
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And I thought the premise was kind of cool and it was interesting.
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But, uh, one of my kids or somebody had said that Mr. Beast is a billionaire.
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And I, and I looked, Mr. Beast is a billionaire.
00:03:03.260
I brought this up because I think it's incredible.
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Um, I just get frustrated when I hear people say things like nobody should be a billionaire.
00:03:14.100
And then they, they get after him because he's not donating enough money based on their
00:03:19.260
criteria as if they could donate even a fraction of what he does.
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Uh, Mr. Beast is somebody who has a lot of philanthropic aspirations.
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He pays for medical procedures for thousands and thousands of strangers and random people.
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And this is a cultural phenomenon that I think is horribly disgusting and repulsive.
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And that is that we think that just because somebody else figures out how to make money,
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AKA add value to people's lives, that somehow it takes away from our ability to do it.
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And that if somebody gets theirs, then we can't get ours.
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And in the type of economy that we live in, relatively free, I'm not going to say completely
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free markets, but the type of economy that we live in, we should all be cheering on the
00:04:17.380
streets and celebrating when somebody builds massive amounts of wealth in a very righteous,
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Like I believe Mr. Beast has done because what it does is it paves the way for other people
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It, it creates a business that now can hire people.
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You have tax revenue that goes into the, the, frankly, the needed revenue for the country
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Granted, I will say, I would love to see that at a fraction of the way it operates now, but
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you guys understand the point, but we should all be cheering him on.
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This same thing happened when Joe Rogan got that $300 million deal or whatever it was with
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You know, all of a sudden, Joe, Joe Rogan's a villain.
00:05:09.820
We ought to be celebrating and cheering that stuff on.
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And I wish more of us did embrace the idea that if people build wealth righteously, morally,
00:05:18.540
ethically, then we ought to be able to support them because we know what's possible now.
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I don't know if you, if you want it to go this way, but I'll go this way, maybe a little bit.
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Like, what is the human condition or what's the human tendency that causes people to moan
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And ultimately, I think it's rooted in the idea because they would rather do that than
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actually face how they're showing up in the world and address the things within their realm
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It's always easy to moan and complain about what other people are doing.
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It is a hell of a lot harder to look in the mirror and go, what am I doing with what I
00:06:08.400
And I think we purposely get this moral benefit.
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We think that we're superior or whatever when we get to complain about things that are outside
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And to be frank, it's a pitfall that a lot of people fall into.
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And there's a level of it of, I don't know, I want to say pathetic.
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But it's just, guys, we got to operate with what's within our realm.
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And stop worrying about what other people are doing.
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I will say jealousy probably comes into that as well.
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But that probably ties into the greater point that you're making.
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These people who have tremendous levels of success in any aspect, whether it's with their families
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or in business and finances or fitness, they are the destroyer of excuses.
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And if you spend any amount of time around any type of these individuals who are achieving
00:07:09.340
They don't buy into the same narrative that you have that you can't or some magical deck of
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And so it's really uncomfortable if you're not ready to do the work, to be around people
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like this, or to hear stories of them succeeding.
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But we can fight against it if you just have the right mindset.
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And instead of being the victim and making them the villain, cheer along with them, celebrate
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them, figure out what they did, duplicate it, replicate it, and make yourself into a more
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Our first question is from Chad Scott, kind of a lengthy, but he has a little bit of a
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He says, I was recently listening to a podcaster who was interviewing a motivational speaker
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This individual had gone to prison for many years and was recounting his time in jail before
00:08:08.820
After his sentence, but before being transferred to a fellow jailmate, told him what to expect when
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He advised him that he would have to fight a lot.
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And his advice was, you don't have to win every fight, but you have to fight every fight.
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No one except you will count how many times you win.
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Of course, this man meant actual fights, but the interviewee related it to his clients in
00:08:43.660
What we all agreed was the better question is how to choose our battles, realizing sometimes
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we only recognize some of the important ones once they have passed.
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So maybe your thoughts if you agree with that sentiment.
00:08:57.340
Yeah, I mean, about the fighting in particular and why we need to fight and all that sort
00:09:05.140
Just yesterday, I released a podcast with my friend Pete Roberts, who I know you know
00:09:13.580
And he talked about, he used a word in the podcast that really stood out to me.
00:09:18.820
And then I actually used it in the title of the podcast.
00:09:22.580
And when he said that, it really stood out to me as a virtue, a character trait, something
00:09:35.540
Because in the face of few resources or adversity and hardship, or maybe even somebody actually
00:09:43.400
doing something to you to keep you down, your ability to be scrappy.
00:09:49.120
Did we talk about this last week with Nate Diaz too, a little bit?
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So that word has come up twice in the last week or two now.
00:10:02.920
And by the way, that's also the people that we admire and respect.
00:10:06.840
You know, they even, I don't know if you remember in the scene Braveheart, but they set up a trap
00:10:14.160
for William Wallace after they had killed his new bride.
00:10:18.440
And the governor or whatever of the village said, let this scrapper come to us.
00:10:27.260
And, you know, you know the history from the, not the history, but you know the movie and
00:10:38.580
You know, even watching these fights, these UFC fights over the weekend.
00:10:46.320
I didn't, I didn't grab the pay-per-view, but I mean.
00:11:00.040
I think Duplessis scored a couple points in everybody's book.
00:11:10.160
You, some people might say it was, he got humiliated.
00:11:14.500
I think he was unprepared to be able to combat the ground game, but he scrapped.
00:11:20.880
And every time he got up, he would smile between rounds.
00:11:24.940
When he was in the corner, he was telling the coach, Hey, the last round, he's like,
00:11:34.200
And that's what we as men respect because it's a virtue that we want to espouse.
00:11:40.620
So I agree, um, that we need, we need to be scrappy.
00:11:49.400
We're not going to always have the resources or the abundance or prosperity or, or skillset
00:11:54.320
or characteristics that everybody else has, but you can always decide to stay in the
00:11:58.860
And if you do, I think over the long haul, you're going to win.
00:12:06.280
And I don't know who the interview was, but like, what's so great about it is what happens
00:12:11.700
if that guy goes into jail and he doesn't fight every fight?
00:12:23.580
Dude, he'll start on a path where, where things will be worse for him.
00:12:33.300
And so, and, and I'm not saying everything's a war, right?
00:12:36.880
In, in where we operate day to day, but like, you can't be a pushover, right?
00:12:41.740
Like, and we've talked about this a little bit, I think last week too, it's like, what
00:12:46.780
Are you intentional with the choices that you're making?
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And if you're not, then you need to push back and be intentional about what you're doing.
00:12:54.340
Otherwise, guess who's going to control your world?
00:12:56.780
Everybody, but you, you'll be doing everything to appease everybody else.
00:13:01.040
And you'll just be a passive bystander in life.
00:13:04.320
And that's exactly what this, what would happen to this gel mate in the event that he didn't
00:13:11.240
And, and to your point, we respect the guy who's scrappy.
00:13:14.220
We respect the guy that doesn't give up, that will not be a pushover.
00:13:19.880
You know, you, you've, you've trained jujitsu long enough.
00:13:22.820
You, I'm sure you've had your, your, um, mat mates or your, your, uh, teammates that are
00:13:28.420
like the guys that, you know, there's no give up in them.
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Like, you know, after rounds and rounds, they still don't give up.
00:13:38.980
I mean, those are, those are inspirational people, regardless of the circumstance, regardless
00:13:44.320
of even if they're getting beat up, the fact that they don't give up is inspiring.
00:13:50.240
And, and we should all, I mean, I think we should all be operating from that perspective.
00:14:02.060
The ones that we as men naturally gravitate towards.
00:14:08.540
You know, general in the Roman army, down on his luck, wife and son murdered, and then
00:14:16.520
comes back to, you know, basically essentially take over the Roman empire.
00:14:21.100
I know these are stories, you know, they're not, they're, they're fictional stories.
00:14:25.220
But what, what, what the point that I'm making is that we resonate with them for a reason
00:15:00.720
I posed this question on our LDS Church Young Men's High Adventure.
00:15:07.340
Like just full disclosure for those that aren't LDS.
00:15:09.900
This is like a group of like probably 20 to 40 kids and some high adventures are 40 to
00:15:18.160
50 milers a week long out in the, in the wild chaos.
00:15:27.020
I did one one time tip with, with, uh, there was probably seven or eight 14 year olds.
00:15:35.780
Fort, they were, they were 14 to 16 and 14 year old boys are just little a-holes.
00:15:44.220
Actually, by the time they turn 14, they're pretty good.
00:15:46.840
But like 12 to 14 is little, is rough at times.
00:15:52.980
But once they get to 14, then they're, they're a little better.
00:15:57.160
But anyways, we had about seven or eight of us and we hiked down, we did a seven mile
00:16:02.860
hike and do a place called Canarraville Falls in Southern Utah with our backpacks.
00:16:09.240
Uh, and then we spent the night and the boys, they asked me, they said, Hey, you know, what,
00:16:20.620
And I said, you guys are old enough now that you can just, our, our unofficial motto was
00:16:28.280
Our real motto that we told the parents was Ali, will there find a way or make one?
00:16:32.860
But our, our, our secret motto was do what you want, suffer the consequences.
00:16:37.800
And so I told the boys, I said, you guys don't have a curfew.
00:16:47.480
I, I looked at my watch cause I didn't sleep in a tent.
00:16:50.340
I just slept in my sleeping bag and I looked at my watch.
00:16:53.000
It was 2am and I heard them down by the Creek and they were still noisy.
00:16:59.680
And then maybe like an hour later, they tried to put a frog in my sleeping bag.
00:17:03.700
When I was sleeping, I'm like, God, these boys.
00:17:06.960
So anyways, I get up at seven or a little earlier and I start packing up my stuff and
00:17:11.840
I get the boys up and they're like, can we sleep longer?
00:17:14.180
I'm like, no, I told you, do what you want, suffer the consequences.
00:17:25.260
And we got to hike 10 miles out to get to a cabin that we're going to spend another day
00:17:38.280
And I'm hiking out with the boys and I'm just like, why is this so heavy?
00:17:44.120
And I went for a couple of miles and then we get to this hill and it felt really heavy.
00:17:47.700
And I dropped them like, what is going on with my bag?
00:17:50.740
They had put rocks in my bag at night while they were awake and while I was asleep.
00:17:58.440
And so I take the rocks out and they're just laughing.
00:18:02.180
Anyways, I don't know why I brought that up other than we had a good time.
00:18:05.460
And being able to do that stuff with young men in your community, I think is invaluable
00:18:11.220
Some of the parents did get mad that I said, do what you want, suffer the consequences.
00:18:25.160
Dude, the last high adventure I had, it was to King's Peak from the south side of the
00:18:41.100
It was really rough for some of these kids, man.
00:18:46.680
I mean, I remember I had a night where I had this kid yelling, help.
00:18:52.800
Like I'm literally sleeping and I hear a kid yelling, help in the middle of the night.
00:19:21.400
And I'm like, all right, everyone get out of your tent, right?
00:19:35.780
With the spiritual understanding I have today, how would I invite God into a past trial,
00:19:42.860
transforming it into a testimony rather than stumbling block?
00:19:46.600
This also led to a side question of why is having some type of spiritually important in
00:19:54.980
Ryan and Kip, what would your answer be to these questions?
00:19:59.920
Well, I think part of it is a reframe, and it's an eternal perspective reframing.
00:20:05.200
A lot of people think, why does this happen to me?
00:20:15.360
What if instead you decided, well, it's happening for me?
00:20:22.160
And that could be true or not true, but what if you just operated as if it was?
00:20:27.080
What if you just made the decision that this is true, that things are happening for me?
00:20:35.700
And so if things are happening for you, then to me, that means that some designer is behind
00:20:50.140
If it's happening for you, then somebody or something is making it happen.
00:20:54.740
Some people call it the universe or a muse or whatever.
00:21:03.320
Now, we still have free will and we still have free agency.
00:21:08.500
Do I want to embrace this as a lesson or do I want to wallow in my own self-pity?
00:21:15.600
But I believe that God does these for a couple of reasons.
00:21:28.380
Some people think there's a malicious God where, hey, I'm trying to trick you and stumble
00:21:32.540
you and make you fall and mess you up and embarrass and humiliate you.
00:21:39.100
When I say test, I think what he's doing is giving us moments of hardship and struggle
00:21:47.440
and adversity in order to make ourselves stronger.
00:21:53.100
Because any time that I've ever had something challenging and difficult in my life, I've come
00:22:04.600
I also think it's to prove to ourselves, not to him.
00:22:15.100
Prove to ourselves that we're capable of the next level.
00:22:18.480
I feel like any time anything negative or bad happens, that's a test for me.
00:22:26.880
And if I pass it, I get to go to the next level.
00:22:30.700
And if I don't pass it, then I stay where I am.
00:22:45.220
But if you can come out ahead, you can overcome that.
00:22:54.440
Is that if I suffer in a way, then other people might suffer less if I'm willing to share the
00:23:13.260
And I'm taking the lessons that I've learned over the past two and a half, almost three years now,
00:23:17.980
and putting together a course called Divorce Not Death.
00:23:21.220
Because if I can take those lessons in my new understanding based on personal experience
00:23:25.760
and help another man get through that or not go through a divorce at all,
00:23:30.440
then my adversity was a positive thing, not only in my life, but in the life of another man.
00:23:36.880
And I feel like that's my sole objective on this earth, is to learn, to grow, to get better,
00:23:49.240
The conversation about why does God let bad things happen to good people,
00:24:01.540
You know, the one thing I'd add to your statement is,
00:24:16.480
And so what's so great about this is, at any time, you get to learn from it.
00:24:23.500
You know, it's like, oh, I had this tough past.
00:24:29.320
You could still retrospect and go, oh, you know, I'm going to go back 20 years,
00:24:33.300
and I'm going to choose to learn from that difficult circumstance right now,
00:24:39.180
That's the beauty of taking an experience and a circumstance and a hardship
00:24:55.160
And we talked about this, too, on the podcast, that, like, stress is an enhancer.
00:24:59.120
I love one of my favorite quotes from Andrew Huberman is around this idea that, like,
00:25:03.580
your brain literally changes when stress is involved, allowing you to grow and develop
00:25:09.960
in a way that normally you wouldn't be able to.
00:25:13.720
So that begs the idea that challenges are what's required for us to grow and evolve
00:25:25.000
And the God I believe in is focused on me evolving and becoming the best version of myself.
00:25:35.920
Now, the mindset is critical because if I don't have the mindset of an internal perspective
00:25:41.000
of growth and it's woe is me victim mentality, then I'm not going to learn and grow.
00:25:50.000
And I may go in the complete opposite direction.
00:25:53.020
But the beautiful part about what we're saying here is that's a choice.
00:26:00.600
Well, I really like what you said about going to the past and revisiting that
00:26:10.580
All of us are operating based on scripts and stories that were written a long time ago.
00:26:15.980
There was a script written about you and told about you that you had no say in.
00:26:26.660
We were born to mom and dad, whether they were there or not, or other people came into our lives.
00:26:33.120
We experienced things that we had no control over.
00:26:38.220
And then people started inputting thoughts and ideas and concepts into our brains.
00:26:49.460
And we believe, to a degree, everything that we've ever been told unless you can learn to rewrite some of the bad code.
00:26:58.960
And that's what all of us as men should be doing when we, if we have something that goes south and it's on us, it's our responsibility, that might be a one-off thing.
00:27:10.240
You know what to be aware of is when you start to see trends in your performance.
00:27:14.400
If you start to see trends in your performance, it's because you're operating on a script that is not serving you.
00:27:27.640
But if every relationship that you're in ends the same way or it ends up being in the same kind of dynamic and it's not good, it's toxic, that's a bad script that you believed.
00:27:40.000
And the only way for you to write it, or excuse me, rewrite it, is to go back and visit and say, why do I believe that?
00:27:53.720
Play it out, find the answers, and then start plugging in new elements of that story and watch how your progress changes.
00:28:02.220
It's a requirement to figure out what those stories are and rewrite the code that doesn't serve you well.
00:28:13.980
Which is awesome, really, that you don't have to experience that again to learn from it.
00:28:22.340
Unless you're dense like I am, you just want to keep learning things the hard way.
00:28:28.060
It's like, you can choose to learn the lesson or life will help you learn the lesson.
00:28:34.680
It's just, how much suffering are you going to have to go through?
00:28:38.420
Yeah, well, the other one I like is a smart man learns from his mistakes, a wise man learns from the mistakes of others.
00:28:47.720
You can go back 20 years and say, oh, yeah, I remember when I did that.
00:28:52.640
That was a pivotal moment in my life that maybe I should change.
00:28:56.180
Or, you know what, there's other things that happen in your life where you start to run into identity crises that you may not even notice it.
00:29:05.000
But, you know, maybe you go through a divorce and then you lose some of your identity or you lose your job or you retire and you lose some of your identity.
00:29:15.940
And when you lose that identity, you start to change your behavior for better or worse.
00:29:21.140
But you just need to figure out which it is so you can make sure you're doing the right thing and being intentional about it.
00:29:29.800
How can I approach senior leadership about issues and blind spots I see in our processes without coming across as just complaining?
00:29:40.020
I don't always have full solutions, but I want them to understand both my experience and the experience of others since it feels like they're somewhat disconnected from what's happening on the ground.
00:29:55.380
Well, so he's talking specifically about the Iron Council, so I'm grateful that he's aware of that.
00:30:07.060
I was going to—I assumed that was the case, but I was going to apply it broadly anyways.
00:30:13.780
Yeah, I assumed—I actually messaged him and I said, hey, man, like, I would love to hear your—I told him to follow the chain of command
00:30:21.000
and then send me a message, so I thought it was about the Iron Council specifically, but maybe not.
00:30:27.580
He replied, I should have clarified, I'm talking about my career, not the Iron Council.
00:30:42.280
Well, no, even in the comment, I was like, hey, man, thanks for sharing.
00:30:46.100
Like, have you gone through your chain of command and shoot me a message?
00:30:50.020
That's what I said as a response to him, so I'm glad I handled it like a mature adult.
00:30:55.800
Okay, so, yeah, I was going to apply it broadly anyways.
00:30:58.300
Well, look, here—okay, so here's my advice, and Kip, I know you're going to have a lot of good advice on this one.
00:31:01.960
I'll give you—I'll give you three things, three things you should focus on.
00:31:10.600
Like, you don't need to go to the owner and start airing out your grievances if you have a team leader or you have a shift supervisor or the manager of the store or whatever.
00:31:22.740
But always use the chain of command because if you go straight to the manager, you're going to do two things.
00:31:28.660
You're going to piss off the manager, or let's say you go straight to the owner.
00:31:32.060
You're going to piss off the owner because he's busy.
00:31:38.220
So you're going to piss off the owner, and then you're going to piss off the manager because you just threw him under the bus without giving him a chance, like a man, to actually deal with it.
00:31:50.400
So I would go to my team leader, and then if that didn't get resolved, I'd go to my shift manager.
00:31:56.500
And if that didn't get resolved, I'd go to the store manager.
00:31:58.540
If that didn't get resolved, and so on and so forth.
00:32:06.340
If your tone is one of complaining and grievances and negativity and why you don't like things, that's going to hit differently than if you said,
00:32:16.860
hey, I love being here, and I want to make this better, and I have this cool idea, and here's something that I think could be implemented,
00:32:23.480
or here's one thing that I really like, but if it was tweaked this way, it might help based on what I've heard other people say.
00:32:29.660
You're sharing the same information, but you're changing the tone of your voice, the inflection, the enthusiasm.
00:32:40.900
And then the third is remember that what you're sharing is your opinion.
00:32:45.320
So be very careful of stating it as actual fact, because you don't know.
00:32:54.660
You know some things, but your manager might have a reason for doing it the way that he's doing it,
00:33:01.780
So if you go in there accusatory, believing that you know all the facts and that you know best,
00:33:08.700
it comes across as arrogant and condescending when I would suggest you go in there and say,
00:33:14.120
if Kip, you're my shift supervisor, I might say, hey, Kip, can I talk with you for a second?
00:33:18.860
Again, asking that question is a sign of respect.
00:33:25.020
Okay, so we get to our conversation, and I just say, hey, I've got a couple of thoughts,
00:33:29.860
but I know that I'm only coming from this little piece of the puzzle,
00:33:36.500
There might be other moving parts that I'm not even aware of,
00:33:39.880
but can I share some feedback from my perspective, from where I sit?
00:33:47.460
And then he says, hopefully, he says, yeah, I'd love to hear it.
00:33:52.040
And then you share, hey, this is what I'm seeing.
00:33:54.380
Again, I know that I'm not seeing all of it, but I'm seeing this.
00:33:58.720
There seems to be a little bit of disconnect here,
00:34:01.000
and I'm really just here out of curiosity so I can understand the bigger picture
00:34:09.340
And that's going to be well more received than, hey, this is wrong, and that's wrong,
00:34:13.640
and you should do this, and you should do that, and you guys are idiots, and why aren't you?
00:34:17.800
I mean, and nothing personal, right, for Denver, right?
00:34:23.920
But there's a sentiment in that in his questions, right?
00:34:27.400
I want them to understand both my experience and the experience of others.
00:34:35.040
Since it feels like somewhat disconnected from what's happening.
00:34:42.460
I read it, and this is what you have to be careful of because not everybody's going to read it this way.
00:34:48.800
I read it as you care about your job and you care about this.
00:34:56.180
I just think the delivery needs to be tweaked a little bit because the problem is your boss might not read it the same way I'm reading it,
00:35:03.640
even though you might be meaning it that way, and I think that's what you're alluding to, Kip, is it has a little bit of that,
00:35:10.800
even though I think you're doing it for the right reasons, your method might need a little adjusting.
00:35:18.460
Yeah, and this is where the one thing I'd add is like you need to alignment to strategic focus or alignment to organizational success is critical, right?
00:35:32.260
So like if an employee come to me and says, oh, I really want you to understand what we're dealing with.
00:35:41.580
Like you may think it's about you, but guess what it's about?
00:35:44.160
It's actually about the organization of a thousand people.
00:35:47.000
So have that perspective when you go to the leader to get feedback.
00:35:55.600
And they may not understand what's happening because of boots on ground.
00:35:59.180
Of course, just like you may not know what they're dealing with at the leadership level.
00:36:04.280
So be very slow to assume that you even understand what their focus and their top priorities are.
00:36:12.920
They may not be the same priorities that you're experiencing on the ground, right?
00:36:16.220
So, and you've already kind of alluded to this, Ryan.
00:36:18.700
This is where I'd approach this from the perspective of, hey, I see some gaps or I know our strategic direction is XYZ for the organization.
00:36:28.600
Or I have some ideas I'd love to bring to the table that I think would be highly beneficial to help us go in that direction while mitigating some concern.
00:36:40.740
Because they're playing a more strategic game than your experience or a handful of people.
00:36:46.120
They're worried about the organization as a whole, especially at a senior leadership level.
00:36:51.380
So, and the last thing, and you already touched it, but I just, I have to say it, is like, own your perception as perception, not truth, right?
00:37:02.120
So if you go to the table, if you do express some frustration, it seems, I believe it feels like, right?
00:37:09.680
Be very slow to place judgment and labels on the thing.
00:37:14.260
And even if you don't have, like, a winning solution, I'd recommend that you do come to the table with something.
00:37:24.820
Come with some ideas at least that, like, I see this and I have some ideas that I'd love to suggest or I think this might be beneficial.
00:37:34.120
But be assertive in it and be aligned to helping the org, not just yourself.
00:37:39.220
Because, and that's the last thing I'd say is, like, a lot of individual contributors, when they're upset, they're very narrow focused, right?
00:37:48.580
But a lot of senior leadership, they're dealing with a much broader thing, right?
00:37:52.960
So align your issue with how it benefits the entire org and it will come across less as you just worried about yours and you're being a squeaky wheel and that you're actually trying to contribute to the organization as a whole.
00:38:08.180
One thing you said, Kip, that made me, yeah, well, it's a great question.
00:38:11.380
Well, you know, because he's asking it, he's trying to do it right.
00:38:14.120
And I guess that's the perspective that we have.
00:38:16.740
Is you're asking us because you want to do it right and we get to see that, but nobody else might.
00:38:22.960
Habit number five, seven habits of highly effective people seek first to understand, then to be understood.
00:38:33.800
Because your upset might be part of a bigger picture and a more important issue that they're dealing with, right?
00:38:45.440
I mean, how many times have we been, I mean, I've been in too many to count situations, even in a conversation with one other person, not an organization like we're talking about here, where I come with something that I'm upset with or bothered with.
00:39:00.200
And if I do it in a really healthy way, that person says, oh, well, the reason that is, is because of X, Y, and Z.
00:39:08.080
Like, let me give you a really silly example of how often we do this.
00:39:15.920
She's usually pretty good about getting back with you.
00:39:19.220
You could give her another text, maybe 30, 45 minutes later, no answer.
00:39:22.900
You call her an hour and a half after that, no answer.
00:39:25.920
Okay, now you're kind of freaking out a little bit.
00:39:29.680
She left with the kids and she's gone and she's mad at you for some thing that you conjured up in your brain that didn't really happen and the world's going to fall apart.
00:39:42.260
She's going to take half of your money and your marriage is over.
00:39:47.780
And then you get home that night and she's there and she's loving and happy and excited and you're confused because she didn't get back with you right away.
00:40:00.900
I didn't hear from you for like two or three hours.
00:40:03.820
And she says, oh, yeah, I was with the kids at the lake and my phone fell in the lake.
00:40:10.760
Because you were ready to chastise her and made this big ordeal out of nothing because you didn't understand.
00:40:21.260
So that stuff like that is way more common and it happens all the time.
00:40:28.240
Understand first and then you can be understood.
00:40:37.640
I did that for you because I knew you'd like that.
00:40:39.640
Dude, I read that book when I was like a freshman in college and no joke, it was like a pivotal time in my life.
00:40:56.060
What advice slash pointers can you give a man who has to tell his wife about his addiction?
00:41:07.960
Let me pause because I want to make sure I'm not exposing something in the question.
00:41:16.820
What advice and pointers can you give a man who has to tell his wife about his addiction?
00:41:21.580
Since joined the IC, I've learned that I need to take steps and forgive my parents for the wrong of my childhood.
00:41:27.720
That was causing me to seek validation in pornography.
00:41:31.900
I now feel I need to tell my wife about this addiction and I'm unsure how to go about it other than explaining to her that it's not her and that it's – that is the problem.
00:41:44.740
I mean I would be a little careful saying it's not you.
00:41:50.280
This is the psychological effect of my childhood.
00:41:53.320
I don't think I would lead off with that because it sounds like you're rationalizing or justifying the behavior a little bit.
00:42:11.540
I'm going to give you a couple ideas that I think will help.
00:42:22.700
And he's got a really great course on pornography.
00:42:25.740
In fact, he offered an exclusive course inside of our Brotherhood, the Iron Council, that if you're part of the Iron Council, you already have access to.
00:42:32.940
So it's there, overcoming pornography addiction.
00:42:38.720
So this would be a good question for the appropriate channels as well.
00:42:49.940
Number one, when you do have this conversation, you might give her a little bit of a prep to say,
00:42:57.180
Hey, hon, can I talk with you about something tonight?
00:42:59.880
But I do have a serious conversation because, and then you tell her that you want to make sure the relationship is as powerful as it can be.
00:43:11.980
So what I would say is, hey, I just want to have a conversation.
00:43:14.260
I want to show up in the most powerful way that I can for you and the kids, and I want to have the best relationship that we can possibly have.
00:43:23.120
And that's how I would lead the conversation off with.
00:43:26.080
Because if you explain that outcome, when she gets upset, and she probably will, especially if it's still continuing, and it sounds like it is,
00:43:34.380
then you can always bring it back to the outcome.
00:43:39.200
So if she gets upset, you can acknowledge that.
00:43:57.120
And this is why it's been so hard for me to tell you, because I knew how upset you would be.
00:44:02.800
Number two is, I would probably consider the mistakes that you've made and just own them.
00:44:39.020
And so these are the mistakes that I'm owning right now.
00:44:44.300
Point number three, what are you going to do about it?
00:44:46.880
If you come to her with this information, you should already have a plan in place, ready to go.
00:44:54.280
So, hey, the last thing I want to share with you is my plan for overcoming this.
00:45:01.120
And what I'm going to do is I'm going to join this overcoming pornography channel in the Iron Council.
00:45:11.560
And I'm going to tackle this through credible, qualified sources.
00:45:19.060
And I'm going to put some filters on my computer to block that stuff out.
00:45:24.860
And you put in some of those boundaries that you're going to have in place.
00:45:29.520
And you ask her if there's anything she can think of that might be helpful on this path.
00:45:35.020
Because if you do this right, I think she'll still be really, really upset.
00:45:39.780
But the fact that you're telling her rather than being caught is a good thing.
00:45:44.960
And you might be able to enlist her in your change if you do this correctly.
00:45:57.140
I mean, and by the way, like the formula you just pointed out, just attach that to anything.
00:46:05.900
I need to have a hard conversation with the business partner.
00:46:08.460
I need to have a hard conversation with an employee.
00:46:21.500
And then move to communicating what is the plan of action that you're going to do moving forward.
00:46:32.520
I've had to have a lot of hard conversations about dumb shit I've done over the years.
00:46:42.100
And then not to laugh and make light of, of what he's experiencing.
00:46:46.160
Um, the other thing is the, the childhood trauma stuff and some of the reasoning and
00:46:51.880
the logic and, and stuff behind it, that that's valid.
00:46:55.480
So part of your healing process might be therapy.
00:46:59.920
And if that's a decision you decide to make, you know, you would communicate that with her.
00:47:04.920
And then as you're doing your sessions, your therapist is going to help you get to the root
00:47:10.580
And then you can, then after you've already confessed and shared and everything else,
00:47:15.700
and she's on the same page, you're on the same page, then, and only then can you start talking
00:47:20.640
about, Hey, I talked with my therapist and they said that part of the reason this might be is
00:47:25.560
because of this, or what they've seen is this behavior in individuals who have this past history.
00:47:30.620
And so that's really good for me to know because it equips me with the knowledge of what I need
00:47:35.600
to overcome. So you're still not shifting blame. You're, you're actually saying this could be a
00:47:41.560
reason, but you're also accepting responsibility saying, this is what I need to do to overcome
00:47:46.500
this reason that I've had. But I think that's a little bit down the road, not immediately.
00:47:51.940
Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. I mean, it would come across as though you're blaming your
00:47:55.160
childhood, your, your past self and you're a victim of it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Totally.
00:48:00.620
All right. Simon Pratt. Interesting question. What are effective ways to respond to public haters
00:48:07.280
that reduce, that reduces conflict and promotes understanding without wasting energy on those
00:48:13.520
unwilling to listen and change? I I'm mixed on this. I mean, sometimes you catch me in a bad
00:48:18.960
moment and I'm like, I'm going to get this person back. And I just say something dumb. And then I get
00:48:23.440
into a spat, a digital spat, which is never helpful for anything. So I want to throw that little
00:48:29.960
disclaimer out there. The proper way to handle it is to just ignore it.
00:48:39.060
That's the proper way is that whether it's online or in person, somebody says something,
00:48:44.800
makes a comment or the proper thing to do is just ignore it. If you feel like it needs to be addressed,
00:48:51.300
then I've found that the best thing you can do is to be disarming. So you maybe make a joke of it,
00:48:59.560
like not at their expense. So for example, if somebody on social media, is he just talking
00:49:06.480
about social media or just life in general? Um, I don't know why I assume social media, but he doesn't
00:49:13.720
say just respond to public. Yeah. Cause most of the time. So yeah. Yeah. It sounds a little social
00:49:19.000
media ask, but, um, yeah. If somebody says you're an idiot, I might say, man, imagine if you knew me
00:49:25.880
how much more of an idiot you'd actually know I am. It's disarming. It's like, there's nothing to
00:49:33.140
respond to you with that. And so that's it when I'm doing it right, that's what I would do. I can't
00:49:41.120
say I always go that route. Or if somebody, you know, says, um, like makes an accusation.
00:49:49.940
If it's, if it's true, I mean, if you feel like you have to address it, then you might say, oh,
00:49:56.380
you know what? You're right. And that was a really hard time for me. And I'm so glad that
00:50:00.780
I addressed it and I'm glad that you're addressing it now too, because here's the path that might help
00:50:07.160
you with anything that you might be dealing with from your past. It's like, it's disarming. It's
00:50:13.340
like you just own it. And there's nothing they can do to, to come back from any of that. I mean,
00:50:19.860
really what's going to happen most of the time is they will say the same thing over again. It's like,
00:50:23.820
okay, well you already said that. Um, again, when I'm doing it right, I try to maintain a one
00:50:30.480
response rule. So if somebody comes to me and is a jerk and I feel like I have to say something back
00:50:36.880
as a rule that I don't always follow and I've made it a goal to be way better at this as a rule,
00:50:42.980
I give one response back. So if somebody says something rude, I give my disarming answer back
00:50:47.980
and that's it. I'm allowed one answer. No more. Unless that person changes their behavior. And
00:50:55.400
sometimes that does happen. You know, I've had, I had a situation not too long ago where a guy was a
00:51:03.040
little, a little belligerent with me. This is a guy I know, was a little belligerent with me. And, um,
00:51:09.820
instead of debating the argument, it was, it was a little bit more like personal attacks and insults.
00:51:16.120
Um, and I responded back, I would say in kind, I think I could have done a better job. Uh, but I
00:51:26.000
didn't. And, but I ended up leaving and saying, Hey, you know, like it, like, I guess we're done
00:51:30.740
here or whatever. And that's it. Um, and then later it came back and told me that that day he was going
00:51:36.420
through a very difficult personal situation. And he said, I need to talk with you about it. And I need
00:51:43.740
to say, I'm sorry. And I actually messaged him back. I'm like, Hey, you know what? I'm glad you
00:51:48.360
reached out because I need to say sorry too. And we hopped on a call and we had a great productive
00:51:54.380
conversation because both of us were willing to just let it go. And we said, Hey, you know what?
00:52:00.000
Let's wipe the slate clean. We're good. We're solid. And, and we are, and I've had other people do
00:52:05.300
that. Like they do that all the time. One guy messaged me, he said something on social media
00:52:10.800
and I responded back intelligently, but calmly, and I didn't attack him or insult him or anything.
00:52:16.700
And months later, he sent me a message on Instagram. I remember this. And he said, Hey man,
00:52:21.460
I'm really sorry. That's all I wrote. And I wrote, sorry for what? And he says, well, months ago I had
00:52:27.980
made this comment. And when he said it, I'm like, I do remember that I had made this comment and I had
00:52:33.680
just lost my job and my wife and I had just got into an argument. And then I jumped on social media
00:52:42.180
and that's when I responded to your post or whatever. And he said this, he said, but you
00:52:49.220
handled it with a lot of respect and grace, probably something I wouldn't have done. And I just want to
00:52:54.880
tell you, I'm sorry. And I appreciate that. So you never know. That's great. Um, yeah. Yeah. I mean,
00:53:02.060
sometimes you don't have to respond. I've, I've had, I've had someone go off on me and then literally
00:53:07.520
a week later, they're like, yeah, sorry about that. I didn't even respond to them. They're just
00:53:11.080
like, yeah, I was, I have demons. And I'm like, got it. You know, just whatever. Um, you know,
00:53:17.320
Simon, you said something on there that I think is profound and it's, and I'd like to call it out
00:53:22.320
without wasting energy on those unwilling to listen and change. Here's the reality. When are people
00:53:30.200
typically willing to listen and change? It's not in arguments. It's not through belittlement.
00:53:41.700
It's not. Right. And, and I find it fascinating. Rarely will anyone ever go, oh my gosh, you belittled
00:53:49.000
me, shame me publicly on social media. So, you know what? You're right, Ryan. I see this differently now.
00:53:54.760
Yeah. That'd be awesome. That's not the, that's not the conditions of evolution and, and, and, and
00:54:01.640
change. It's, it never is. So in most cases, public haters are not in the space of change.
00:54:08.940
They're in the space of validating how they already feel. That's why they're publicly hating you.
00:54:15.580
They're not reaching out for insight. So, you know, and I think that's, I think it's important for us
00:54:23.220
all to remember that. Whenever someone is engaged in an argument or is the art, what's the root of
00:54:29.460
the argument? Is it to be enlightened, to evolve and change? Are they even in a growth mindset or do
00:54:37.480
they have a fixed mindset and they're just validating their existing feelings by lashing out on you? If
00:54:41.600
that's, if it's the latter, then there, it's a waste of energy and time. There, there is no change in
00:54:48.060
that circumstance. So don't, don't waste your time. Yeah. Well, I think it goes back to what
00:54:54.560
we were saying earlier, uh, with the gentleman who needs to talk with his wife about his pornography
00:55:00.560
use, identify the outcome. What, what do you want from this? You know, if there's a hater,
00:55:09.660
do you want to be left alone? In that case, then just leave it alone. Cause engaging is going to
00:55:15.220
only exacerbate the problem. Is it to convince somebody? If you want to convince somebody,
00:55:21.680
then you have to deescalate. You have to diffuse. That's the only way you can do that to your point.
00:55:26.740
Yep. If it's to teach a lesson to everybody else, which I have, you know, like if somebody comes at me
00:55:33.320
on something like hunting, for example, I, I can respond intelligently and then take that conversation
00:55:40.420
and share it with other people to enlighten other people who might be more poised to learn something
00:55:47.520
because they're not agitated the way that the responder might've been. So think about what the
00:55:52.580
outcome is and act accordingly, which is a good reminder for me. I need to do better at that.
00:56:00.220
So it's a good reminder for me. Yes. I do have time for one more.
00:56:03.180
Okay. Uh, Peter Betancourt, if you could go back and redo an interview, who would you choose and why?
00:56:12.300
Hmm. I don't know. I, gosh, I have to think I was looking at it today cause I was, uh, putting
00:56:19.660
together a podcast for our next interview, 560 of them. I mean, there's been interviews and I'm not
00:56:25.560
going to say, but there's been interviews that I probably just would not have released at all,
00:56:29.880
you know, and, and, and, and I don't think I'd go back and actually do it at all because I would
00:56:36.420
not see a different outcome. And it wasn't disagreement. I I've never had one where it's
00:56:40.800
been such, actually, I did have one guy who I asked a, I asked a question and I don't know why
00:56:47.740
he got so agitated. It was a little bit of a, like a pushback on something he said. So I asked a
00:56:54.300
follow-up question and he got so agitated and he hung up. I was interviewing him for my podcast
00:57:01.840
and I asked him a question about what something means. Like, Oh, can you, I don't, you said this
00:57:08.740
word or you said this, I can't remember exactly what it was, but you said this word or you said
00:57:12.700
this thing. What do you mean by that? And I think he took it as confrontational or challenging.
00:57:18.700
And he's like, he said something like, if you don't know what that means, you're an idiot and
00:57:23.960
I don't have time for this. Or he's like something like, and hung up. So I, so I emailed him and I
00:57:30.840
said, Hey man, that was the strangest thing I've ever had happened. I'm not sure why you hung up when
00:57:38.780
I asked you a question. And he wrote back and he's very agitated. He said, well, you're an idiot.
00:57:44.780
And if you're not doing your audience any justice, justice or favor, I'm like, Oh, okay.
00:57:51.860
Best wishes to you. Like you were on my podcast. I was asking you questions. That's how this works.
00:57:58.620
So I've had that, but I would not interview that guy again. Um, I don't know. I, I don't know. I don't,
00:58:07.580
I can't answer that. I mean, we've done 560 interviews at this point. And I think if there was
00:58:12.600
one that I'd want to go back and redo, I would probably just do a part two and yeah,
00:58:20.560
which you've done a lot of it. Yeah. And I go back and I do interview with those individuals. So
00:58:25.320
I don't know. I, I think more than just redoing it, I guess this, maybe this falls into line with
00:58:31.300
my thinking that I don't get that chance. So I don't really need to entertain it all that much.
00:58:35.520
Um, I think there's lessons to be learned. And I do that after every interview, I do an after
00:58:40.640
action interview and I ask myself, okay, did I accomplish what I wanted to accomplish? Did we
00:58:45.280
address and talk about the thing that I felt was going to be useful to the guys who are listening?
00:58:49.580
Um, what did I do well? Well, I came prepared and I asked great questions. What didn't I do so well?
00:58:55.340
Maybe I got thrown off or maybe he said something that, and I've had this happen where people will say
00:58:59.520
something that's challenging. This is my biggest regret. I'll answer this question this way.
00:59:04.420
My biggest regret in some interviews is that I don't push hard enough back on my, my guest when
00:59:15.020
they say something I don't agree with. I think there's a way to do it tactfully and respectfully,
00:59:19.620
but I really do want to be more forthright if I disagree with something they say. So that's
00:59:27.900
something I'm learning and trying to improve that. So rather than redoing it, there's a lesson that
00:59:34.620
set tends to reoccur for me. Yeah. And, and what, what's at the root of that? Just so you're
00:59:41.940
representing your audience better and getting deeper understanding of the thing that by surface
00:59:48.800
level we might disagree with. I mean, isn't that the point of a good discussion that you walk away
00:59:54.440
with new information and the only way to walk away with new information or insight is to talk
00:59:59.240
with people that you either haven't hurt, heard what they're sharing before, or you disagree with
01:00:03.980
it. So Jordan, uh, Jordan Harbinger, the Jordan Harbinger show, um, he's been a long time advocate
01:00:12.240
and friend. And he said something to me one time. He said, you know, Ryan, as a podcaster, you have a
01:00:17.560
voice. You get to ask people all the questions that you want to ask them, but the people listening,
01:00:21.720
your audience, they don't have a voice. They just have the ears to listen. And your job is to be
01:00:27.880
their mouthpiece. So you need to ask them questions that they would want to have answered. So when
01:00:34.940
somebody, so when somebody brings up a thing that I don't understand, a concept I don't understand,
01:00:41.400
or an issue I don't necessarily agree with, I'm, it's safe to assume that there's other people who
01:00:46.420
are listening who feel the same way. And I've heard podcasts where I'm almost jumping through
01:00:53.020
the radio, like ask this question, ask this question, ask this question. And then the
01:00:56.880
interviewer doesn't ask the question. And I leave the conversation feeling frustrated.
01:01:02.740
And so I assume that's probably happened with our podcast as well. Guys are listening like, Oh,
01:01:07.340
you didn't ask. I wanted to know this. And it's my job to anticipate what those questions might be.
01:01:13.120
And, and also to anticipate, and I can hear them. I can hear them in my, my head when, when,
01:01:19.640
when people hear something and they're like, Oh, Ryan better, he better ask this. He better,
01:01:24.460
I can hear it. And so I better, because my job is to serve the people who are listening.
01:01:30.860
I think an arrogant person might say, Hey, this is my show. I can do what I want.
01:01:35.980
I try not to be arrogant. It does get the better of me at times, but my job is to serve the people
01:01:40.800
who are listening. So I better ask questions that they would want to ask if the roles were reversed,
01:01:45.640
if they were in the room and I was the one listening.
01:01:47.820
Totally. I love it, man. Well, I mean, you mentioned this earlier on the call,
01:01:51.860
um, as you know, an opportunity for us to learn from our past, right. And use that to serve other
01:01:57.440
people. You brought up the divorce, not death, um, course that's going to be up and coming to learn
01:02:03.580
more about that. That's divorce, not death.com, uh, to sign up and, and to reserve a spot,
01:02:09.840
right. For when the, that gets scheduled. Um, as always, you can connect with Mr. Mickler on X and
01:02:15.680
Instagram, um, at Ryan Mickler, uh, any other call outs? No, that's it for now. Um, stay connected
01:02:24.400
on the socials and the newsletter at order of man.com. And then also divorce, not death. You hit them.
01:02:31.220
So guys, really good questions today. I know we got a lot of questions answered, but we have a lot
01:02:36.360
more. So we'll hit those next week and also ones from Facebook as well. So I appreciate you guys.
01:02:42.960
Um, keep the good questions rolling and we'll keep trying to give you answers, but, uh, until then go
01:02:47.380
out there, take action and become a man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of
01:02:56.700
man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.
01:03:01.740
We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.