Order of Man - Closing the "Integrity Gap" in Others, Dealing with Needy Employees, and Are "Transgender Men" Men ｜ ASK ME ANYTHING

00:00:00.020 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.

00:00:06.020 When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.

00:00:10.480 You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong.

00:00:15.500 This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become.

00:00:19.760 At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:00:25.100 Kip, what's going on, man? Glad to be joining you for another Ask Me Anything.

00:00:27.420 I'm glad to be here. A little under the weather, so hopefully I don't end up coughing or hacking up a lung or anything.

00:00:36.680 I did notice that. I told you to toughen up, so it sounds like you're on the path to do that, so that's good.

00:00:42.960 Yeah, what I told Ryan is I haven't mown yet, and the doctor said I have a high chance of dying.

00:00:47.960 He said, you know what? Toughen up.

00:00:49.260 Well, I said, what's the problem? We've got a podcast to do.

00:00:52.580 You can worry about that stuff in an hour when we're done with the podcast.

00:00:56.240 Because we've got some important questions to get to here.

00:01:00.040 Priorities.

00:01:00.640 That's right, man.

00:01:01.280 Priorities.

00:01:01.540 Sounds like you got it right, though. You're here. That's a win.

00:01:05.160 No, it's really not all that bad. I just, I don't know, a little slower than normal.

00:01:08.960 Let me ask you this, because my wife seems to think this is true.

00:01:12.660 Is man cold?

00:01:13.440 Man cold.

00:01:14.760 It's a legit thing.

00:01:16.820 Why? I happen to agree with you, but why? That's the answer. That's the question.

00:01:21.780 This is what I think. And maybe it sounds a little too arrogant, but I think that I am

00:01:29.440 high achieving. I think you are high achieving. And we are just constantly, as Jocko would say,

00:01:36.060 getting after it constantly, constantly. And the minute that you physically are not up to

00:01:42.140 par, it's almost like an emotional drain. And it just impacts you in a really negative way more

00:01:51.540 than just, oh, I don't feel good. That's what I think.

00:01:54.200 I can see that. But I guess what I'm asking when I say man cold is, do we play up to the cold?

00:02:01.160 Right? Do we have our wives, you know, baby and coddle us maybe a little more than 1.00

00:02:05.600 we're deserving of? Because it's really not that legitimate of an illness or sickness.

00:02:11.400 For sure. I take advantage of it. Don't you?

00:02:14.640 Fair enough. Good answer.

00:02:16.980 Yeah. Well, that's part of the achieving part, right? It's like, go, go, go. And it's like,

00:02:21.620 oh man, I got an excuse to do nothing. Oh, I don't feel so good.

00:02:26.300 I don't know if I do that. My wife would probably say yes, but I hate being sick. I'm like,

00:02:31.800 I got shit to do. I can't be sick right now. I got too much stuff to do to be sick.

00:02:36.040 It's almost like I'm more put out than I am sick. Does that make sense? I'm more upset about

00:02:43.700 being that I don't have the time to do other things or that I don't have the energy or whatever

00:02:47.200 it might be. Then, then I do feeling bad about my head or my stomach or whatever happens to be

00:02:53.460 like, I'm more bothered that it's there than the symptoms that I might be dealing with.

00:02:58.200 Yeah. See, I just fall off the wagon and I'm like, oh, I don't feel good. And then I just use as a

00:03:03.120 total rejuvenation period of like, oh, then I'm feel really lazy.

00:03:07.560 I guess that's good. But man, I, I struggle with that part of it. I don't know if it's a struggle

00:03:11.520 or if it's the right way to address it. But anyway, how about this? Let me ask you this.

00:03:16.360 Yeah. Is it, can you, can you burn a cold off? And what I mean by that is, can you just go to the

00:03:23.360 gym and just kick butt at the gym and, and sweat that cold out?

00:03:28.480 Um, how's this? When I've tried that, I feel better until the next morning. And then I feel

00:03:35.900 worse than if I didn't go to the gym and push through. I feel like anecdotally we can do that

00:03:41.900 because I've, I tend to agree with you is I feel better. I don't know if I feel worse the next day.

00:03:45.780 Cause usually what I'll tell myself when I have a cold is I'll just say, people say, oh, I hope you

00:03:49.300 get feeling better. And I, my, my response is always, yeah, I'll feel better in the morning.

00:03:53.460 And most of the time I do. And I don't know if that's just wishful thinking or me willing it to

00:03:58.560 existence, but yeah. There's some major truth to that, man. I mean, you, there's so many books

00:04:03.940 that talk about what's this called. Um, when you're healing through your thought process and they do

00:04:09.460 tests. Oh my goodness. I'm going to sound like a complete moron on this podcast. You know what I'm

00:04:13.940 talking about. Don't you? I don't know the term. I know just some sort of like positive reinforcement

00:04:18.800 or affirmations or something. I don't, I don't know. Yeah, but it's, uh, I'm going to remember it

00:04:23.160 before this calls over, but there's actually like a science to it that where people think

00:04:28.280 that they're taking medicine. Yeah. Placebo effect. Like that's a legit thing. It's not

00:04:34.040 just like made up, right? Our bodies adjust based upon how they're, how we perceive what's

00:04:40.840 going to happen. So I think there's a lot to that. I will say this though. I certainly will burn

00:04:46.380 through a fever though on purpose. So if, if I have like a flu or whatever, and I have a fever of

00:04:52.740 some sort, I purposely will not take ibuprofen and I will not take anything to reduce my fever.

00:04:58.780 I'll purposely like drudge through it. And usually when I do that, it's a miserable night

00:05:04.540 and it's quite gross. Maybe I shouldn't even be mentioning this and I will sweat so bad.

00:05:09.440 And it's really nasty. My wife's like sleep somewhere else. Maybe we'll like put a plastic cover 1.00

00:05:14.500 over a bed or something. Cause I'm like sweating so bad. But by morning, I feel like a hundred

00:05:20.460 percent. I feel awesome. It's just the body working through it. Yeah. I just like, ah,

00:05:24.800 you know what? My, my body has a fever, let it, let it burn, whatever it's trying to burn out. And,

00:05:29.240 and I usually feel great whenever I do that. So cool. All right. Well, that's a five minute

00:05:33.660 answer for get tough. Let's, let's drive on with the questions. Guys, guys, uh, obviously we're

00:05:41.940 talking about questions from you guys from the Facebook group. I think there's a lot more from

00:05:45.600 iron council today, which is our exclusive brotherhood. Uh, if you have questions, that's

00:05:49.280 a great place to ask and be part of, uh, also the Facebook group. And then we have a couple of,

00:05:54.320 uh, things I wanted to let the guys know about, and I think we'll remind them towards the end of

00:05:58.560 the podcast as well, but I'm just going to plug these real quick, Kip, if you don't mind.

00:06:01.840 Yeah. Uh, the first one is our main event, which is going to be held next year in the spring,

00:06:06.740 May of 2020. So if you want to come to that, I think we have maybe 15 to 17 spots left. That's

00:06:16.460 all we have because I'm, I've limited it to 75 spots. So you're going to come out to Maine.

00:06:20.880 You're going to spend two and a half days with us. Uh, you're going to get the brotherhood,

00:06:23.800 the camaraderie. We've got some cool new activities. Uh, we're sponsored by Sorenex and

00:06:28.200 origin and Hoyt. So that might give you an idea into some of the activities that we're doing.

00:06:32.940 Uh, check it out. Rifle company, right? Oh, that's right. Black rifle coffee as well

00:06:36.760 has agreed to sponsor us. So some of the guys were complaining that I didn't have coffee. I don't

00:06:40.820 drink coffee. So when we have events, it frankly, it doesn't even cross my mind. So the guys were,

00:06:47.880 the guys were perturbed a little bit that we didn't have coffee available for them. So

00:06:52.120 I called up Evan. He's like, yeah, dude, we'll sponsor it. So black. Normally we only have 1.00

00:06:56.880 carbonated water for, for Ryan. And that's what we all get stuck drinking. That's it, man. That's all you get.

00:07:02.940 That and, uh, uh, origins new drink go. If you haven't checked that out, you should,

00:07:07.940 cause it's delicious. And I, I really like it. Uh, what else? So the main event order of man.com

00:07:13.560 slash main event. And then the second announcement, and I just released this as of yesterday, uh, is

00:07:19.300 our tribe builder course is open. So if you've wanted to build a tribe, you've wanted to, uh,

00:07:25.400 create something similar to what we've done here, whether it's in a similar space or something

00:07:29.180 completely different. Uh, I really pull back the curtain over a course of, I think this one goes

00:07:33.780 for five weeks. Uh, and we teach you the ins and outs of messaging and marketing and growing a

00:07:39.460 movement and, uh, finding your unique selling proposition, minimum viable products, uh, rallying

00:07:44.840 people around a cause, getting them to share your message and ultimately how to build a, a powerful

00:07:50.440 movement and a profitable one as well. This isn't something where you're just doing for fun. It can be

00:07:54.980 fun and it should be fun, but I really want to help you guys create an opportunity for, uh, some

00:08:00.880 revenue in an industry that you really, really enjoy and create a life that you enjoy. So that's

00:08:06.400 the tribe builder. It's a order of man.com slash tribe builder. My links aren't unique guys. If you

00:08:12.120 ever want to know where we're going, just do order of man slash whatever the thing is and you'll find

00:08:17.400 it order of man.com slash tribe builder. So those are the two plugs. We'll announce it again towards the

00:08:21.420 end of the conversation, but get on that one quick too. Cause we only have, I believe,

00:08:24.840 20 spots. So it may be even less because I'm sure we've had a couple of guys sign up in the last,

00:08:29.920 uh, 24 hours. So order of man.com slash tribe builder. All right. Enough of that. Let's get

00:08:34.620 to the questions. Yeah. So our first questions are from the iron council to learn more about the

00:08:39.200 iron council. Ryan mentioned this, but it's order of man.com slash iron council. First question is

00:08:44.320 from Chris or breather. How do you cope with an overly needy employee? One that needs a constant

00:08:50.740 affirmation that they're doing well and can't seem to make a move on anything without consulting

00:08:55.680 you as a manager directly. I've had several conversations indicating expectations and

00:09:01.000 boundaries, but no results. I'm going to assume first, I'm going to, I'm going to come at this

00:09:07.360 from two different perspectives. I'm going to assume you did it the correct way. The first

00:09:10.360 perspective that I'll give you, and I'm assuming you didn't do it the correct way on the second

00:09:14.140 perspective I gave, I gave you or, or that I will give you. So first one, I assume that you

00:09:20.340 address this employee correctly, that you gave them the standard, the expectation that it was clear

00:09:25.000 that they understood that they agreed upon it and they're still doing this. You probably got to let

00:09:30.500 that individual go. I know that's harsh. Um, I know a lot of you guys are going to say, well, you know,

00:09:36.200 you should give them time and everything else. Yes, you definitely should. Um, but again, I'm assuming

00:09:40.480 that you've already done all this stuff and that you handled it correctly. You gave them everything

00:09:45.100 you needed to give them. You've given them the tools, the resources you've gathered their input.

00:09:49.460 You have realistic expectations about what it'll take and their level of involvement. You've done

00:09:54.220 all that and they're still having a hard time release that individual out into the world. You

00:09:58.660 actually, you're going to be doing your business a favor, uh, certainly yourself. And you might actually

00:10:03.880 also be doing this individual a favor because for whatever reason, maybe it's just not meant to be

00:10:09.600 here with your employment. So cut, cut, cut the, cut the leash quickly. Cause that's where it's going

00:10:16.900 anyways. Uh, now let's take the second perspective. And this is where that level of empathy comes in

00:10:22.280 that Kip, you seem to be a little bit stronger at than me, but I'm trying to be a little bit more 0.98

00:10:26.460 empathetic here. Let's assume that maybe you haven't quite addressed this, right? Maybe you have

00:10:32.300 a set of expectations in your mind about what it'll take. And you have not clearly articulated that to

00:10:37.720 your employee. I think if you're going to bring somebody into your organization, whether you hire

00:10:42.560 them or somebody else hired them and they're your responsibility that you now have the obligation

00:10:47.280 to give this individual all the tools, the resources, the guidance, the directions, the

00:10:52.220 opportunities that they need to thrive within the business. One thing I think that a lot of men deal

00:10:57.740 with is they believe that they've clearly commuted the expectation, but because it's so clear in

00:11:03.120 their mind, they have failed to, and, and, and left a gap open for interpretation. Meaning how could

00:11:11.740 anybody else not see how easy this is? I am supremely guilty of that. Yeah. It's so clear in

00:11:19.000 my mind that when somebody else doesn't see it the same way I do, I get very, very upset very, very

00:11:24.820 quickly. We talked about my lack of patience in previous podcasts, and it's very difficult for me to

00:11:31.620 understand why and what is wrong with other people. So my question is, have you really done that? And

00:11:38.760 if you haven't, and you realize there's a gap, maybe you even ask this individual and you let

00:11:43.840 them know what you're looking for. The other thing I would do is I would task them with a very small

00:11:49.000 project, something that doesn't have big implications or ramifications if it doesn't work out. And I would

00:11:55.160 give this individual ultimate responsibility and, and just let them know, here's what I'm looking for

00:12:01.360 on this. If I'm talking to you, Kip, I'm going to give you this project. I'm going to give you the

00:12:05.860 tools and the resources and everything you need at your disposal. The one thing that I would like you

00:12:09.620 to do is head this project up completely by yourself. I don't want you to ask me for feedback.

00:12:14.600 I don't want you to ask for any, any sort of perspective or permission from me within reason.

00:12:20.740 I just want you to handle this so that we can evaluate it when you're complete in the next two weeks

00:12:25.400 or three weeks or whatever it takes. And, uh, and we'll evaluate how you've done with this

00:12:30.480 assignment on your own, because I would really like to see if we can start giving you some more

00:12:35.940 responsibility and delegate some more authority to you. But I have to be comfortable with the fact

00:12:39.900 that you can do it without needing a bunch of direction and handholding. And you just lay it out

00:12:44.180 there. This is so tough, man, because I, I, I'm, I'm thinking of myself in particular. And I think

00:12:51.820 sometimes we create the culture and the environment that encourages the behavior of them constantly

00:12:58.120 checking in. So like, if you use your example, if you say, Hey, here's your project, I set

00:13:02.660 expectation and you let them be, and then you jump in midway and go, Oh, Hey, really quick. Let me

00:13:08.880 course correct you. That encourages a little bit of that. Oh, well I better check in. Right. He jumped

00:13:15.940 in last time I was going down the wrong path. I better check in. And I can't, you know, so we got to be

00:13:20.140 really careful, like kind of the culture that we're, we're fostering with our people. And I

00:13:27.000 really liked the question because we, he alluded to it, right. That he said expectation, he invited

00:13:32.560 him to commit, right. And he was checking results. I would actually like to add a, uh, something that

00:13:38.580 was shared with me by the name with us, uh, from a guy by the name of John Gill and he shared this

00:13:43.360 with me and we use it here at, at our, at my job and it's called simple S I M P L E S set

00:13:51.220 expectation, have clear expectation. I invite their commitment. Are they committed to the expectation

00:13:58.880 in which you have set? Number three, measure progress. You have to measure the progress

00:14:05.120 to see if they're progressing. And this also creates a clear communication to them that they

00:14:10.820 are going down the right path, provide feedback, which is the fourth link consequences. What's

00:14:18.760 going to happen if we don't commit to the expectations and have the type of progress we're

00:14:25.600 looking for. And then last E evaluate. I, we could set expectations. We can invite them to commit,

00:14:32.680 but, but we, sometimes we lose the progress and the guidance and direction when we're not measuring,

00:14:39.520 we're not providing feedback where I haven't linked consequences and we're not evaluating

00:14:43.500 appropriately. And, and not that the answer to all things is after action review, but like,

00:14:48.220 that's part of this, right? It's like project wraps up after action review. What, what, well,

00:14:53.480 what did not go well? You know what I mean? That's part of the evaluation process that is so critical to

00:14:58.540 kind of what we do in the iron, iron council. And, and obviously to what you speak to consistently,

00:15:03.620 right. I think that's a perfect, uh, formula and foundation. So use that. And you know what,

00:15:11.320 if it continues to fail, then you've got to make some changes. Yeah. And that's tough,

00:15:15.820 but it is what it is, right? It's not though. I mean, is it tough? No. Yeah. I mean, it's not. I

00:15:20.420 mean, I understand what you're saying, but if we, if we frame this, I mean, you talk a lot about,

00:15:25.280 uh, would give meaning to things, right? And, and the meaning you're giving when you say it's tough

00:15:30.860 is that by letting somebody go, who doesn't belong in the organization, what you're saying,

00:15:35.820 when you say it's tough is that you're doing them a disservice. Yeah. Are you using that against me?

00:15:41.080 Yes, I am. Because you might not be doing them a disservice. What if the meaning you attached to it

00:15:46.820 was this individual is not moving the organization along. Therefore they're not serving the organization.

00:15:52.940 They're not serving our clients. And you know what? We're not serving them. Yeah. We're not

00:15:57.720 helping them. We're not doing any favors by hindering people, by keep, by keeping people in

00:16:02.480 positions. They don't belong. Uh, you know, I, I'm going to share something about, uh, John Gilliland

00:16:08.060 cause you brought them up is he was a team leader for us, uh, years ago and it ended up not working

00:16:13.140 out. Now, usually when I have those conversations with individuals, guess what they do? They, they get upset.

00:16:20.120 They think that it's a personal attack and then they leave the organization. John didn't do that.

00:16:26.840 Yeah. John decided to reevaluate what he was doing, how he was showing up. And recently here within the

00:16:34.440 past three weeks through his own progress and growth and learning new things and stepping into

00:16:39.040 different positions and taking a step back within the iron council, he's now stepped again into

00:16:43.980 leadership, a different capacity, but again, into leadership because we didn't just keep them

00:16:50.600 somewhere. What that wasn't a fit for either of us. So instead of saying that the meaning, Oh, this is

00:16:56.680 hard and this is not good. And this is uncomfortable, man, frame it as I'm going to help this individual

00:17:01.800 by clearly communicating the expectation and letting him know to your point and John's point about the

00:17:07.700 expectations and, and linking the consequences. If they don't meet those things, I released this

00:17:12.640 individual out of the world so that he or she can move on to something that's going to be better for

00:17:16.780 them in the long run. And you're transparent enough with them that they're actually growing.

00:17:21.180 They have our opportunity to learn from the circumstance and to move on versus you just,

00:17:26.200 you know, skirting around the issue and not having clear communication and then being completely

00:17:31.940 blindsided or, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to throw people under the bus.

00:17:36.340 Of course. Yeah. Right. Yeah. All right. What else? Um, I had to clarify. So I got that simple

00:17:43.220 from a coach of mine, Dave Gilliland, which is different than John, but I'm sorry. Did I,

00:17:48.320 maybe I miss, I may have said John just because there's not too many Gillilands in the world. And 0.99

00:17:55.020 I kind of interact with the John version way more than the Dave version. So, but anyhow,

00:17:59.540 well, I feel like Gillilands regardless of their first name are, uh, are full of useful information.

00:18:05.520 Yep. All right. Jordan Stanley, if you could only take three survival items slash tools with you

00:18:12.420 backpacking, hiking, or camping, what would they be? This is a good question. I I'm interested to

00:18:16.940 hear what you say. I mean, I naturally I gravitate towards like bring a cell phone, right? But in the

00:18:22.560 spirit of the question, I won't do that. Yeah. The spirit of true survival. Yeah. You can't go check.

00:18:27.300 Uh, I would say bring a knife. Some sort of blade would be critical. Uh, I would bring

00:18:35.660 a lighter that, that, that's actually really interesting. People, when they think about

00:18:40.560 survival, a lot of guys, what they'll do is they'll bring all their little hacks and their

00:18:45.640 little gimmicks about for, for starting a fire, which you should, you should have some backups,

00:18:49.520 but they, they won't even have a lighter in their fire kit. Why wouldn't you put that in there?

00:18:53.960 Like survival shouldn't, when you're training, you should make it tough. But when you're actual,

00:18:58.380 actually in a situation, it should be as easy as possible and using all the resources at your

00:19:03.560 disposal. So I would say a lighter, but again, in the spirit of it, some sort of fire starting

00:19:08.700 mechanism. We'll just, we'll just say that. Uh, and the third thing I would bring with me is,

00:19:17.600 whew, I got a thousand things running through my mind right here. I would say some sort of,

00:19:28.760 man, that's tough. Let me come back. What, what would you bring? I'll, I'll come to this third

00:19:34.120 one. I'll narrow it down between the few selections that I have in my head.

00:19:37.440 Yeah. So knife, of course, would be my first one. The second would be, um, sounds kind of,

00:19:43.500 I mean, maybe it's a given, but proper clothing would be number two.

00:19:48.640 I kind of think. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That's kind of a, yeah, that's kind of a, I think that's kind

00:19:52.780 of a cop out because you, if I'm just assuming that if you're going to be somewhere where there

00:19:56.620 might be a survival situation that you would have, at least you would think about having the proper

00:20:01.780 clothing and layers, et cetera. Okay. So with that said, then I would say I would go for the lighter

00:20:08.420 and then I would actually add a tin cup of some sort. That's actually one of the things I had

00:20:13.160 thought about. I had on my list to purify water. I mean, there to hold, there's all kinds of things

00:20:18.900 you can do. If you don't have that, if you don't have that tin cup, like what are you going to make

00:20:22.880 something? Like that is super tough to make some same thing with the blade, right? Like some guys

00:20:27.720 think, ah, I don't need a knife or whatever until you need one. And then you realize how desperate

00:20:32.920 you are for a knife. Yeah. So, yeah, that's, that's definitely one of the things that I had

00:20:38.740 on my mind. I don't want to say that because you already said it. You stole it from me.

00:20:44.320 That's what you get for having me go first.

00:20:47.800 That's what I would, I think you're right on. I think that's what I would bring to go for the

00:20:51.140 tin cup. I really would. I'd have some sort of canteen or container. You got to have something.

00:20:56.940 Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. There it is. All right. All right. Sean sailors,

00:21:02.480 by the way, guys, hold on. I interrupt here. If there's things that you want to interact with us

00:21:06.920 on about these questions, cause we like hearing from you guys, join us in the Facebook group,

00:21:11.180 join on Instagram, connect with me at Ryan Mickler on Instagram. Just tag us and we'll talk

00:21:16.780 about it. Like I like talking about this stuff more. So if you're like, no, they missed this one

00:21:20.280 thing. And I know like guys are beating their heads against the dashboard right now. Like,

00:21:23.800 why did you see this? Let us know. Maybe we, maybe we dropped the ball on it.

00:21:27.940 Fingernail clippers. Yeah. They forgot fingernail clippers. All right. All right.

00:21:31.780 Sean sailors, what would you, uh, what would make you go from working somewhere to having your own

00:21:37.240 business to going back to the corporate world? I think kid Kip did something like this. So I'm just

00:21:42.760 wondering when it's worth it to keep going on your own company versus going back to working for someone

00:21:48.280 else. So for me, and I'm not saying, look, here's what people like to do. That one individual will give

00:21:55.440 an answer and it doesn't mirror with their worldview. And they say, well, what about fill in the blank?

00:22:00.700 Or, Oh, you said this, you like dogs. So what do you have against cats? Two things can exist

00:22:07.800 simultaneously. I can like dogs and talk about dogs and like cats. I don't happen to like cats,

00:22:13.680 but I could hypothetically. So don't just because I say something, please don't mishear me and think

00:22:23.620 that I believe that this is what everybody should do. It's not, but for me, if I were going to go

00:22:33.120 back to the corporate world, it would have to be something catastrophic. It would have to be

00:22:39.040 something where we were about to go bankrupt. We couldn't make our mortgage payments. I couldn't

00:22:43.720 put food on the table. And we were in a dire financial situation that would, would cause me to

00:22:50.180 go back to employment and working for somebody else. So again, guys, don't shoot me a message

00:22:56.520 and say, well, Ryan, you know, some people are supposed to be employees in this and some people

00:22:59.880 don't want. Cool. Not everybody can own their own business. Right. Don't, don't come back at me with

00:23:04.480 that. I don't care. I'm just saying you, Sean's asking me the question for me, it would have to be

00:23:12.240 something financially catastrophic for me to go back to working in a business or working for somebody

00:23:17.760 else or going into the corporate world, et cetera. Yeah. So I'll just share the, the considerations

00:23:24.440 that I had. So the, the owner of the company I work with now, um, we were friends. We'd go

00:23:31.220 snowboarding every so often whenever he, we, he beat me out of a deal or I beat him out of a deal.

00:23:36.960 We kind of had an agreement that we'd owe the other one lunch. Um, it's just kind of razz,

00:23:41.960 razz, razz each other. You know what I mean? That, um, we competed on and he, we won most of them. 0.99

00:23:47.200 So, but regardless, that would happen every so often. And, um, and he would tease me sometimes

00:23:54.160 like, dude, when you, you know, what, what is it going to take for me to buy you out and have you

00:23:58.080 come on board? I'm like, whatever, dude. And, um, it eventually Brian just said, Hey, let's grab

00:24:04.680 lunch and let's talk. And my wife's like, you should at least just talk to him. You don't mean 1.00

00:24:09.540 about it. And I'm like, yeah, but there's these key things that I don't think it's, it's not going to

00:24:13.480 work. And so I thought, well, I'll just have lunch and talk to him. And here, here are the key things

00:24:18.280 that I, that in those early conversations that I was kind of like, Brian, it's not going to happen.

00:24:23.340 And they were number one, flexibility of time. I'm like, dude, sometimes I don't work even a 40 hour

00:24:29.780 week, right? I might work 20 hours. I might decide to go to, to, to Hawaii for three weeks,

00:24:35.600 right? That doesn't work typically in a corporate environment, but it does when I work for myself.

00:24:41.520 So flexibility of time was one thing. Salary. When you work for yourself, my company, we're,

00:24:47.700 we're established as an S corp. Um, I get dividends through my business. There's a lot of benefit to

00:24:53.660 having an S corp. And it was establishing a way that I would pay myself in dividends. Dividends

00:24:58.720 actually gets taxed less than like a W2 salary. You know what I mean? So there's a lot of benefit of

00:25:04.760 owning my own business, um, from a tax perspective, but also from a salary perspective,

00:25:10.220 I was getting paid. Well, I was paying myself. Well, third, I have, my oldest son has Usher

00:25:16.540 syndrome. He was born with a hearing loss and he started losing his vision. Part of the idea that I

00:25:22.760 had of, of running my own business was to create an ecosystem by which I could pander. And I don't say

00:25:28.860 that in a negative way, but I could pander or help him, right? And create an ecosystem by which he could

00:25:34.360 work and provide for himself. And I'd have control over that capability. I like that.

00:25:40.420 And then the last was ownership. I had, I had an identity tied to, to my company, just like you,

00:25:46.060 Ryan, have an identity tied to someone to order of man, right? Like if I closed up shop, I was going

00:25:52.200 to take it personal. The name was part of my name. The logo I came up with, the impressions I was

00:25:59.520 creating with the clients was tied to who I was. I wanted to create something, right? Like

00:26:03.920 all those kind of that entrepreneurial spirit, right? Was all within me. And, you know, and we

00:26:10.060 discussed, and I mentioned those things to him and he says, well, you know what? I think we can address

00:26:13.760 all four of those. And this is how, and we started working through how do we address flexibility of

00:26:18.720 time? How can we match salary or do better? How do I have ownership in this company in a way that I

00:26:25.120 feel that it's now part of me, right? And I can kind of tie and, and have enough say in the business

00:26:31.100 that, that I can still have that, you know what I mean? That moral value of owning things. And we were

00:26:36.820 able to come up with that. Thus, I was willing to close up shop and merge. So those were the driving

00:26:43.560 factors for me. If, so let me ask you a question on this. Yeah. Let me ask you the, the alternative

00:26:49.860 question. You already had all of that. So why not just maintain your current business?

00:26:56.600 Totally. So the, the driving factor of, of coming over was I felt I could launch pad by coming over

00:27:05.780 that they had cashflow sales team, marketing teams where, where I could take my talent and what I was

00:27:14.460 good at and in launch pad even further. And then another benefit was I had guys I could rub shoulders

00:27:22.440 with. Well, I was small enough that I felt I was very isolated in running my business. And I didn't

00:27:28.340 have, I didn't have a tribe per se, if that makes sense. And so by coming here, the other executives,

00:27:35.620 I feel like I have a, a brotherhood, you know what I mean? I have a tribe and we're pressing forward

00:27:41.700 together. And that's probably been the best aspect of this change is I'm, I'm driving forward with a

00:27:48.000 group of other men where that was lacking a little bit in, in running my own business.

00:27:52.860 I like that, man. It's way more thoughtful than my answer. Actually, I don't know if it's more

00:27:57.120 thoughtful. It's just more in depth because I, I agree with everything that you just said.

00:28:01.480 A lot of thought to this. Yeah, no. And that's good. You should,

00:28:04.140 you should definitely do that. You should, you should have done that. And you did. And guys who

00:28:06.960 are listening should do that. I, it's, it's interesting because everybody's so different

00:28:11.580 because your considerations are certainly things that I would consider. And even still, I would say

00:28:17.260 no deal. I remember my very first job. I was, well, my, I should say my first real job, you know,

00:28:25.060 where you go work with a company was I was 16, maybe, maybe even 15, 15 or 16. I think I was 16.

00:28:32.640 And, uh, I, I worked for Burger King and I remember this gal who interviewed me. She was,

00:28:41.220 she was not a pleasant woman. She was kind of gross actually. And I remember her saying, 0.99

00:28:49.500 so something along the lines of, so when I say jump, your, your answer is to say how high and then do

00:28:55.420 it. And that was 23 years ago, 22 years ago. And I still remember that interview. Like it was

00:29:04.780 yesterday. I will not, I will not do that. I will jump however high damn well, please,

00:29:11.960 regardless of what you want me to do or anybody else wants me to do. So I don't know if I have a

00:29:17.940 chip on my shoulder or, uh, just this, this, this freedom to do what I want, when I want, why I want.

00:29:26.420 And I'm not going to be boxed into working with an organization that does not allow me 100%

00:29:34.100 complete autonomy, control, and power over what I do when I do it and why I do it.

00:29:40.160 Yeah. I could see that, man. I could see that. And there, and there without bringing up specifics,

00:29:47.120 I mean, there's aspects of, cause I've been here roughly about eight for the past year and

00:29:51.640 there's aspects where I'm like, Oh, all right. That rubs me wrong. Sure. Of course. That rubs me

00:29:56.100 wrong. It's part of the deal. And, and, and something I'm not used to. Right. And I'm like,

00:30:00.160 Oh damn. Like, I forgot this aspect of working with other people where before, you know, like if I

00:30:06.340 didn't like a client, I'd be like, nah, Oh, we don't want to work with you. You know? Yeah. Well,

00:30:11.060 I can't do that now. Right. There's like sales guys, commissions based upon, you know what I mean?

00:30:14.440 It's not necessarily my say. And so there's, there's some new nuances where I, I need to,

00:30:20.780 um, some of it actually, for me, most of that's actually ego where I kind of need to put my ego

00:30:25.700 in check out and say, okay, if I were them, or if I'm looking at this from a different position,

00:30:29.820 I'm like, yeah, I'm totally in the wrong here and I need to adjust. But yeah, well, you know,

00:30:33.680 there's nuances for me. Like if that's an ego thing, so be it. And maybe it is, but I'm like,

00:30:38.760 I'm going to like yesterday or a couple of days ago, as of the release of this podcast,

00:30:41.980 my wife said she was going to take the kids to Boston for a field trip because we're doing

00:30:46.500 homeschooling now. And I said, well, I want to go. And she's like, Oh, I didn't even, I didn't

00:30:50.260 ask because I didn't think you'd want to. I think you'd want to work. I'm like, no, I actually want

00:30:53.680 to go to Boston. That sounds like a lot of fun with you guys. And so I, I kicked butt the end of

00:30:57.800 last week, uh, put a few more hours in over the weekend to get some podcasts and things like that

00:31:02.420 ready and went yesterday and had a, had a great time. Yeah. And how often could someone do that?

00:31:07.260 Yeah. Look, by the way though, let me say this. And you know, this, I'm not telling you to reassure

00:31:12.140 you. I'm telling this to reassure the guys. You're not wrong, Kip. You're not wrong. Even

00:31:17.440 though you and I may differ in this, you're not wrong and I'm not wrong. You're not right. And

00:31:20.680 I'm not right. It's just your situation. And so I really, really appreciate the, uh, considerations

00:31:27.460 that you brought up because those are considerations that the guys listening need to need to think about

00:31:32.840 if they're considering making these changes and choices and, and, uh, making, making some,

00:31:38.200 some adjustments in their life. So think, think critically about this stuff.

00:31:42.180 Yeah. And I can't help but quote you in the sense of you, you asked this question often,

00:31:46.800 um, to you guys that, that pose questions to us here on the podcast is, does this move the needle

00:31:52.280 forward? So the question would be, does going back to corporate America, does it, is it in line

00:31:58.540 to what you're wanting to accomplish or is having your own business? Like some, in some cases it

00:32:04.480 might be right. Like there's, there's, of course, absolutely. Yeah. And, and I can't help but say

00:32:09.740 this, but like, there's such this glamor, right. That everyone puts on like, oh, I work for myself

00:32:16.220 or whatever. And, and guess what guys, like most of the time it's not glamorous. It's, it's really

00:32:22.280 hard and highly stressful. Like I remember nights where, we're, you know, in the past where we'd be,

00:32:28.180 you know, laying down in bed and me and my wife are just kind of talking cause she's always talks

00:32:32.420 when I'm trying to go to sleep. Oh my goodness. And yeah. So, so I'm late, we're laid there in bed

00:32:37.620 and she would always go, so what projects are we working on? I'd be like, oh, okay, we got this,

00:32:42.180 we got this in the pipe. And she's like, well, what do you have after that? And I'm like, nothing.

00:32:45.180 And she's like, oh, so you have no work in three weeks. Right. And then all of a sudden I'm like,

00:32:53.000 dang it. I'm wide awake.

00:32:54.020 I can't go to sleep. Yep. And then I can't sleep. And, and, but that's the reality, right?

00:32:59.200 The reality was, holy cow, like this is stressful. And, and sometimes she would remind me how stressful

00:33:06.980 it was. And thank you for bringing that to my attention. I appreciate that.

00:33:11.500 Yeah, exactly. But, but sometimes that's not worth it for other guys, right? Maybe their focus is like,

00:33:16.720 I can't, I can't handle emotion, the emotional rollercoaster of owning my own business and be

00:33:23.940 present with my family and being present with my family is really simple. So I'm willing to

00:33:27.540 compromise the work thing. Yeah, whatever it is. But my point being is it goes back to what you are

00:33:32.560 wanting to accomplish. And is it in line with that? I would also say that, yeah, we'll, we'll move on

00:33:41.240 here in a second. I would just also say, cause one of the things you said is working for myself. And I

00:33:45.040 want to address that guys, you always work for yourself. That's a good point. Whether you are

00:33:52.760 owning your own business or you are an employee, you are the owner of you, your life and your

00:34:00.400 business. You may have contracted some time out to an employer, but you are your own boss always.

00:34:07.560 So don't think just because you work for somebody else that they're obligated to save you, serve you,

00:34:11.880 make you happy, fulfill you, uplift you, edify you. No, that's you. Yeah. You are your own boss.

00:34:17.620 You still have. Yeah. So MF CEO, right? That's exactly right. It's exactly right. And Andy hit,

00:34:23.960 I mean, he gets a lot right for sure, but he hit that one on the, on the head. Exactly right. As you

00:34:28.360 are always your own boss, whether you are for somebody else or, or yourself. All right, we got to

00:34:34.040 move on. Yeah. All right. Nick Hollistead, how would you respond to a man who feels he does not

00:34:40.320 relate to other men? He feels as if he is some foreign alien on the outside looking in,

00:34:46.300 does the problem lay within him or others or neither? I don't know if there's even a problem.

00:34:53.300 Actually, I think there might be some, there's a perception, right? Right. And you have to your,

00:34:59.200 to a nod to you, Kip, right? You have, you've made it the meaning that there's a problem because you

00:35:04.160 don't relate with these individuals. Look, I've felt that way, Nick. I really have. When I was growing up,

00:35:09.260 I felt, I always felt out of place. I was heavily involved in sports. I had a lot of friends.

00:35:14.840 I was relatively successful with the ladies. I did well in school. Like things were pretty good. I

00:35:19.380 was, I was a little better than average on just about everything I did. And, and I fit in and had

00:35:24.840 a friend. Successful with the ladies? I said, somewhat, somewhat. Jeez, man. Playa. That's right.

00:35:33.360 Sorry. But yeah, you're like, damn, I'm all distracted. What was I, what was I saying? No,

00:35:40.380 what I, what I was, what the point that I was going to make before I so rudely interrupted

00:35:44.120 was that I always felt out of place. And despite all of that, always felt out of place. And I felt

00:35:53.640 like for a lot of my life, I was trying to fit in. I was trying to gain the approval and acknowledgement

00:35:58.660 of other individuals. And I've since over the past five years specifically figured out that that was

00:36:04.580 the case. And the more that I, or I should say it this way, the less I cared about what other people

00:36:10.980 thought of me, the more that I feel like I've given myself the power and potential to create my own

00:36:17.500 tribe and create a group of people that I do like being with. Not that I'm like supposed to hang out

00:36:23.680 with, but the people I enjoy, the men that uplift me, that edify me, that inspire me, that I feel

00:36:29.920 good around, that I can be comfortable with, that will challenge me and push me in productive ways,

00:36:34.820 not destructive, uh, credit, uh, destructive criticism or, or, uh, scrutiny. Like I've created

00:36:41.760 that because I've done so much work on myself. This is the answer to your question. I've done so much

00:36:48.760 work on myself that I no longer need as much or any acknowledgement, recognition, praise,

00:36:56.020 or acceptance from another human being. So I'm comfortable. I, I, I work out every day. I'm

00:37:03.920 developing new, uh, proficiencies. Uh, I'm, I'm growing this business. I'm leading my family the

00:37:09.760 way that I want to. I'm gaining new knowledge and insight. I'm running the business that's been

00:37:13.220 successful. I don't, I don't need that. I don't need to fit into anybody so I can find and be

00:37:19.820 selective about who I let into my inner circle. So Nick, what I would say to you is why don't you

00:37:25.340 feel comfortable with yourself? Don't worry about why others ask what's that? Well, he says, how would

00:37:32.440 you respond to a man who feels? So maybe it's Nick, or maybe he's asking for a friend, but yeah.

00:37:36.880 Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. Whether it's Nick or somebody else, whoever's listening, right? Is why don't you

00:37:41.600 feel, if this resonates, if this question resonates with you, why don't you feel comfortable with

00:37:47.960 yourself? Not why don't you relate to others? Why don't you feel comfortable with yourself?

00:37:52.980 And if you can answer that question and then start addressing that question,

00:37:57.340 the, the question that you're asking won't actually be an issue and something that you're

00:38:02.820 really too concerned with. Yeah. I like that. And it changes by the way too. I mean, I read that

00:38:10.840 first sentence who feels he does not relate to other men. I'm sure that most guys listening to

00:38:16.420 this podcast can look at the average guy and go, yeah, I do not relate. You know, there's a bunch

00:38:23.700 of guys I don't relate to because I don't, to be frank, I don't want to relate to them either.

00:38:29.300 Right? Like they're on a path that, that is not even a path that I'm interested in. And when we've

00:38:34.060 even talked about this is, you know, sometimes when we're, we're men with a growth mindset and you're

00:38:40.240 looking to improve, sometimes guys that you used to relate to, you no longer relate to that. And

00:38:47.100 it's not good or bad. It's not that they're bad or you're better or anything else. It's just,

00:38:50.680 you're on different paths now. And so I don't think it's uncommon for us to even evolve over time.

00:38:56.840 And sometimes we relate to men and sometimes we don't. And it's really based upon where we're at

00:39:01.620 in life and the things that we're struggling with. I remember when I was a, a, a single divorced

00:39:06.760 husband or single divorce husband, a single man with kid children. And, and I'm in my late twenties

00:39:16.200 dating. Do you think I could relate to half the girls I was dating? Not at all. I'm like,

00:39:22.440 they have no kids. They're barely out of college. Like their concerns of life and what's focused on

00:39:28.740 them was so drastically different than what was important to me. Like I just couldn't relate,

00:39:33.080 but it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It was just, we're in a different place,

00:39:36.620 you know? So I don't think it's necessarily, it doesn't have to be negative. And I wouldn't be

00:39:41.620 surprised that we all have the season and time where we don't relate to others.

00:39:46.840 Concurred.

00:39:47.940 All right. Josh Hubbler, what is the most efficient way that had helped you know,

00:39:53.280 whether going into your own business is the best thing for you? A lot of self-business stuff today.

00:39:58.980 Yeah, there is. Uh, look, I've always been a fairly intuitive person, I would say, uh, in that I

00:40:07.820 don't need a whole lot of convincing or statistical data or research to make my decisions. Every time

00:40:17.480 that I've based a decision on the way I feel about something, as far as I can remember, has served me

00:40:24.420 correctly. Yeah. So I would, my, my angle on this is never overlook your intuition. You could do the

00:40:31.980 research and the statistics and the numbers and the data points and all of that stuff. You can do

00:40:35.660 all that. And you probably should to a degree, because there's some realistic things you need

00:40:40.460 to consider. But for me, the most efficient way is how do I feel about it? And I've always,

00:40:49.900 always felt like I should own my own business and I should work for myself. And I should

00:40:56.040 in the past five years, lead this organization. And when I left on my own and started my own

00:41:00.920 financially, excuse me, financial planning firm, I left a six figure business, residual income.

00:41:05.940 I shouldn't say business. I left a six figure residual income. I walked away from that to go to zero,

00:41:12.380 zero to rebuild a financial planning practice. Cause that's those of you in the financial services

00:41:19.480 industry. No, that's not an easy thing to do. But I did that not based on my mortgage that I needed

00:41:26.220 to pay. Cause if that was my only consideration, I would not have left, but I felt like it was the

00:41:32.840 right thing for me to do. And I listened to that intuition. You can call it your conscience. You can

00:41:38.740 call it the Holy spirit. You can call it intuition. I don't care what you call it, but there is a sense

00:41:43.960 there that too many of us overlook and downplay. And we do ourselves a disservice when we do.

00:41:51.840 Yeah. I wish I could give Josh like some, uh, the other side of this coin, you know, like, Oh,

00:41:58.920 I analyzed and made these decisions, but I'm no different. Uh, to be frank, I got outsourced to

00:42:05.340 India. So I had a good severance from Intel and micron and, and I always wanted to do my own

00:42:11.520 thing. And I thought now's a good try. Now's a good time to try it. That's interesting coming

00:42:17.060 from you because you are a data point guy. I am. I know. And that was totally the opposite for me.

00:42:23.360 In fact, and it was funny too, cause I remember coming home thinking I'm going to pitch this idea

00:42:28.900 to my wife and she is going to freak out and go, no way. I think that's a stupid idea. Like I thought

00:42:35.140 we're going to get in a fight over it. And the complete opposite happened. I'm like, I want to

00:42:39.320 start my own business, blah, blah, blah. And she's like, Oh, I think it's a great idea. I'm like,

00:42:43.480 Oh crap. Really? Oh man. Now I got to do that. But, but, but I wonder, I don't know the answer

00:42:50.220 to this, Josh, but I wonder how often people who start their own businesses actually know.

00:42:56.540 I mean, other than intuition and, and, and other than the willingness to give it a try.

00:43:01.700 I think the math stuff is easy, right? Like you can look at, okay, well, what,

00:43:04.880 what are my monthly expenses? What is there a market? How many people, how many competitors

00:43:09.560 are out there? What kind of revenue are they building? That stuff's easy. And we don't need

00:43:13.060 to tell you what metrics to look at. You can figure that stuff out. But I think this intuition

00:43:18.120 component is something that too many men overlook. Yeah. It's interesting. All right. Drew Sands,

00:43:25.060 Ryan, do you follow an outline when doing your interview podcasts? How far out do you start to

00:43:30.520 research your guests? And then Kip, can you suggest a few best practices for podcasting

00:43:35.940 in the corporate setting? Uh, so I do not follow a podcast outline. When I started, I, I would have

00:43:45.700 anywhere from 10 to 15 questions researched, thought out, written down. And then I would ask

00:43:50.760 my guests those questions. Uh, and then not too long after that, I did away with that because I thought

00:43:56.440 I was doing myself and my guest a disservice and I was being disrespectful, frankly, frankly,

00:44:01.520 to my guest when I had this canned outline that I wanted to follow because I couldn't,

00:44:05.200 what do you mean? Well, I, I, I feel like, well, you're, when you're interviewing another individual,

00:44:10.260 you're dealing with a human being, not a robot. So there's all kinds of little nuances and little

00:44:16.280 things that you hear that if you're so worried about an outline or questions that you need to ask and

00:44:21.240 quote unquote, get through, then you don't hear the nuance and you don't hear the,

00:44:26.660 or you're not like truly listening perhaps. Right. Or, or you're waiting for it to, to respond rather

00:44:32.600 than exploring little paths that come up through your guests perspective. So, and, and I say

00:44:40.360 perspective rather than answer. I use perspective deliberately because the interview process is not

00:44:47.940 so much of an interview for me. I mean, I use that word, but for me, I'd rather think of it in the

00:44:54.500 context of a conversation. So let's say you're going to have a conversation with you and your buddy are

00:45:00.300 going to go out for, for a round of beers or something tonight, or you're going to go to the

00:45:03.060 game. Do you think about and write down a list of questions that you and your buddy are going to talk

00:45:08.880 about? Of course not. And if you did, he would be kind of put off and he should be. It was, it's

00:45:17.060 weird. It's disingenuous. Now you might have some things that you want to discuss. There might be some

00:45:23.680 topics that you feel like are worthy of your guys's consideration and, and time, but it's not an

00:45:29.760 outline. So it's very, it's very organic and it allows for the nuances. It allows for you to explore

00:45:37.860 different trails. But here's the deal that takes practice. That takes a lot of practice. You're

00:45:43.760 probably not going to be able to do that at first, unless you've developed that skill in some other

00:45:47.860 capacity in your life outside of podcasting. Cause it's weird. Is that skill that you're talking about?

00:45:54.300 Like, what is that skill specifically? Uh, listening and being curious. Okay. In order to be a great

00:46:03.420 podcaster, you have to be able to listen, actively listen, not hear, but listen actively. And then you

00:46:12.680 need to be very, very curious about what your guests are saying, what they're excited about,

00:46:18.880 what they mean when they see, say things that you don't understand or that are controversial.

00:46:23.760 A lot of my guests use these terms that either are industry jargon or some, some term they've coined

00:46:30.280 that I don't understand what they mean. And so I don't gloss over that. I'm like, what do you mean

00:46:34.180 by that? A great example, patent at McNamara a couple of weeks ago said, we live in this,

00:46:38.780 we live in this 45 degree culture. And if I had a list of questions to ask, I would have just skimmed

00:46:44.800 over that and, and said something, you know, whatever my next question was. Instead I said,

00:46:49.660 what? I don't know. I've never heard that. What does that mean? Cause I'm curious. I want to know.

00:46:53.820 He says, Oh, we're, we're in our phones. Our heads are always tilted down at 45 degrees.

00:46:57.420 And what was funny is I was at the train station yesterday. That's funny. And I was looking around,

00:47:01.740 I was observing. Cause that's what I do, especially when I'm out in public, especially with my family

00:47:05.340 and a healthy, healthy percentage. The majority of the people in the train station were at 45 degrees,

00:47:13.480 but I never would have, I've never would have seen that or acknowledged that or recognize that if I

00:47:18.920 wasn't curious about my guests. And so your job is to be curious about what they're doing. Now to your

00:47:25.140 second question about how far out do I research my guests, I know who they are. Like I, I don't,

00:47:31.460 I don't bring very rarely. Do I bring on somebody that I don't know what they're all about, what

00:47:35.180 they're already doing that I don't already follow that I, that I don't already enjoy their ideas or

00:47:40.620 their perspective or their thoughts. So how far out do I research? It depends on my guest, but I don't

00:47:47.000 really research my guests for an interview because I already know who they are. Now I'm going to

00:47:56.660 explore a little bit deeper and try to uncover some things, but the research process isn't as

00:48:01.040 labor intensive as you might think because I know who they are. Yeah. Hmm. You know, it's inner,

00:48:07.900 your curiosity. I've never thought of it this way in a, in a corporate setting,

00:48:12.560 but I would probably argue that is what has allowed me to be so effective as a business

00:48:20.020 consultant is because often it's not uncommon that I'll meet with a client. We, we are applying

00:48:27.340 technology, right. To some form of a business process, or there's a gap in, in, in efficiencies,

00:48:33.180 or there's, uh, issues with how they're storing and accessing data or something. Right. And,

00:48:39.200 and I really think that the most effective thing that I bring to the table is my ability to truly

00:48:45.900 listen, comprehend the issue and be really curious about it because it's in the curiosity that I

00:48:52.360 actually identify the true issue. And it's, and it's quite ironic how often we'd get a client that

00:48:59.420 says, Oh, well, B's the problem. And you start talking about B and it's actually C and D that,

00:49:05.880 that they didn't even realize is the issue. And that's only present because of my curiosity

00:49:10.620 of how their business runs and, and understanding the process is more. It's really interesting how

00:49:15.840 that can transcend to other areas. Yeah. You got to be curious, man. The most curious people are

00:49:20.000 always going to win. They're going to win the bids. They're going to win the, the women they're 1.00

00:49:23.460 going to win the business. That is just how it goes. Yeah. Um, drew, you asked me a question

00:49:29.260 about best practice for podcasting in a corporate setting. I really don't podcast in a corporate

00:49:32.420 setting. We do technical, like technical quarterly updates. I present, um, at conferences. We're

00:49:39.240 actually looking at doing like these quick vignette videos right around things. I guess

00:49:45.640 that there's a little bit of element of podcasting in that. Um, for me to be frank though, it, what

00:49:52.880 allows me to do those things very, very well is I just know the subject so well. So it, I can just

00:50:00.760 be really natural and riff and cover everything. And I'm not structured. I think personally,

00:50:07.040 though, the thing that makes me cringe more than thing, anything else is when someone presents

00:50:12.160 something. And even if they're, they're presenting correct content when they're so structured

00:50:18.580 and you could feel that they're like almost too intentional about what they're saying,

00:50:24.500 I lose the excitement and energy from watching them. So because I know my subject very, really

00:50:31.700 well, I have the ability to kind of bring some energy to the conversation and that probably

00:50:37.780 normally wouldn't be able to be there. There it is. Okay. Primate ball. Could you share some

00:50:43.320 resources about improving the quality of your speaking voice? I'm looking to make that focus

00:50:48.100 for my Q4 connection battle plan. Well, I mean, there's a lot you can do. The first thing you could

00:50:52.940 do is you could actually hire a coach that, that could help you with the sound of your voice and

00:50:57.920 how it, how it carries and the tone and everything else. I mean, you're not going to change everything

00:51:03.800 about your voice necessarily, but I think you can be more deliberate and intentional about the way

00:51:08.380 that you're projecting your voice, where it's coming from, the tonality, the speed, pitch, inflection,

00:51:13.860 et cetera, et cetera. And a coach might, if you're really interested in it, like if you really want

00:51:19.340 to do this right, you would hire a speaking coach and they would help walk you through all the

00:51:23.120 dynamics of how this works. If you're not interested in that, I would just, I would, I would

00:51:29.840 analyze your own, your own voice. I would record myself presenting. I would record myself on phone

00:51:37.800 calls. Obviously I have the luxury of having all of the podcasts recorded so I can go back and I can do

00:51:43.760 an AAR and after action review on my voice and my presentations. What things would you be looking

00:51:50.080 for? I would be looking for speed. So the, the, the, the speed of my voice and how quick the pace,

00:51:56.760 I guess you'd say, I know that I'm a fast talker. So I have to be very, very deliberate and intentional

00:52:02.920 about not just rattling stuff off. And I still feel like I talk fast at times when I listen back to my

00:52:09.900 voice. And I get feedback from people that say you talk really fast. So that's something to be aware

00:52:14.220 of. Also, I'm looking for the tone of my voice. Is it monotone? Is it very boring like this? And do I

00:52:22.740 use the same tone and frequency for every word that I say? Because if I do that, all the words get lost

00:52:28.000 together versus using different speeds, different volumes, different inflection. If you do that,

00:52:36.380 then you're going to have more success in, uh, keeping people's ears tuned into what you're

00:52:42.640 saying. Also, one thing I look a lot for is the filler words, the ums, the ahs, the I thinks that's

00:52:49.740 one I say a lot. That's a crutch. One, one crutch that you have Kip is you say, right a lot.

00:52:55.580 We've talked about that. Yeah. That's a crutch. Those words are not useful towards the delivery of

00:53:02.860 our message. So I really try to focus on eliminating those words from my vocabulary

00:53:08.940 because they don't enhance the message. They detract from it. I also study people who podcast

00:53:15.720 and present in public and I look for ways that they present themselves and what I resonate with

00:53:20.680 and what I like and what I don't like. And I make notes of those things. The more intentional you are

00:53:25.960 about it and the more you focus on it, the more you're going to start incorporating this into the way

00:53:30.300 that you, uh, project your own voice and, and share a message. It's interesting stuff. I'm like,

00:53:37.360 Hmm, I wonder, yeah, it's a tool. Look at this. Like it's yeah. If you're, if you, if you're a human

00:53:44.640 being, you should learn how to speak better. Yeah. Period. You're dealing with other human beings. So

00:53:51.860 the way that you share your words and your thoughts and, and the sounds that you make with your

00:53:57.320 diaphragm and the air and the, your tongue and the motion of your mouth, like that's important.

00:54:03.920 If you want people to hear you, understand you to act and react to what you're saying,

00:54:08.180 you need to learn how to say it more effectively. So I'm very deliberate and intentional about

00:54:13.120 how I go about doing this. It's my job.

00:54:15.740 All right. Chris Bell, can you help others close the integrity gap even with clear expectations when

00:54:24.380 people commit and don't follow through right now? I feel I am surrounded by this a lot right now with

00:54:30.240 many people. Do we in the iron council set the standard too high for the general public,

00:54:35.540 then create unreal expectations when people commit to it?

00:54:39.160 No, I don't think so. I mean, my expectations are high for myself and other people,

00:54:45.020 but I don't think they're unrealistic. And can you, can you help others close the integrity gap?

00:54:51.180 Absolutely. Not everybody because not everybody's interested in closing or even acknowledging

00:54:56.860 their gap in integrity. So you're only going to be able to help those close the gap who are

00:55:02.520 interested. And that's why you see this in the iron council. The members of the iron council have

00:55:06.920 voluntarily raised their hand and actually pulled out their pocketbook and invested in closing their

00:55:13.240 own integrity gap. Because I'll tell you right now, there's nothing, nothing inside of the iron

00:55:20.060 council that you haven't already heard before. That's an interesting thing for me to say, considering I

00:55:26.420 want more members of the iron council, but there isn't anything new. I might deliver it differently.

00:55:33.340 We might have some systems in place that are going to help you be accountable to it, that are going

00:55:37.880 to give you a new perspective or a reference point for the information you hear, but you're not going

00:55:42.400 to hear something that you're like, I've never, ever heard that or considered that in my entire life.

00:55:47.900 It's not what it is. But what the guys in the iron council are doing and saying is that I know that

00:55:54.400 there's room for improvement in my life. And I would like to get closer to being able to improve in that

00:56:00.280 capacity. That's what closing the integrity gap means. So when Chris says, you know, we, we see

00:56:05.560 it, see it very well in the iron council, it's because all the guys have said they want to close

00:56:09.900 their integrity gap, whether they've used those exact words or not. That's exactly why they sign up

00:56:14.980 for the iron council. Now, outside of the iron council, you're going to have employees, mentees,

00:56:22.360 children who you're going to have to probably lead in the right direction because they're not

00:56:28.320 necessarily voluntarily signing up for closing their own integrity gap. So you're going to have

00:56:33.460 to figure out a way to tie that into their success. If you can show them and illustrate and be an

00:56:38.980 example that closing that gap will help them be more successful, then they're going to want to close

00:56:44.700 the gap. But if all they do is see it as work and effort and not really worth it, you're going to be

00:56:51.120 offering solicited, unsolicited feedback, uh, and, and perspective that they're not interested in

00:56:56.960 receiving and it's just going to drive a wedge between you and that individual. So if you have

00:57:02.220 somebody that is not your responsibility or, or you don't have an obligation and they're not showing

00:57:10.080 that they want to close the integrity gap, I'm not really interested in working with that individual

00:57:14.800 because I don't like beating my head against the wall. So yeah, I gotta let them be. Yeah. It's tough

00:57:23.980 because I mean, I use this analogy sometimes when I use my phone or I choose not to use my phone in

00:57:30.420 the evenings and I immediately start judging everyone else because I'm like, Oh man, well,

00:57:34.740 why are they on their phones? I chose not to do it. And, and, and I think it's a, just a natural

00:57:39.600 tendency, whatever you're focusing on, if people aren't focusing on the same thing, it becomes more

00:57:43.760 apparent to you. And it's tough because it's really easy for us to go around placing kind of unreal

00:57:49.980 expectations or harsh judgment on others for a quote unquote, not being the way we are.

00:57:56.120 Um, I think that's where maybe a little bit of empathy comes into play and saying, Hey, you know

00:58:00.360 what? They're just don't, they're just not on the same path. And our focus needs to be that of a

00:58:04.940 lighthouse and, and create an opportunity for them to see what's possible through your actions.

00:58:09.900 Um, and that's specific to those that are, you are not a steward over. I'm talking about just,

00:58:15.420 you know, maybe people that you work with or, you know, people in society in general.

00:58:20.260 You said something interesting. You said that when you're focused on it, whether it's learning to

00:58:25.120 speak better or working out of the gym or shutting your phone off at night, did you see that in more

00:58:30.720 people? Did you know that that's a biological, uh, a biological system that is, that we have inside

00:58:37.880 of us that is actually causing that? Uh, I didn't, it's called, and I heard this from a friend about a

00:58:44.100 year ago, maybe a little longer. It's called the reticular activating system. It's actually really,

00:58:48.980 really fascinating. And if you guys aren't familiar with what that is, you should understand

00:58:52.360 this. Basically the reticular activating system is why when, uh, for example, you, you buy a new car

00:59:02.240 and once you buy that new car, you see it everywhere on the road, everywhere, or you're

00:59:09.060 considering buying a new car and you see it everywhere. The reason you see it everywhere is

00:59:13.540 because it's on your mind and your, your, your body and your brain is naturally going to focus

00:59:19.880 itself more on that thing that you're focused on. It's a, it's a really interesting phenomenon that,

00:59:26.120 that we, we do the other day, for example, uh, yesterday when I was in Boston, we saw this weird

00:59:32.760 guy's really weird. He's twitchy and being really suspicious. And so I was watching him because I'm with

00:59:37.580 my family and I'm going to protect myself and them. And because I was so focused on that,

00:59:42.980 I started to notice a bunch of other people who kind of fit that same description that I probably

00:59:47.620 would have never recognized before. So we can actually use this reticular activating system

00:59:53.060 within our bodies to, to improve, to get better, to put ourselves in better situations. But we also

00:59:59.240 need to be aware of the fact that maybe we're so focused on it. Like you can't even control it.

01:00:05.020 It's what your body does. You're so focused on it. You've become obsessed. And then you portray those

01:00:10.200 same level of expectations or, or things on other people that you probably shouldn't because they

01:00:16.440 have their own life and their own things that they're dealing with. It's interesting.

01:00:19.560 Yeah. What I think is reiterates the importance of what do we consume, whether it be music,

01:00:27.600 books, conversations, and those kinds of things, because based upon what you're saying,

01:00:32.000 it's like, if I'm constantly in negative conversations with other people and we're

01:00:36.380 gossiping and speaking ill at people, then like, that's what's on my mind, right? That's what I'm

01:00:41.460 going to find constantly in the world. That's what my focus is. And, and obviously the same thing can

01:00:47.080 go for the books that you read, movies that you watch and music that you listen to.

01:00:51.340 Well, this is why we have terms like self-fulfilling prophecy. That's a real thing.

01:00:56.200 Yeah. You actually begin, and you know, you hear things like this with the secret, right? That came

01:01:01.040 out, whatever it was a decade or longer ago where, you know, you begin to attract this stuff to your

01:01:06.580 life because you think of it. Well, you know, there's some, there's some data and science that

01:01:10.640 has shown that that actually might be kind of the case that because you're focused on it, you see it

01:01:16.360 more and it becomes more prevalent and you can recognize it more easily. Your brain is automatically

01:01:20.480 doing this. So I like the point that you say is be very, very deliberate and intentional

01:01:24.120 about what stimulus is entering your brain. Cause it's only going to manifest itself more in other

01:01:28.560 ways. Yeah. All right. Let's take one more question. All right. Um, Brandon stole. When do

01:01:35.640 you, uh, when you do your writing or do you use any warmup prompts? And you'll have to explain what

01:01:42.540 that is. Cause I don't know what that is. I have this itch to create through writing, but I'm stuck

01:01:46.660 on even a topic to write about just right. So warmup prompts. No, just right. I mean, you can,

01:01:53.020 you can use prompts like questions and there's all kinds of little planners and strategies and

01:01:56.960 programs out there that'll prompt you to, you know, write about this. I remember in high school

01:02:01.140 or junior high or whatever, where you would, you would have to write and they would give you questions

01:02:07.340 to write about. Like, tell me the, the time that you were most embarrassed and tell me about that

01:02:12.980 situation. And then you write on that. So they give you these prompts to start writing about a certain

01:02:18.640 topic. What I would say is just right. When I'm journaling, for example, one thing that I do is I

01:02:24.960 write from the perspective that my kids are going to read it in the next 10 to 20 years, because I want

01:02:29.540 them to be able to take those lessons. And with that, I guess that could be considered a prompt

01:02:33.140 with that prompt. I'm able to really get some ideas out of my head and onto paper that I think will

01:02:38.940 serve my children down the road. But I would say, Brandon, just write, just write. Maybe you have a

01:02:46.080 goal of hitting a thousand words per day. Or maybe you just want to write for an hour straight and

01:02:52.520 don't write about anything. Don't discredit anything that you may want to write about. Don't

01:02:57.760 start qualifying what you should and should not write about. If you don't know what to write about,

01:03:02.460 just write. What did you do today? What do you want to do tomorrow? What are your goals? What are

01:03:07.080 your ambitions? I guess these are all prompts in a way, but the more that you write, the better you'll get

01:03:12.040 at it. And then what you'll see is you'll start to notice trends and patterns in your writing and

01:03:16.480 what you're talking about. Those little things may be indicators that you have a topic that you're

01:03:21.180 very, very engaged with, that your reticular activating system is working on, and you should

01:03:26.940 consider write more about. Interesting. So you'll see a trend that you constantly kind of go in a

01:03:34.020 certain direction. And that's kind of the cue of saying, hey, yeah, this is an area that kind of

01:03:39.380 sparks you or obviously has some form of interest. Otherwise you wouldn't gravitate to it constantly.

01:03:44.260 Yeah, it could be. I'm not saying that it is necessarily, but it certainly could be something

01:03:47.700 that you just have an affinity with that you're interested in talking about for whatever reason.

01:03:51.800 So explore it. Interesting. Let's take one more. That way we'll close out the iron council questions.

01:03:59.280 Okay. Sounds good. Eric Vasquez, in process of starting my own men's tribe,

01:04:05.240 and my best friend asked me a question I never thought of just to play devil's advocate.

01:04:11.620 What if someone who is a transgender is looking for brotherhood, guidance and acceptance comes to

01:04:17.580 and comes to your group or is already in the group and just comes out saying that they were born

01:04:22.960 female originally. What questions me through, what question threw me for a loop? And I didn't have 0.69

01:04:30.000 an answer. Just never thought of that. How would you handle this situation? He said that question

01:04:35.360 threw me for a loop. Yeah. So his friend brought this up. I totally slaughtered that whole thing.

01:04:41.300 I mean, look very simply, and this is not going to be popular with a lot of people, but

01:04:44.940 being biologically male is a prerequisite to being a man. So a transgender man is not in fact a man. 1.00

01:04:55.820 That's it. It's simple. Do I think ill of this individual? No. Am I transphobic? No,

01:05:04.080 but they're not men. They're women who want to be men. Is that okay? I mean, if that's what they want

01:05:12.580 to do, that's their prerogative, but that does not qualify them as a man, this is science. This is

01:05:20.120 not how we feel about things. And certainly our feelings should be taken into consideration,

01:05:23.980 but feelings don't outweigh or Trump facts. They just don't. So that's it. In order to be a man,

01:05:34.880 you have to biologically be a man. Yeah. And, and for Merrick's question, right? I guess as part of 0.65

01:05:44.140 this assumes what is the objective of his men's tribe and does that conflict with, or is it in line

01:05:52.700 with what his vision and purposes of that men's group? Right. It's just, to me, these,

01:06:01.100 these aren't issues because I've thought about them and I, let me ask you this. We'll ask it this

01:06:08.540 way. What would be your opinion? And it is an opinion, but well, some of it's fact, but that,

01:06:16.800 but my opinion is that right. But some of it is a fact. What would be your stance if nobody would ever

01:06:24.920 find out? Think about that for a second. What would be your stance on something? Pick something,

01:06:32.140 pick something controversial, like transgenderism or, or, uh, gay relationships or gay marriage or

01:06:39.500 race or whatever. What would be your stance if no one would ever find out? Now, is there a difference

01:06:48.840 between this? Okay. I was going to say, is there a difference between your stance? If nobody would

01:06:55.220 find out and if everybody would find out, and if there's a glaring difference, you've got an integrity

01:07:02.780 problem, something going on there that you need to work on, or you're allowing others to dictate

01:07:10.340 your perspective or the way that you view the world or see things. And that's a problem.

01:07:16.360 So there's some ideas that I have that probably aren't socially acceptable. This actually may be

01:07:24.000 borderlining on one of them, but that's, that's my take. And it is what it is. And it's sad that

01:07:33.500 there's, it's sad that we live in this world where, you know, people can't have a thought like this or

01:07:40.300 an opinion like this without being doxed or, or, or blacklisted or shadow banned on social media or

01:07:48.220 ostracized from some group because they happen to have a perspective that is not popular.

01:07:54.540 It is what it is. That's my answer. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I, and I think you address the things

01:08:01.600 is like, that's up to them. That's their choice. And it's like, we immediately assume that if you

01:08:08.060 disagree with someone that, that it must be based on hate or, you know what I mean?

01:08:13.940 Or fear or ignorance. It might not be any of that.

01:08:18.860 Yeah, exactly. I just, you, you might just see it differently. That's simple.

01:08:22.960 Yeah. Not so, not so complex as everyone makes it out to be. I don't think.

01:08:27.940 Well, and yeah, exactly. And the science is, is there as well. So anyways, there's, there's my

01:08:32.280 answer. Well, cool. I think, I think it's a, it's a great question. Uh, it's, it's one that's going to

01:08:37.400 be more and more prevalent and one that we're going to see more and more of. So you better,

01:08:41.780 Eric, come up with an answer to that one. You better think long and hard on that because you're

01:08:44.900 going to get it asked more and more, especially if you're trying to build a men's tribe.

01:08:48.000 Trust me, you're going to get that and worse. So you better start coming up with your,

01:08:51.560 your perspective.

01:08:53.560 And what I like about it, Ryan, is not that you're just clear on your perspective, but

01:08:57.300 you're clear on the reason why that is your perspective, because I think that's really

01:09:02.460 important too. And this goes both ways, whether it's people floating with the viewpoints of

01:09:07.080 society or bunker down on old ways of thinking, whatever the extremes are, you need to know

01:09:14.100 why you feel the way you feel. Right. And, and kind of hash through it. Cause I could assume

01:09:18.660 in some cases you might be wrong and you might want to evaluate your, your emotional feelings

01:09:24.800 and why you feel that way. And in other cases you might be completely right and you need to

01:09:29.560 take a stand for the way you see things. So I think it's just important to understand

01:09:33.560 the why behind it.

01:09:34.560 Okay. All right. So submitting or supporting the podcast guys. So as always, these questions

01:09:42.400 are being submitted from the iron council, our exclusive brotherhood to learn more, go

01:09:46.460 to order of man.com slash iron council, or you can join us on Facebook at facebook.com slash

01:09:52.560 group slash order of man to support the podcast and connect with us. You could subscribe to the

01:09:59.660 podcast, subscribe to YouTube. Uh, Ryan's pushing more channel, uh, more videos up into the YouTube

01:10:06.020 channel as well as invite others to the Facebook group, or just be more active there and join those

01:10:13.100 conversations. And of course you can always rep the order of man by what you wear. And you can do that

01:10:18.080 by going to the store at store.orderofman.com. And of course, follow Mr. Mickler on Twitter and

01:10:24.640 Instagram at Ryan Mickler, um, upcoming events. We have October 1st. So this coming October,

01:10:32.140 the tribe builders, uh, starts, we have roughly about 18, 17 spots remaining. Those will typically

01:10:38.760 fill up. So we'll act immediately and get registered. And that's a five week tribe builder course that will

01:10:44.400 happen for the month of October. And then of course the order of man main event happening next year,

01:10:51.800 2020, May 29th through the 31st. And for our iron council members, there's an exclusive iron council

01:10:58.440 dinner the night of the 28th. I'm assuming Ryan, it's safe to say that this coming upcoming order

01:11:06.440 of man event is probably sold out quicker than any order of man event has ever sold out.

01:11:13.140 No doubt. A hundred percent. I mean, we, we released it a couple of weeks ago and I haven't even released

01:11:18.400 it to the email, uh, our email subscribers or the Facebook group. And we already have 55 plus people

01:11:26.300 registered and we only have 75 spots available. So yeah, no doubt. Yeah. So get on that guys. And,

01:11:33.280 and part of that is getting on it. So you can then make the necessary arrangements of where you're

01:11:37.820 staying and flights and all that other just stuff. So don't, don't delay. Right. I think the blocks of

01:11:42.800 getting close anyways. Uh, okay. So let me just tell you the links. Cause, uh, I don't think you

01:11:46.940 share the links. The links are order of man.com slash try builder and then order of man.com slash

01:11:51.460 main event. All right, Kip. I appreciate you, brother. Thanks for putting together these

01:11:55.320 questions. Great questions, guys. I appreciate the thoughtfulness that goes behind these things

01:11:58.820 and, uh, your willingness to ask these questions and entertain our answers. And I say entertain,

01:12:03.080 not, not because you have to accept it as doctrine, but that you consider it. And maybe you have some

01:12:07.820 different thoughts and ideas and we'd love to hear those. So connect with us on social media.

01:12:11.560 But until Friday for our Friday field notes, go out there, take action, become the man. You are meant

01:12:16.880 to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your

01:12:21.460 life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - September 11, 2019

Closing the "Integrity Gap" in Others, Dealing with Needy Employees, and Are "Transgender Men" Men ｜ ASK ME ANYTHING

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Order of Man - September 11, 2019

Closing the &#x22;Integrity Gap&#x22; in Others, Dealing with Needy Employees, and Are &#x22;Transgender Men&#x22; Men ｜ ASK ME ANYTHING

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

Closing the "Integrity Gap" in Others, Dealing with Needy Employees, and Are "Transgender Men" Men ｜ ASK ME ANYTHING