Consumerism, Guilty Consciences, and Crippling Anxiety | ASK ME ANYTHING
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 22 minutes
Words per Minute
180.73729
Summary
On this episode of the podcast, the guys discuss Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the over-the-top amount of consumerism during the holiday season. They also talk about what it means to be a man.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
The brain is incredible and can consume all sorts of information, can learn and develop and grow.
00:00:07.460
And obviously, we know a lot about neuroplasticity.
00:00:10.480
My biggest concern with acquiring new information is at what expense.
00:00:14.960
So if I spend a bunch of time consuming more information at the expense of doing something with the information I currently have, that's the problem for me.
00:00:25.320
And it's very easy to fool ourselves into thinking that as we acquire information, we're actually making our lives better.
00:00:38.960
Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.
00:00:41.900
When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.
00:00:46.340
You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.
00:00:53.600
This is who you will become at the end of the day.
00:00:56.860
And after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
00:01:03.720
Great to see you on the back of our Thanksgiving weekend here in the United States.
00:01:10.100
We follow a tradition of boycotting Black Friday, go to a small town up in Idaho and go to Hot Springs and just chill.
00:01:18.580
So it was a really relaxed weekend and you know how it is.
00:01:25.580
Once you take some time off and you relax, you're like, okay, let's get back to work and get some things done.
00:01:31.040
So I'm excited to be at the office and be on the podcast and get busy.
00:01:35.200
Yeah, this morning I was getting in here because I was out of town for the weekend too and I got in and I hit the ground running.
00:01:42.920
I've got my entire day planned out, all the emails.
00:01:46.320
I went through and probably did 30% of my emails are already caught up on and done.
00:01:51.260
I've got store orders from Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which is today as of this recording.
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I think the Black Friday thing is a lot less prevalent than it's been in the past just with online sales.
00:02:04.080
I don't know why anybody would go to any of these big box stores and beat each other up and trip over each other and get sick and get physically assaulted just to buy a TV for $200 less than it was.
00:02:22.460
But I think online sales have negated a lot of that craziness.
00:02:29.140
And for us, we started being annoyed with Black Friday when we're having Thanksgiving dinner and some family members are like, hey, we need to take off.
00:02:37.220
And we're like, well, you guys taking off early.
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Oh, well, that sell, there's a sell that starts tonight.
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Now it's infringing in the holiday and what we're trying to accomplish.
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You know what I get a little peeved by is just the level of consumerism that has engulfed all of us.
00:03:03.600
Christmas is a great holiday for what it actually is.
00:03:09.200
But the commercialized version is becoming horrible.
00:03:13.720
You know, you could spend easily thousands, three, four, five, $10,000 on gifts for people.
00:03:21.440
Because somebody told us that we're supposed to buy gifts for each other on this day.
00:03:29.880
You know, and I see people buying things for distant cousins and relatives and this person and that person.
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Oh, and it's never I want to buy this person a gift.
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It's I feel obligated to get this person something.
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I might see a couple of posts on Facebook about them.
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And I feel obligated to give them something for some weird reason.
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You know, one of the books that we've talked, you know, we've I know you've read this book, Essentialism, because we've covered it in the Iron Council years back.
00:04:08.460
But you take that book and then you take the holiday season and then you think all that we're doing is consuming a bunch of products that we don't need.
00:04:15.700
A bunch of things that are just more noise, more annoyance.
00:04:21.320
And I can't help but like think of all the things.
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You need to buy this thing that you really don't need.
00:04:28.600
And then we go around buying a bunch of shit we don't need.
00:04:34.040
We're sound like old men complaining on the podcast here, but I'm just over it.
00:04:41.520
Well, and, you know, one of the things that I've I've realized and I've known this for a long time, but it's just more and more so is my my attention span seems to be diminishing in some ways.
00:04:53.660
Obviously, the level of information that I am able to consume is greater than it's ever been throughout human history with these little supercomputers in our pockets.
00:05:06.400
But I've realized that everything you buy is more than just the product or the service itself.
00:05:14.900
Because you buy that thing, for example, you know, a hot tub.
00:05:31.760
And then you realize, oh, that increases the power bill.
00:05:35.320
And then I have to maintain the water temperature and I have to maintain the chlorine level and I have to clean the thing.
00:05:47.760
And then everybody else wants to come over and use the hot tub.
00:05:51.680
And, of course, when they're over, you know, I can't just have them sit in the hot tub.
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I have to put a charcuterie board together and make sure there's a big screen TV so we can all hang out and watch the game while we're sitting in the hot tub.
00:06:12.240
And you alluded to it, like the amount of information that you retain and take in.
00:06:17.520
Have you reached a point where you start questioning your ability to retain more information than you already do?
00:06:30.680
The brain is incredible and can consume all sorts of information, can learn and develop and grow.
00:06:38.340
And, obviously, we know a lot about neuroplasticity.
00:06:42.060
Speaking of which, I have a point to make on Andrew Huberman that I wanted to share with you that was kind of a new development.
00:06:48.660
Talking about neuroplasticity got me thinking about that.
00:06:51.520
So I don't think that we're at a lack of space, if you will, to consume more information.
00:07:00.740
My biggest concern with acquiring new information is at what expense.
00:07:06.080
So if I spend a bunch of time consuming more information at the expense of doing something with the information I currently have, that's the problem for me.
00:07:16.760
And it's very easy to fool ourselves into thinking that as we acquire information, we're actually making our lives better.
00:07:26.640
So I used to take great pride in reading 100 books in 2024.
00:07:31.480
What if instead of reading 100, you read four or five?
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And instead of reading 100, you read the four or five, and you actually apply it on a quarterly basis.
00:07:40.820
You took 90 days and said, this is the book I'm going to read, and for 90 days, I'm going to apply this into my life, and I'm going to work at making whatever I learned about an integral part of my daily plan or my daily life.
00:07:53.400
That, to me, would be more valuable than acquiring new information with the caveat of that it's information that you don't necessarily need.
00:08:05.340
So, for example, I'm trying to figure out how to bolster the YouTube channel for Order of Man.
00:08:09.120
So I've bought a program, a course, that teaches me how to do that.
00:08:14.560
But the difference is it's precise, and it's based in something I've actually identified as a missing component of the business versus whatever companies and institutions and everything else want to throw at me.
00:08:35.640
And also on that, like with the YouTube course thing, I'm not going to do a YouTube course and a podcasting course and a marketing course and a Shopify course and a this course and a that course.
00:08:46.560
I'm going to do the YouTube course this quarter.
00:08:51.780
And then when I have a bearing on that, maybe I do that for a second quarter because it's going well or I need to shore some things up, but then I can move on.
00:08:59.880
So I'm really trying to be more selective about what I do and a little, not as broad, but much deeper in the application of it.
00:09:10.520
I mean, imagine, I don't know why this book crossed my mind.
00:09:13.020
Maybe I saw it online this morning, but like the four agreements, small little book and imagine a guy that reads 20 books or the one guy that reads just that book, but integrates that, but integrates that book into his life.
00:09:31.000
We both know that guy would be better off than the other.
00:09:36.840
So it's just, it's really that application of, it's the difference between, uh, I would say intelligence and wisdom.
00:09:46.380
You know, there's a lot of intelligent, very smart people, but wisdom, I would take somebody like Elon Musk.
00:09:55.360
There's no debating that, but he's also wise and he's wise because he knows how to properly apply the information.
00:10:03.100
It's the discernment to be able to apply information appropriately.
00:10:12.000
Well, I mean, the biggest headline, uh, whoops, let me switch over here.
00:10:16.240
This, I, I pulled it because I'm trying to be fair and objective.
00:10:20.180
I pulled this from CNN, my favorite news network.
00:10:25.540
And as many people may have heard, President Biden has pardoned his son, Hunter.
00:10:42.280
I thought I had it pulled up, but apparently I don't.
00:10:45.500
Um, so Hunter was sent, uh, excuse me, charged with crimes relating to, uh, uh, a gun case
00:10:54.660
And he was, uh, slated to be, um, not, yeah, sentenced, excuse me, drawn a blank here, sentenced
00:11:12.900
It says the broadly crafted pardon explicitly grants clemency for the tax and gun offenses
00:11:20.720
Plus, plus any potential federal crimes that Hunter Biden may have committed quote from January
00:11:31.440
This timeframe importantly covers his entire tenure on the board of Ukrainian gas company
00:11:37.660
Burisma and much of his other overseas work, including China.
00:11:40.960
He had faced scrutiny for his controversial foreign business dealings.
00:11:44.200
And Trump has repeatedly said he should be prosecuted for his activities in Ukraine and elsewhere.
00:11:49.720
And then, uh, in Joe Biden's statement as to why he issued this pardon after lying multiple
00:11:57.800
times about not pardoning his son, Joe Biden says this, quote, uh, his son, I should say
00:12:04.520
this issue, the pardon because his son was quote, selectively and unfairly prosecuted.
00:12:10.940
Hunter was treated differently from people who commit similar crimes.
00:12:15.160
I mean, if this isn't just a blatant misuse of the, the justice system and a spit in the
00:12:24.420
face of the American people, I don't know what is.
00:12:28.340
I, I, it's ridiculous to me that there is so much projection.
00:12:31.680
You couldn't rest assured at this, at this point anymore, you can just rest assured that
00:12:36.180
that side of the aisle, anytime they accuse the conservative side of the aisle of doing
00:12:40.500
something, it's to deflect and push attention away from the very thing they're doing that
00:12:55.980
And if you can't see it now, you're absolutely ridiculous.
00:13:03.300
Look, most pardons, I think are probably insane.
00:13:07.340
A lot of them are politically charged and politically motivated anyways, but to pardon your son for
00:13:16.000
a crime that he was committed of right before you get out of office.
00:13:21.400
And by the way, I don't really actually think that Joe Biden cares about his son, Hunter Biden.
00:13:27.480
I think he cares about himself because now what this does is it closes the book on all of the
00:13:34.000
potential ties and links to Joe Biden through his son, Hunter.
00:13:38.920
Now that connection has been severed for 10 years, a 10-year time frame, he can't be charged
00:13:46.140
So he just basically pardoned himself is what he did.
00:13:51.040
I love the blanketed approach of like, and anything else that might potentially come up.
00:13:57.100
If he may have done something, then we'll go ahead and do that.
00:14:08.940
And the reason why is because it's obvious that time after time, Joe has more likely rescued
00:14:19.080
his son and has not held him accountable for his actions and is probably rooted in what
00:14:27.920
is easy for him and probably most importantly, how it reflects on his own personal reputation.
00:14:34.540
And that's how you get an individual at his age continuing to make bad mistakes because
00:14:43.560
And I actually don't, obviously, I don't know Hunter.
00:14:47.980
I don't know Joe personally, but I know human nature.
00:14:51.920
And that is exactly what happens when you have rescued and saved your kids all the way
00:14:59.140
And then they still haven't learned the lessons that you, that you prevented them from learning
00:15:04.900
because you were probably selfish as a parent and wanted to deal with easiness and, or was
00:15:12.600
more concerned about your reputation and how it looked than what was best for your kid to
00:15:17.680
And now you have an adult boy running around making stupid ass decisions because he's never
00:15:23.900
learned the lessons in life that he should have learned probably when he was younger.
00:15:27.180
I agree with everything you're saying, but I think there's a difference between what's
00:15:34.680
happening in this case and the average person, the average parent.
00:15:40.220
I think the average parent doesn't offer their child discipline or give them the direction
00:15:46.180
or the guidance or the things that you are right about because either they don't know how
00:15:52.060
to do it because they were never taught the proper way to do it, or they are, to your
00:15:57.780
point, a little self-serving, but it's more, it's not self-serving in that I want to use
00:16:03.340
my children as pawns for my political gain and expedience.
00:16:09.140
I don't want to have this uncomfortable conversation.
00:16:11.300
I don't want to feel bad about myself for doing this.
00:16:13.560
So the, so you're not wrong, but I think the average parent that doesn't provide that
00:16:18.800
for their child is more like, Oh, I don't know how to do it.
00:16:24.780
In this case it's, Oh no, I'm going to use this, my child as a political pawn.
00:16:41.480
And by the way, all the people are going to say, what about Trump?
00:16:44.260
What, what about like this is like, we don't need to play the, what, what about ism?
00:16:51.140
I'm happy to do it, but this isn't really dependent on how somebody else behaves.
00:17:00.160
He's proven time and time again, he's a horrible person.
00:17:04.480
He set this country back decades, if not centuries through his, his, uh, foreign policy, his economic
00:17:13.940
And now we can see, I hope it's clear to everybody else that he is corrupt as any politician that
00:17:22.740
What was the phrase that he used on his son that he was unfairly, uh, let me pull it up
00:17:34.000
Before we were done, Ty, uh, quote unquote, selectively and unfairly prosecuted.
00:17:44.440
Of course he is maybe, and he should be like that, that that's the reality of this too,
00:17:52.860
is, is anybody that says like, oh yeah, that's, that makes sense.
00:17:57.500
When you take on the mantle of certain positions, especially public office, without a doubt,
00:18:03.980
you are taking on more scrutiny and it's even more important that you have your shit
00:18:14.560
And, and I, and I think we, we need to normalize that too.
00:18:18.620
And, and if you don't want that, then don't, don't step into those roles.
00:18:25.760
I would just say on this with those two quotes, again, selectively and unfairly prosecuted.
00:18:29.840
The other quote was Hunter was treated differently.
00:18:31.940
I actually agree with Joe Biden on that, but not the way he's saying it.
00:18:38.200
He was selectively and unfairly prosecuted to his benefit.
00:18:46.240
He wasn't treated more harshly than anyone else in this situation.
00:18:52.620
And it was only because a judge saw what was happening with this plea deal and blew up that
00:18:58.440
plea deal because it was complete garbage, but the DA or whoever it was, was trying to
00:19:03.960
sneak this plea deal through and tie these, these tax charges into, or the, um, uh, yeah,
00:19:11.040
the tax charges into the gun charges to do away with both simultaneously in a plea deal
00:19:18.000
He was treated unfairly to his benefit, to his benefit, not, and not against him.
00:19:24.720
But, and this, and this just illustrates, I mean, let alone all the conflict of interest
00:19:31.500
I mean, he should have never been doing any of those deals.
00:19:40.080
With that said, should we get into some questions today?
00:19:43.680
So Joshua, uh, Kusius, Kusius, I think, what are some strategies you have seen for, uh, to
00:19:51.340
be effective with teaching children, not old enough to work about the values of, of
00:19:56.820
contribute contributing chores or chores, but there are other opportunities to add value
00:20:01.200
to the home and community that actually warrant compensation versus allowance.
00:20:06.900
Uh, war, uh, warrant compensation, but they're not old enough to work.
00:20:10.500
He said, so how do you compensate a child for that?
00:20:14.240
Like I'm thinking like old enough to work, like a date, like a normal job is what I'm
00:20:21.920
Well, I would, what I would suggest is do things around the community and just let them
00:20:30.740
So an example of that, uh, when I was in Maine, my oldest son and I, whenever there was
00:20:36.660
a snow storm, we had this plow, we put it on, we had it, uh, attached to the front of
00:20:45.680
And we would go plow our driveway and, you know, it would take half an hour, hour, depending
00:20:51.720
But I actually enjoyed the time I'd put in a podcast or, uh, you know, do whatever and,
00:20:58.660
But what we would do is we would actually go get a drink or go on a quick drive on a
00:21:05.120
Cause it was kind of fun just to see the snow and everything else.
00:21:07.340
But every time we saw somebody pushing snow with a shovel, we would just say, Hey, can
00:21:17.360
We're like, we're just driving by figured it might be easier.
00:21:20.240
And we do one or two passes on their driveway and they'd have to clean up and do the tidying
00:21:27.580
We'd drive around, we do two, three, four, five, uh, driveways, and then we'd go get our
00:21:31.920
drink and we'd come home and get on with our day.
00:21:34.360
But that was an opportunity for, for him to see how a man adds value to his community,
00:21:39.960
uh, just through us being involved in doing it together.
00:21:43.320
Maybe it's going to mow the, the widowed woman's lawn next door.
00:21:47.840
Uh, maybe it's having him come in to work with you and, and showing them how to, um, how you
00:21:56.120
deal with clients or customers or what you do on a, on a daily basis.
00:21:59.680
Uh, if you have a business, one thing that I have is I have the merchandise store and
00:22:04.440
all of my kids are involved to varying degrees in boxing up orders, shipping orders, printing
00:22:15.840
So if there's one benefit of starting a business that most people overlook, it's the ability
00:22:19.840
you now have to teach your children real time, what it means to run a business.
00:22:25.100
And so when my oldest sees that we're out of, you know, this shirt that I have on, for example,
00:22:29.700
and maybe he failed to reorder this when he was, he's not doing it now because he's older,
00:22:35.640
but when he was doing inventory and we didn't have the large that people wanted, he could
00:22:40.800
see that was a direct result of him not doing the work that he should have done.
00:22:45.060
Or if a shirt came back because they ordered a large and we sent them an extra large by accident,
00:22:50.120
then I could show him, Hey, look how much this cost us.
00:22:53.880
This cost us $7 in shipping because now they had to ship it back and another $7 because
00:23:01.800
And sometimes it just makes sense for us to say what we usually would say is, you know,
00:23:06.320
hang on to the extra large, give it to somebody else.
00:23:08.440
We'll just send you a large because that was our mistake.
00:23:11.860
So we give a shirt away and he could see there's a cost associated with messing up and not doing
00:23:18.280
things right. So I say, get your kids involved in everything that you possibly can and let them
00:23:23.360
see you do it. And I think they'll begin to see that there's a direct correlation between the way
00:23:27.860
that you show up as a man and how you feel about yourself and how frankly other people feel about
00:23:32.780
you. Totally. And double down on what we give them, you know, like our daughters, they,
00:23:39.460
they pay for their phones. Um, the wife and the girls, they, they did a trip to Rome.
00:23:45.900
The girls had to pay for half of that vacation, half of their airfare. And, and they had a hustle,
00:23:53.200
right? And some, some of it was like, well, I don't have enough money saved. Okay.
00:23:57.400
Let's, what are ways for you to make money? You know, I could, I could do jail nails and invite
00:24:03.740
all the neighborhood girls over, you know, Oh, how do I, how am I going to advertise? You're going to
00:24:08.700
have to cold call people. Who could you babysit? What's the different neighbor? Like, and they're thinking,
00:24:13.920
they're just thinking through it and, and dude, they'll talk about a good relationship to providing
00:24:19.860
value once, once it's their creation. Um, and there's many, many ways, Joshua, for you to come
00:24:26.440
up with this. I mean, even during Christmas, we, we don't want to give our kids money to buy each
00:24:31.960
other gifts. They have to earn that money to buy gifts for each other. So, so it's, it's rooted in
00:24:38.820
the right behavior and it's their contribution. That's, that's granting the gift to someone
00:24:44.080
and they sell boxes of oranges and they go around the neighborhood asking people who wants to buy a
00:24:50.800
box of orange. We make them do the order. We make them take orders. We have them do the delivery,
00:24:56.040
right? Like there's lots of opportunity for them. You just might, they might have to be creative and
00:25:02.320
come up with stuff. One thing that I did with, and I love this idea and I want to riff on this
00:25:08.360
because these are valuable, valuable lessons for anybody listening. But my oldest son is really
00:25:13.820
into photography, sports photography in particular. He's on the field. He's got this long lens with a
00:25:19.680
two time multiplier and he knows all this stuff. And he just invested in Lightroom for photo editing and
00:25:25.320
he's getting jobs now. And he'll come over and he'll say, Hey dad, can I use your computer to upload
00:25:30.960
files? Which I have no problem with. You can use my computer. Sure. But a month, maybe two months
00:25:36.620
ago, he came up to me, he said, Hey dad, I'd like to have my own computer. So I don't have to jump on
00:25:39.920
yours and I can do it on my own schedule. I'm like, yeah, that's a good idea. And I said, let's,
00:25:44.060
well, I'll go with you. We can, we can look at stuff. And we found a computers, you know, six,
00:25:48.440
700 bucks, you know, it was not a top of the line computer, fairly inexpensive. It's a good
00:25:51.940
first computer for him. And he said, well, I don't, I don't have six or $700. I'm like, yeah,
00:25:58.180
I know. I know. He's like, can you buy it for me? I said, no. He's like, well, why not? I said,
00:26:03.500
what are you going to be using this for? He's like business. I said, exactly. Why would I buy
00:26:07.580
something for you to make money? And he's like, yeah, but I don't have six or $700. I'm like,
00:26:12.300
here's what I'll do. I'll pay for it. I'm not buying it. I will pay for it. And in return,
00:26:19.280
I want 20% of every job that you get paid for until you pay me back. And he's like, well,
00:26:27.460
what if I don't want to do that? I'm like, you don't have to do that.
00:26:30.240
And you don't need to, that's the deal. Yeah. And he's, he said, well, you know,
00:26:37.340
like, do I, or he said something like, do I have to? I said, no, you don't have to. He's like,
00:26:40.400
well, how do I have the computer? I'm like, well, then you save up your money and you figure out a
00:26:43.520
way. And then when you do enough jobs and you can buy it yourself, you can decide, but that's the deal.
00:26:49.100
And he took the deal. It was a good deal. I'm not charging him any interest because I'm not
00:26:52.680
trying to gouge my son either. I'm trying to teach him lessons. And so sure enough, you know,
00:26:58.700
every job he does and will do, he's going to pay me 20% of that job until I get my money back. And
00:27:03.320
then that computer is now his, but it's a great way to be able to assist your child and give them,
00:27:08.220
you know, I don't know if when I was a young man, if I, I would have had the opportunity for my mom to
00:27:15.560
buy me a computer. I don't think just based on our economic situation, that would have been real
00:27:21.360
feasible. So as a father, our job is to provide these types of opportunities, but we need to be
00:27:28.520
very careful not to allow it to hurt and harm our children by giving them everything just because
00:27:36.020
we want to provide them with the opportunity. So in this example, I provided him with an opportunity
00:27:41.540
that I'm not sure I would have had when I was growing up. And yet he still learned the lesson
00:27:46.100
he needed to learn, which is you pay for your own things. And if you borrow money, you have to pay it
00:27:50.260
back. So there's a lot that you can do to your point, if you're creative about it.
00:27:56.200
Totally. Totally. All right. We have two questions that are kind of, they're, they kind of piggyback
00:28:00.320
on each other. So if it's, if it's okay, I'll read both of these. So the first one's from Kevin
00:28:05.980
Nickel. He says, why do we as men tend to take on too much ownership? And then Dan Effinger, he said,
00:28:14.220
I asked this to Romulus and wanted to get your opinion. Jocko talks about extreme ownership
00:28:18.500
and that the book has fundamentally changed my life because it forced me to take ownership
00:28:22.720
of where I'm at in life. But I have to wonder, but I have to wonder, is there such a thing as
00:28:28.080
too much ownership? So really the, the addressing this concept of taking on too much ownership,
00:28:34.880
which is super great because I think this is a common misunderstanding, but go ahead.
00:28:41.360
Yeah. Well, I, I would say I'm going to correct Kevin just a little bit. Um, the, this is what
00:28:46.260
we would call confirmation bias. You're saying that why do men take on so much ownership? You're
00:28:53.600
only saying that because you're around men who take ownership. If you compared the people, and I know
00:29:00.340
you, Kevin, you do it too. And I know the guys that you hang out with, at least in the iron council
00:29:04.620
and they do take ownership as well. I don't know what your friend's circle is outside of it.
00:29:10.120
This isn't all men. Exactly. I would suggest that the greater majority of men don't take enough
00:29:17.280
ownership. So the first thing I would say is congratulations. You're erring on the right
00:29:23.740
side and the men you're surrounded with are also erring on the right side. And I would err,
00:29:28.400
if I'm going to mess up, I would err on taking too much ownership versus too little ownership.
00:29:33.480
Yeah, absolutely. But, but to answer your question about why do you and the men you're around take
00:29:39.640
on so much ownership, it's because you want to be valuable and you want to grow and you want to learn
00:29:44.580
and you want to get better and you're humble and you're willing to be a leader and you're willing
00:29:49.660
to sacrifice and you're willing to stand up when most men sit down and you're willing to go into
00:29:55.220
difficult things when most men run away. Those are all really, really noble things. So the guys that
00:30:00.540
you're around and you are doing good work, when you feel like, man, am I taking on too much
00:30:05.120
ownership? That's a sign that you're a righteous, noble, virtuous man. But the second part of that
00:30:12.980
question is, is there a time when you take on too much ownership? Yeah, there's two in general.
00:30:17.460
One is when you take on things that aren't yours to take on and it comes at your own expense.
00:30:27.540
Like taking the fall for somebody at work when it wasn't your responsibility, that's at your expense.
00:30:35.880
There's another reason. This is the second reason this is so important. Because when you take ownership
00:30:41.060
of somebody else's mess up, you rob them of the opportunity to learn from their screw up.
00:30:49.400
If somebody at work doesn't hold their weight on a task or an assignment or a project as the project
00:30:56.680
leader, ultimately, yes, the buck stops with you. But if you strip that ownership from that person who
00:31:05.960
missed their assignment, they're free to do it in the future. In fact, the quote is, you encourage
00:31:11.920
what you tolerate. So if you don't ever, let's say, Kip, you're my subordinate in some way on this
00:31:18.220
assignment and you drop the ball and I just read Extreme Ownership and I decide, you know, I'm going
00:31:22.960
to take, Kip, this is not your fault. This is on me. I didn't give you resources and I could have done
00:31:27.440
better and I this and I that and I whatever. You're good. Don't worry about it. And then I go out and I
00:31:32.880
explain to the higher ups why we missed the project and I take the fault and the blame for it. Noble,
00:31:38.440
sure, but also stupid. Because you, Kip, in this instance, don't get to learn anything.
00:31:47.520
Yeah, Ryan, I guess it was his fault. Nothing to change over here.
00:31:52.940
Kip, you're good. Yeah, that is Ryan's fault. He didn't do this. He didn't do that. He didn't give
00:31:58.860
me what I needed. He's a dick. He's an asshole. He's a this. He's a that. Yep, it's him.
00:32:03.660
Yeah. And all of a sudden, you're probably worse, I would say, than you were before because
00:32:08.700
you didn't learn anything from not keeping your promises, not working diligently, not learning to
00:32:15.320
speak up and ask for resources. Whatever the problem was, you don't have to now address that at all.
00:32:21.600
Now, there's a way to take ownership and also expect another person to take ownership. So, Kip,
00:32:26.980
in this case, Kip, you know what? I want to start by saying, first and foremost, that I
00:32:32.000
need to let you know that I failed to keep you on task. I failed to give you what you needed to
00:32:38.580
complete this. I feel like maybe there was some misunderstandings and I failed to address that.
00:32:43.340
I would like to know what you think you could have done better to ensure this project would have,
00:32:49.520
you know, we would hit the deadline or the mark. Yeah. And then give you an opportunity to explain,
00:32:55.580
well, I could have communicated better with what I needed. Or, you know what? I didn't do that thing
00:33:01.080
and I should have done that thing. Or I didn't bring in this resource and, you know, I should have
00:33:07.420
brought that resource in. Ownership is not, it's not finite. It's not like if I take ownership,
00:33:16.820
then you don't have to take any. We can both be responsible for something.
00:33:20.820
Totally. And both have a part to play. Marriages and relationships are the same.
00:33:26.520
If you get into an argument and the other person says, I'm sorry, does that mean you don't have
00:33:34.420
anything to be sorry about? Of course not. Maybe you didn't handle yourself properly either.
00:33:40.060
And so, although she may be sorry for her portion in the disagreement and argument,
00:33:44.820
you can still be sorry about whatever you think your contribution to it was.
00:33:50.200
They're not mutually exclusive. You can, you can both work on this ownership. So yeah, don't,
00:33:55.460
don't rob people of ownership. Take, take on what you can, but don't rob them of their opportunity to
00:34:01.500
learn lessons. Yeah. I mean, there's a formula here, Kevin and Dan, to ensure that you're taking
00:34:07.900
ownership effectively. That's what I'll call that, taking ownership effectively. And it is,
00:34:12.460
you can't lie about it. That it can't be a lie. It can't be a stretch. It can't be a,
00:34:18.820
you know what, as a leader, I need to take ownership. No, take ownership of what? Well,
00:34:24.620
I don't know. Ownership of the failed. No, no, no. That's a pass. What exactly could you have done
00:34:31.960
differently to prevent this from occurring? And if, and if what you're saying is not real,
00:34:38.700
and it's like some bullshit thing, then you're not really taking ownership and you're trying to
00:34:43.620
take on the, the mantle of ownership because you know, you should. So you have to be, be able to be
00:34:50.660
precise in what is it that you would pivot and adjust and do differently. And it has to be true.
00:34:56.880
And if it's not, then it's not an area for you to take ownership over. This is where everyone gets
00:35:03.020
so wrong with extreme ownership, especially leaders, because like we learn this principle
00:35:07.680
and then it's like, Oh my gosh, you know, I should always take ownership for all things.
00:35:11.420
And then you'll get a leader that will go like, Oh, that's on me. I'll take ownership of that.
00:35:17.580
Challenge everybody in the room to go, Whoa, hold on. What are you taking ownership of?
00:35:21.200
Like what exactly? You got to get to the exactness because that's where the growth is. That's where
00:35:31.120
the, Hmm, let me self-reflect. There's this area for me to pivot and adjust where I can grow.
00:35:37.140
That's why we take ownership by the way. It's just so we can learn. That's it. It's not to take
00:35:43.000
responsibility from someone else and wear the mantle of responsibility. No, it's actually not.
00:35:48.360
It's actually this be self-aware and pivot and grow and adjust. And like you said,
00:35:54.340
don't steal that and rob that from someone else either. And by the way, it's impossible for you
00:36:00.660
to take ownership and responsibility for something that is in the realm of responsibility of someone
00:36:05.480
else. If you get precise to the area of pivot and adjustment. So just be really clear. What is it
00:36:14.600
that you're adjusting? And, and then you're never going to take too much ownership.
00:36:20.380
And then, and there is a thing is such a thing as too much ownership. If it's not yours to take,
00:36:24.860
that's too much. You're stealing. It's not yours. Part of the, part of the reason that, uh,
00:36:28.960
Jocko wrote dichotomy of leadership because this was the problem. He saw people ran with this and
00:36:34.320
they're like, Oh, wait a second. He's like, he's like, Whoa, there's a dichotomy here. There's a paradox.
00:36:39.700
You know, I think about a coaching relationship. Let's say on a, on a football team, you have a
00:36:43.880
coach and then you have a quarterback and let's say the team loses and the quarterback says, Oh man,
00:36:49.300
I could have done a job, better job coaching the team. That's not your job. You couldn't have done
00:36:54.320
a better job coaching the team. You could have done a better job communicating with the coach
00:36:59.280
or leading your team or inspiring your team or holding them accountable to their routes or their
00:37:05.320
blocks or whatever, but you can't coach the team that's on him. So let him own that.
00:37:11.620
The only other thing I would say here to Kip, one thing that I hear a lot, and I learned this in the
00:37:16.060
military and I used to say it, and I don't really totally like it anymore is when people mess up,
00:37:21.520
I've heard people say, and I've used this is no excuses. I learned that phrase when I was in basic
00:37:26.960
training, actually before, if ever I was to get in trouble, I was instructed to say, Hey, no,
00:37:32.580
no excuses, drill sergeant. And it worked like, Hey, private, you messed up. You did this, you did
00:37:38.040
that. No excuses, drill sergeant. And it actually worked. It got them off my back. Yeah. But there's
00:37:44.720
a problem with it. It, I think it becomes like you don't go deeper of identifying why. Yeah, exactly.
00:37:53.100
You're just brushing it off. You're like no excuses. And so it's the same thing with a guy who says,
00:37:58.200
I'll take ownership of that. What do you, of what, what do you mean? Yeah. Same thing with
00:38:02.720
no excuses. Instead of saying no excuses, which you can say, Hey, I don't have an excuse for that,
00:38:06.960
but here's what happened. And here's what I'm going to do about it to ensure that it doesn't
00:38:13.020
happen again. And so you need to make sure that that part is, is included in the scenario.
00:38:19.600
Yeah. I love that. You know, and, and this is a little bit of a tangent, but it's like, man,
00:38:24.220
it's end of year. This is coming up in January. And I always have this thought, uh, come Jan one
00:38:30.820
and everyone's ambitious, right? We're like, Oh man, you know, this is my year. I'm going to make
00:38:35.160
these pivots and blah, blah, blah. But we don't address the issue. We don't do what you just said
00:38:43.180
and say, why didn't you do it this year? Cause just doubling down and going, Hey, no excuses
00:38:51.440
this year. I'm going to make it happen. No, that's not enough. The probability is you're
00:38:58.000
going to repeat what you've always done until you identify why you didn't do it today.
00:39:04.160
Why didn't you do it yesterday? And until you address that, man, you're just beating yourself
00:39:10.920
up going, Oh, I just need to try harder. I need to try harder. And you're not addressing
00:39:15.140
the fact that, uh, you didn't get it done. And why didn't you?
00:39:22.880
It's true. Sorry, Kip. I got a little distracted. I got a couple of phone calls right in a row
00:39:27.340
and I looked and it was my youngest son. I'm like, Oh boy, what's going on?
00:39:38.420
Yeah. Hey, it's, it's no excuses. Don't make sure it doesn't happen again.
00:39:41.860
Uh, he's, what did he say? I wanted, I wanted to read this cause it's,
00:39:46.260
it's cool to get stuff like this and to see where the relationship is. Oh, it was just an audio
00:39:53.480
message, but it just said, Hey dad, what are you doing? I'm just hanging out. I just wanted to say
00:39:57.860
hi and I love you. Bye. And it's like, man, stuff like that. I love, love getting stuff like that.
00:40:04.520
Um, and I think, you know, that goes back to what we were saying earlier about sometimes we as dads
00:40:10.480
think like, if we're harsh, that we can't have good loving relationships with our kids. And I
00:40:15.460
would agree that if you're harsh unnecessarily about it, you can't, but if you have discipline
00:40:21.320
and you expect a standard and have expectations for your children and the way they show up,
00:40:27.120
you can do that and still have a really, really good relationship. It's when we become dismissive
00:40:33.940
or overly harsh with our children that it puts the wedge, but it's never discipline. Just know
00:40:40.920
that guys, it's never discipline. It's the way you administer it. You know, it's funny. I had,
00:40:46.000
tell me if this ever happened to you as a kid, but there's been a couple nuances. I remember even in
00:40:52.680
high school where I went to go ask my parents if I could do something and I wanted them to say no.
00:41:00.820
Hmm. Like I wanted them to give me the right answer of structure, the correct, like, you know,
00:41:11.000
like I really wanted them to, and they didn't like, and I really do feel like to some extent,
00:41:17.760
not only do like, it's, it's probably ideal that we're creating structure and, and discipline for
00:41:23.840
our kids, but they even thrive. And sometimes we'll even ask for it, but we assume it's always
00:41:31.200
just net negative. Yeah. For them when reality it's, it's good for them too. Well, I think, um,
00:41:39.120
I don't know that I ever had that experience, at least that I can think of. I was always hoping
00:41:43.420
they'd let me do the dumb thing, but maybe mine let me do the dumb thing so much that I was just
00:41:48.840
like, please just tell me no once. I think, I think that we want to respect the people that we
00:41:57.920
love. And we know inherently it's more respect, respectable when somebody has structure and
00:42:08.520
standards and discipline and commitment and dedication and sacrifice. And so when your parent
00:42:14.520
says no, even though you might be upset about it and you know, it's the right thing, you can't help
00:42:19.840
but respect that. And I want to respect the people that I love. It's hard when I don't respect the
00:42:26.460
people that I love. That's really conflicting for me. I love this person. I care about them. I want
00:42:31.520
the best for them, but I have no respect for that person because they're wishy-washy. They're all over
00:42:36.240
the place. Yeah. Yeah. I'm actually, um, putting together some information for this week's Friday
00:42:42.860
field notes on how to get more respect. And here's some things that I wrote down loosely, but
00:42:46.420
creating boundaries, uh, communicating effectively, following through on your commitments, presenting
00:42:52.700
well, uh, consistency, your motives are always important. Like why you're doing the thing that
00:42:58.580
you're doing. Um, confidence, competence, continuum, which is basically that competence breeds confidence.
00:43:04.420
And then the ability to make decisive choices, decisions. Hmm. So this is what we're looking
00:43:11.580
for in others. I think it's safe to assume this is what our children or our wife is looking for
00:43:19.120
from us. They want to respect you, of course. So be respectable. Yeah. All right. Cornell Tate.
00:43:27.160
Um, I'll make this quick. I'm dating a woman with severe anxiety and I see her get in her own
00:43:32.980
way where her imagination and fear sometimes cloud her decision-making and the view of the world.
00:43:39.120
Have any of you dealt with a romantic partnership who is, uh, inks, uh, has anxiety or dealt with a
00:43:46.400
friend or family member or a colleague who has it. I am a resilient individual who takes significant
00:43:51.720
more risk as a member of the iron council and just a person who strives for a challenge in general.
00:43:56.820
Thus, it is extremely difficult to deal with reason with, or compromise with someone who has such
00:44:02.840
an overactive mind. And then he kind of gives some backstory over, but that's, that's the meat of the
00:44:08.280
question. I mean, look, this is probably not going to be real popular the way I say it, but you're
00:44:13.460
dating this woman. I don't know how long you guys have been together. I don't know your situation.
00:44:17.480
I don't know if you have kids together. I don't know anything about that, but if it's been a few
00:44:21.300
months or a year or something like that, I think you really need to ask, is this something that you
00:44:25.560
want to do forever? Because the likelihood of it going away is probably not real high.
00:44:32.260
And even if she gets the help that she needs and she starts to work through some of these things,
00:44:36.020
this is always going to be a thing. And you're saying in the comment, it's hard to deal with
00:44:40.900
somebody like this. It's what's it's, it's frustrating. These are the words that you're
00:44:44.760
using. I can't help but think, is this something that you want to sign up for? Now I know people are
00:44:49.460
going to hear that. And some are going to be like, yeah, of course run. Some guys are going to run,
00:44:53.600
run away as fast as you can. And other guys are going to be like, oh no, like stay supporter.
00:44:58.140
If you love her. I land somewhere in the middle. Like I don't think love's enough. There are deal
00:45:02.440
breakers for me. And, and if this is something that you can't deal with, you don't need to deal
00:45:09.240
with it. And you're not obligated to sign up for it because you love her. Okay. So I want to say that
00:45:14.740
and get that out of the way because you might be there. I don't know. I'm not telling you to do that.
00:45:20.440
I'm just saying it's a consideration. Uh, outside of that, man, you can't, unless she's ready to work
00:45:28.240
on it, unless she's willing to do work about it, there's nothing you could do. And in fact,
00:45:33.320
anything that you do might actually be counterproductive because you're now the source
00:45:38.680
of her anxiety. Yeah. So when you're like, Hey hon, like I really wish, blah, blah, blah, blah,
00:45:44.320
fill in the blank. And she's like, I wish you'd stop bothering me about that. I'm gosh,
00:45:47.680
I'm so busy and everything else. And you're like, well, I know, but it would help you and it would
00:45:50.840
help us. And then we could do this and this, and then you're now the angst, the, the, the ire of her,
00:45:56.540
of her issues. Yeah. So I, if I was in a relationship like this would have conversations,
00:46:07.420
not a conversation, but conversations about what, how she feels about her level of anxiety.
00:46:16.660
Like if it's a problem or not. Yeah. If she, if she says it's not a problem,
00:46:20.400
then she's not even aware of it. And that's even bigger problem. Yeah. But ask her, ask her those
00:46:26.620
questions. How do you, don't say, do you think this is a problem? That's accusatory. Yeah.
00:46:30.880
The question is, how do you feel about the anxiety that you've dealt with and that you've shared with
00:46:36.920
me? It's not accusatory. That's curiosity. It's a better question. Same, it's leading to the same
00:46:42.640
place. It's just a better formulated question. And then when she says whatever she says, if she,
00:46:48.040
if she says it's not a problem at all, I mean, you don't really need to say anything at that point
00:46:53.080
because anything that you say is not a problem. If she identifies that it is an issue, then the next
00:46:59.760
question or line of questions is have you thought about what you might do to help you overcome some
00:47:07.180
of this crippling anxiety you're dealing with and let her come up with the solutions to her own
00:47:13.000
problem. She's a big girl. And the more that you try to do it, the more you try to white night,
00:47:18.020
as we call it, the more you become the source of the problem and the more contention is in the
00:47:24.360
relationship. I, I am just convinced at this point, the part of the key to developing new
00:47:31.340
relationships is finding somebody that you can tolerate the way they are, the way that they
00:47:38.260
already are. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Because you're not going to change them. No. You know, like I'm dating
00:47:45.040
a woman who's, you know, 38 years old. She might be mad at me for saying that. I don't know, but I'm dating
00:47:50.860
a woman who's in her thirties and that sounds better, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to shut up.
00:47:59.460
I'm digging myself into a deeper hole. Anyways, she's not going to change. I mean, she's aware of
00:48:05.380
things that she wants to improve and change and she does a lot of self-development, self-work, but she's
00:48:10.500
got her way of doing things. And as a 43 year old man, she's not going to change me. Of course not.
00:48:16.840
No. I'm 43. I, yes, I can grow and I can get better and I can improve, but only if I have a
00:48:24.120
desire to, it's not going to come from her or anybody else. It's going to come from here, from me.
00:48:29.100
So I think you need to find somebody, this goes for all men, who you can deal with and compliment
00:48:37.580
the way that they already are. And if you can't red flag for me. Yeah. I, and isn't that what we
00:48:47.440
all kind of want anyway, too, is someone accept you the way you are, not that you and I are complacent.
00:48:55.900
We're not complacent. You know what I mean? Like you're an individual that wants to be the best
00:49:00.320
version of yourself. You know, your shortcomings, you want to improve all that's true. But in the
00:49:05.580
same breath, I also want someone that is willing to accept me exactly the way I am and not, not set
00:49:13.440
on a bunch of pretense of me changing and evolving into someone else. That doesn't feel like love,
00:49:19.120
right? That feels like something else that's icky, you know? And, and, and, and trust me,
00:49:25.460
she doesn't want you to want her based upon a bunch of, you know, if she changes, she does this,
00:49:31.920
ah, it's yucky. Right. Yeah. That's not ideal. So I think, I think the key right here in this,
00:49:38.120
in this particular instance is find out to what degree she's willing to work on it. And if she's
00:49:42.620
willing to work on it and you see improvement to, to your standard, to your, it is to you. Like,
00:49:48.300
here's one thing people get confused on when it comes to standards and the way we expect,
00:49:52.700
I guess you could say other people to behave is you can't have expectations of others, or at least
00:49:59.900
you shouldn't have expectations of others. And the same goes for romantic relationships. If you start
00:50:05.400
having expectations about the way that they show up or the way they respond to you or the way they
00:50:10.100
perform or the way they do this or the way they do that, you're in for a rude awakening and it's
00:50:14.280
going to be a miserable experience. But that said, that doesn't mean you don't have standards.
00:50:22.040
So if she doesn't show up the way that you feel is an appropriate way in the relationship,
00:50:29.340
you at any point have the right to not be engaged in that relationship. And it's not an ultimatum.
00:50:38.500
It's not like, Hey, change or I'm out. It's this, you are not what I'm looking for. I am not
00:50:43.940
interested in this relationship. Yeah. That's so hard for people to do, but it will save so much
00:50:49.080
headache. I feel like I'm trying to tell this guy to, to run. I'm really not. I'm saying have
00:50:54.700
conversations and ask yourself if you're comfortable enough for a long-term relationship
00:50:59.480
with the answers she provides to you. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and realize, right. If,
00:51:06.240
if marriage is in the future, um, whatever's annoying you now will annoy you tenfold later.
00:51:13.000
Oh, totally. Totally. It just will. When the gloves come off. Yeah. Like when the gloves come
00:51:17.820
off, all those, all those little sweet things that just annoyed you a little bit become major
00:51:23.380
annoyances. So if it's hard now, it's just going to get harder. So sorry to my, to my wife. All
00:51:31.440
right. Uh, Kylan Flynn. Oh, she would say worse about you. So don't worry about that.
00:51:35.900
But in the same breath, like the things that used to annoy me, I've, so how about the guys that are
00:51:42.660
married already in a committed relationship that are highly annoyed, right? You know, I've been
00:51:47.540
really annoyed with some key things with my wife and you know, what has really helped me to accept
00:51:55.020
them, to let go and go, guess what? She's not changing. She's going to do that thing that I
00:52:02.840
can't stand and is never going to change and that's okay. You know? And, and so there's some
00:52:09.980
just acceptance is powerful as long as it's not something that's like a deal breaker, right? Yeah.
00:52:14.920
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, um, you know, like she, she, uh, she likes to go out and party late with
00:52:20.160
her friends and, and, you know, cheat on you. Yeah. That's probably, you're probably not going to
00:52:26.820
allow that. But if she like, I accept her the way she is, Ryan, it's totally okay. Yeah. But if she
00:52:32.640
choose her food weird, it's like, okay, well, that's obnoxious. Or she has like a click in her
00:52:36.760
jaw or something. It's like, okay, get over. My kids tell me all the time. They're like, we hate how
00:52:41.580
you eat chips. I'm like, well, I'm not changing the way I eat chips. So you can either go to another
00:52:45.760
room or you could plug your ears or you could just not listen. Yeah. But no, I'm not changing that.
00:52:51.680
So deal with it. And that's, I think pretty sound advice for relationships too.
00:52:56.620
Totally. All right. Kylan Flynn, what BP goals and objectives have moved the needle the most
00:53:03.460
for each of you? Q1 25 is coming. Yeah. I mean, for me, uh, maybe not to get super specific on this,
00:53:12.780
but every time I, I have an objective in what we call the connection quadrant, that's the relationships
00:53:20.320
that we have with my kids. That just seems to make my life better. Yeah. Uh, so if it's doing a
00:53:27.540
project, if it's coaching one of their teams, if it's committing to help them with a project or an
00:53:34.020
assignment or a task or to learn a new skill, that is always invaluable to me. It improves every facet of
00:53:40.700
my life. Uh, the other one is every time I invest in my own self development. And when I say invest,
00:53:48.880
I'm talking about monetary investment. Yeah. Buying books, buying courses, going to seminars,
00:53:55.960
going to events, investing in a new business, investing in this business that always pays
00:54:03.280
huge dividends as well. Those two things move the needle the most for me. I don't say connection
00:54:07.720
because I'm, I'm, it's a, or excuse me, um, condition, which is the physical aspect.
00:54:13.420
But I, I'm not going to say I have that locked down. I certainly don't. There's things I can do
00:54:19.360
specifically with regards to my nutrition that would really help. And I'm working on those things.
00:54:24.400
Uh, but I enjoy working out and I enjoy moving and I enjoy being strong. So I don't need to make
00:54:30.680
that an objective because I just, I like to do it. It's not a hard thing for me to go do.
00:54:35.280
Yeah. I don't have to convince myself in the morning to go work out, you know, and I'll,
00:54:39.580
I'll answer this question or maybe in a different way, just to add more to what you're saying,
00:54:44.760
you know, and I was on a, on a, on a, what a, what we call a rapid fire meeting with a team this
00:54:49.980
morning. Right. And they have weekly commitments. And, and I gave this advice to that leader and I'll,
00:54:55.260
I'll say the same thing here. No one needs planning around the whirlwind.
00:55:02.200
And the whirlwind is all the things that have to get done that you're going to absolutely just
00:55:08.940
do right. Like they're the, the mundane busyness of life. That's the whirlwind.
00:55:17.140
And Stephen Covey used this analogy and I'm sure he stole it from someone else. Right. But it's like
00:55:22.060
he had used to have this, this bucket. And if you poured the sand in the whirlwind into the bucket,
00:55:28.840
and then you had these rocks and the rocks are the important things in life.
00:55:32.200
And then you put the rocks on top of the sand, eventually they all won't fit into the bucket
00:55:37.560
of life. You can't get to them. But when you put the rocks in first and prioritize the important
00:55:44.960
items and then pour the whirlwind around it, that it all fits within the bucket. And, and so for me,
00:55:53.940
the, the most effective objectives and goals have always been me prioritizing the things that aren't
00:56:00.240
part of the whirlwind. The things that I'm not going to normally do right there, the communication
00:56:06.400
course and dedication of an, of a 30 minutes a day to study around how to be better at that.
00:56:13.620
I'm never going to do that. That's never urgent enough to do it on a day-to-day basis, but they're
00:56:19.320
important just like our kids and, and being more present to them. And so whenever I've had goals
00:56:25.680
and objectives that were properly aligned to the important elements of life that were not part of
00:56:31.900
the whirlwind, then I've always had more success. And I try to, and to your point, Ryan, I, I treat
00:56:37.460
the daily workout as very similar to the whirlwind. I'm going to do it right. I'm, I'm hitting the gym
00:56:44.300
every morning. I don't need to prioritize that. So what is the, the physical element of my life that
00:56:51.060
needs to be a rock that requires some extra intentionality for it to get done? Those are
00:56:56.940
the rocks that I need to create. Yeah. Well, and Kip, we've identified four of those rocks that make
00:57:03.640
it easy for all of us, ourselves included to focus on. And the way that we, the way that we frame it
00:57:10.420
is calibration, which is your mental, emotional, and spiritual health connection, which is the
00:57:18.020
relationships that you have with other people condition, which is your physical health. And the
00:57:24.200
last is contribution, which is making yourself into a man of value. So if it's a calibration that
00:57:33.480
relates to your spirituality or your mental wellbeing, if it's, if it's connection, it's, Hey, I need to
00:57:41.520
improve the relationship I had with my wife this quarter. And you really need to focus on that. So I'm
00:57:46.160
going to spend a lot of time showing her in different ways, how much I appreciate her and
00:57:50.020
having conversations so we can nurture and foster and develop a powerful relationship and then doing
00:57:55.080
date night every week. If it's with your kids, you know, maybe it's a project or coaching one of
00:58:00.440
their teams. And then we move into condition and we've have physical health. So you have weight
00:58:05.040
training, training for a marathon, the nutritional aspect, recovery, sleep, mobility, all sorts of
00:58:11.140
things. And then the last is contribution. Contribution would be self-development. So it's,
00:58:16.100
it's getting a YouTube course. Cause you want to build out your business. Uh, it's, it's learning,
00:58:22.640
um, you know, Jordan Peterson, I've talked a lot about over the past, uh, couple of months now has
00:58:28.360
great courses on daily wire plus, uh, that, that you can enroll in. He has the Jordan Peterson Academy
00:58:34.340
that you can enroll in now too. Like he has things that you can invest in your own education.
00:58:40.320
That's self-development or contribution. So when you hit all four of these on a daily basis,
00:58:44.740
by the way, not just once a week, but every day you hit those four, then the sand goes in. Like,
00:58:49.620
I got to send this email and this, I got to put out this fire and that person needs my attention.
00:58:53.400
But those four things remain steadfast. They're always done. Yeah. All right. Bob Ross. I often feel
00:59:01.560
guilty when I do something for myself, both small single day events or large multi-day event trips.
00:59:06.960
I find myself feeling guilty. I know these events helped me to be better,
00:59:11.380
but I find it difficult. Do you deal with this? And if so, how?
00:59:16.940
I don't, I don't deal with it because it's just important. I mean, it kind of goes into what we
00:59:23.700
were just saying is crucial. And if it doesn't control your life, I mean, that's the thing,
00:59:28.460
you know, I know guys who go into the gym and they're four or five hours a day at the gym,
00:59:31.480
maybe two hours in the morning and two hours at night. To me, that's a problem. I don't know their
00:59:35.300
life. It's not mine to judge, but for me, that doesn't work because it robs me of the
00:59:40.200
opportunity I have to do other things like hang out with my friends and family members and,
00:59:44.940
and engage in, you know, other hobbies and activities that are interesting and important
00:59:49.880
to me. So I think it's just finding the, the appropriate person. I was going to say balance.
00:59:56.220
I'm hesitant to use that word because it implies that it's supposed to be proportionate across
01:00:00.800
the board and it isn't, but to find the correct recipe. Maybe that's the best way to say it.
01:00:07.080
Yeah. So for me, it's an hour in the gym in the morning. And that's, that's the, that's what the
01:00:12.740
recipe calls for. You know, when you're baking a cake, it's like this much sugar, these many eggs,
01:00:17.960
this much flour. If you get any of that wrong, it's going to be disgusting. You're not going to eat it.
01:00:24.340
It's the same thing in your life. For me, the recipe calls for an hour a day of training,
01:00:28.620
of working out, reading, having conversations like this, you know, and so it's just part of
01:00:36.580
the recipe. You know, imagine trying to eat a cake without any sugar in it or without it,
01:00:42.540
or you forgot the eggs. The end result is going to be something that is not edible. And it's the
01:00:49.640
same thing with your life. Imagine not putting in the ingredient of taking care of yourself in some
01:00:56.020
way. And then the other thing that I would say is as men, we tend to isolate ourselves because we
01:01:04.360
think we're the only ones that need to make the decision. But there are people who are impacted by
01:01:09.240
the decisions that you're making that you probably ought to consider in the decision-making process.
01:01:13.760
So if you're married, then you should talk with your wife about,
01:01:17.980
hey, hon, I'd really like to get into shape. And I feel like I need to train Monday through Friday
01:01:25.300
for 45 minutes to an hour. But I realized that's a little different than we've done in the past. So
01:01:31.300
I want to work with you on what would be the best way to go about doing that. And she might say,
01:01:36.880
well, you know, here's our schedule. And you guys might come to the conclusion that Monday,
01:01:40.320
Wednesday, and Friday morning, and Tuesday and Thursday afternoon or on a lunch break are the best
01:01:44.700
times to do that. Cool. You can do that. You can be accommodating. I think there's men who fall on
01:01:50.400
either side of the spectrum where they'll say, well, I don't need to accommodate. This is my life.
01:01:54.900
I'll do it. I don't want it. That's stupid. And there's other guys who will say, well, you know,
01:01:59.520
she says she's having a hard time and like, she's busy. And so like, I can't, you know, do anything.
01:02:04.380
So I'm just going to kind of wallow and be a loser. Well, the answer is in the middle.
01:02:09.200
Yeah. Well, Bob, you're a, you're a long time supporter of, of the movement. And so I'm going
01:02:16.480
to, I'm going to give you the more abrupt answer. Why are you feeling guilty? And maybe you're feeling
01:02:22.240
guilty for a reason. The reality of it is, is it could, could it be true that you should feel
01:02:29.200
guilty because when you're not doing these single day events, you're not showing up as powerfully at
01:02:33.660
home that you should be, that you're not getting shit done that you said you would get done.
01:02:37.220
Right. And then we take on these events and then we feel guilty. Absolutely. Maybe you should feel
01:02:41.420
guilty. Right. So I think, and I don't know this, uh, Bob, but like, I think that our ability to have
01:02:50.700
these trips and have our, our personal time gets hell of a lot easier when we're showing up powerfully
01:02:57.800
between those trips, when we're doing our job, when we have our shit together, when we're working hard,
01:03:04.880
when we're reliable, when our family knows that we're serving them, it gets really easy to do a
01:03:10.580
multi-day trip. And so maybe see this guilt is not necessarily something bad, but maybe an indicator
01:03:17.180
on the dashboard of where's this guilt coming from? Is it warranted? And are we showing up powerfully?
01:03:24.160
And, and maybe we need to ask, I mean, here's a, here's a good ask. You're a little nervous about
01:03:29.520
doing a week long hunting trip in Hawaii and you feel a little guilty about it. Hey, honey,
01:03:35.120
for me to do this hunting trip in Hawaii, what would need to happen between now and then for you
01:03:40.380
to feel good about me going? Well, I'd really want you to get that stuff done that you've always said
01:03:46.520
you get done that you keep blowing up. Got it. You know what? I'll do that. I'll commit to doing that.
01:03:51.280
Uh, I think we need to not spend as much money. So maybe we save up money a little bit leading into
01:03:58.700
that trip. So I feel better about us blowing that type of money on that type of trip. Got it. I'll do
01:04:03.080
that. Get clear and, and make sure that that guilt's not warranted. Great points. Really great. Other
01:04:10.980
than you're going to have to actually like do some work, you know, what do you know? Um, you know,
01:04:18.600
the other thing is you were saying that is also make sure that she has the time that she needs and
01:04:24.960
don't judge it. A lot of guys will do that. So we'll, we'll say, Hey, we're going to go on this
01:04:29.960
hunting trip or this conference. And we can justify that in our minds because we see the value of it.
01:04:35.400
And then she says, well, I'm going to go spend the weekend with my mom and my sister and sister-in-law,
01:04:40.800
and we're going to do a spa day all together. And you're like, that's stupid. Why would anybody want
01:04:44.720
to do that? It doesn't, she's not asking you to go. She wants to go spend time with her mom and her
01:04:52.380
sister and sister-in-law. Your answer is sounds great, hon. Have a great time. Kids and I'll be
01:04:58.980
safe and have fun. And we've got plans and don't worry about us. Yeah. That's the answer. So allow
01:05:05.280
her the same thing that you would want for yourself, but don't judge the way she decides to spend that
01:05:09.900
time. Cause she, you don't want her to judge the way you spend yours. Yeah, totally. Uh, do you have
01:05:16.340
enough time for two more questions? I really like these questions and maybe we rapid fire them if we
01:05:20.720
need to. Eric Searing, how to not lose patience with your children during hetic times. Um, don't allow
01:05:31.480
the chaos to infiltrate your mind and heart. That's a decision you have to make. People are going to
01:05:43.600
get mad at you. People are going to yell at you. People are going to be mad. They're going to be
01:05:48.320
emotionally charged. Things are going to go wrong. People are going to be upset. Our job as men is to
01:05:53.720
stay above it. And that is not apathetic by the way. Some people interpret that to mean like,
01:06:00.800
you don't care. No, I do. I care deeply. If I'm in an argument with my girlfriend, I care deeply about
01:06:07.200
it, but I'm not getting into the trenches. Even if she wants to get into the trenches, I cannot allow
01:06:12.740
myself to do that. My job is to stay above it. And that's a conscious decision that we as men can make.
01:06:20.620
Yeah. That when things are heated, just say to yourself, my job, my job as a man is to be the
01:06:28.640
calm in this storm. And so I'm not even telling you not to be mad or not to be upset or not to
01:06:35.780
have emotional responses to what people are saying. I'm saying you are to be the calm in the storm.
01:06:42.680
And so when your kids are bouncing off the wall and they're pulling on your leg and they're not doing
01:06:45.880
what you ask them to do, and they're not putting their shoes on when you're heading out the door and
01:06:49.380
the house is a mess and, you know, mom's maybe having a bad day and everything else is going wrong.
01:06:55.340
You can be patient just because you've decided to be patient. There's other strategies I think
01:07:00.020
we've talked about at length of making sure to give yourself margin, stepping away from the situation
01:07:05.100
if it's called for. But at the end of the day, it's a decision to be patient. I was driving down
01:07:11.360
the road the other day and, you know, it's kind of near Christmas time. I was on a busy street at a
01:07:18.080
busy intersection and this guy was trying to merge and he like drove past everybody that was in line
01:07:25.060
and he just like hurried and jerked in front of me. The inferior version of myself would have probably
01:07:31.720
honked at him and then rode his ass for the next three miles and been all pissed off. Instead,
01:07:37.080
in a moment of clarity and wisdom, very rare clarity and wisdom, I thought, you know what?
01:07:43.860
That guy probably has somewhere to be. I would have done the same thing if I was in his shoes.
01:07:49.060
It's not a race. I don't even know where that guy's going and I'm not going to be any later to
01:07:53.880
wherever I'm going. It's fine. Because you just make the decision to be that way and it takes practice.
01:08:00.920
And so when it doesn't go well and you find yourself being impatient,
01:08:07.420
evaluate it. We call them after action reviews. Hey, what agitated me? What irritated me? Why did
01:08:12.980
I feel that way? Why did that guy cutting me off that way piss me off so bad? What would I have
01:08:19.880
done different? If I was in a better space, how would the man I want to be handle that exact same
01:08:24.320
situation? Or what would the guy that I look up to do in that case? And you just ask yourself those
01:08:29.900
questions and then you decide to make better decisions next time.
01:08:33.740
Full disclosure, what I'm about to say, I don't follow the counsel, what my thoughts are at least.
01:08:43.340
But one of the best ways to prepare for the hectic times is to not lose our patience in the mundane
01:08:48.780
little things. And I can't help but think, man, how many times do I get pissed off over
01:08:56.920
a room not being clean or kids not doing something or like stupid stuff around the house?
01:09:06.420
And if I follow that to a conclusion and think, well, if I can't handle that, how am I going to handle
01:09:13.540
a death of a grandparent? Am I going to handle the death of serious issues within our family?
01:09:22.040
Probably not very well. And so maybe a challenge for guys that are listening, it's like, well,
01:09:29.480
I don't have hectic times, so it's not a big deal. Figure out where you're losing your temper
01:09:33.880
in the mundane. There's your reps. There's the reps that we need to prepare us for the hectic times,
01:09:41.540
because if we can't handle our first world problems really well, we're certainly not going
01:09:46.160
to handle major difficulty very well. And this whole concept will all rise to the occasion is
01:09:51.200
just complete bullshit. Like you won't, you'll fall to pieces is what you'll do. So I also wrote
01:09:58.180
down here, Kip is for me, it's, it's really when I'm impatient, it's a matter of, it's a mismanagement
01:10:04.040
of time or activities, my own personal activity. And we've talked about this at length. You know,
01:10:11.300
if I'm upset because that guy on the road cut me off, it's because I didn't give myself adequate
01:10:16.160
time to get from point A to point B. Yeah. You were already late to your thing. That's why it's
01:10:21.540
pissing you off. Yeah. Or a mismanagement of activities in that same scenario. It could be
01:10:26.860
that I was so pissed off about work because I was feeling guilty that I wasn't getting all my work
01:10:30.900
done. And I had so many emails, but I spent, you know, an hour dinking around or having conversations
01:10:35.280
with somebody I shouldn't have had. And so I'm now frustrated and agitated. And then I'm driving down
01:10:39.440
the road, the guy cuts me off and it just adds to that agitation. Dude, it's so true, man. Well,
01:10:44.360
and I was thinking about this on the way to work. How's this literally like before we started this
01:10:49.900
call, this recording at 10 AM, I could tell you already, Ryan, today was going to be a great day.
01:10:58.500
I already know it. And the reason why is because by 10 o'clock already today, I'm getting some serious
01:11:04.460
shit done. Yeah. I'm already feeling great about my day. My workout was solid. I didn't
01:11:09.340
compromise the workout. I got some things done. I cleaned up some things in the house. I even did
01:11:14.060
some laundry before leaving the house. Like, like solid day. Yeah. And you know what? If Asia calls
01:11:21.700
you and says, Hey, one of the kids broke their arm on bouncing on the trampoline or sledding this week
01:11:26.400
or this afternoon, you can handle that with clarity better. Yeah. Yeah. Because you're like, you know
01:11:33.540
what? Like it's not, I'm not saying it's not, it's, it's not convenient. It's certainly not,
01:11:38.120
but you're like, you know what? I got 70% of my work done by one o'clock. Yeah. I'm good. Let's go
01:11:44.640
take care of the kids. And then tomorrow you can come back and get back to kicking ass.
01:11:47.900
And, and I think some of it is about getting the work done. The other part is being in integrity.
01:11:53.060
Right? Like I feel, I feel good. Why? Because I'm doing what I know I should be doing. Yeah. And,
01:12:01.400
and it's when, it's when we've compromised ourselves and have self-betrayal that when the
01:12:07.120
world shows up, we're just even more angry at it. You know, I was thinking as you were saying that
01:12:14.080
how inefficient guilt and lying are like when you are guilty of something and you're feeling it,
01:12:25.020
it's so inefficient. It just drains all of your resources, all of your mental energy. Same with
01:12:30.840
lying. Cause you're trying to keep up with what lies you did and what you said to one person versus
01:12:34.860
another. It's exhausting. It's such a drain on your resources. So the, the, the less guilt you can
01:12:41.000
have by doing what you say you're going to do and not doing what you said you're not going to do.
01:12:44.080
And not lying about things because you have a clear conscience and there's nothing for you to
01:12:48.720
lie about. You're free to pursue so much more. Yeah. Ah, so good. All right. Last question. Austin
01:12:56.720
Hargrove and help with your stepchildren that have a mental and physically abusive father,
01:13:05.780
more mentally abusive than physical. He has them every other week.
01:13:10.280
More mental than physical or was it the other way around? More mental than more mentally abusive than
01:13:17.500
physically abusive, better relationship with those stepchildren. They're with that father every
01:13:22.740
other week. Well, I mean, I don't, I don't know the, obviously I don't know the situation. I don't know
01:13:29.040
the degree to which we're talking about with abuse, but if it's severe enough, law enforcement needs to be
01:13:36.720
involved in that. Yeah. So that's the first thing that I would consider. But I think this is a lot
01:13:43.300
of conversations with your wife at this point of the expectation that she might have of how you handle
01:13:50.760
and conduct yourself. Now I know you guys are already married. It sounds like, and so maybe you've already
01:13:54.760
had those conversations or maybe you haven't, but this is a good time to start talking about what are
01:14:00.540
your expectations as, as her, her father now? Cause that's what you are. Uh, I, and also depending
01:14:08.960
on her age, you can have conversations about this. I would not throw her stepfather under the bus.
01:14:15.780
That's, I don't think that's appropriate. Uh, but I would show her through your words and actions,
01:14:22.820
what it means to be a good man and how a man treats the people in his life. Yeah.
01:14:29.000
So how do you show up for her as your daughter? What kind of conversations are you having? What,
01:14:34.680
what kind of care do you have for her? How does she feel? You know, depending, again, depending on
01:14:40.340
her age, the way she feels intuitively is going to mean more than her, her, um,
01:14:46.960
the way she logically processes it. Yeah. Just the way she feels about it. Uh, the way that she sees
01:14:53.320
you treat her mom, the way she sees you engage with that server. When you guys all go out to eat,
01:14:59.000
together, uh, those are going to mean way more to her. And trust me, she is observing that.
01:15:06.520
And what will start happening is she will equate feeling good and happy and positive and uplifted
01:15:15.080
with you. And she will start to associate feeling down and upset and sad and beat down with her father,
01:15:25.360
which is exactly, unfortunately, what needs to happen. She needs to start making those connections
01:15:31.500
because there's probably not a lot. I don't, again, I don't know the situation. I imagine that
01:15:36.640
if it was a real case of actual physical abuse, law enforcement would already be involved. Custody
01:15:43.260
issues would be taken care of and they should, but whereas she's seeing him every other weekend,
01:15:48.680
you need to be the predominant male voice in her life. Totally. And again, you don't do that by
01:15:54.240
throwing him under the bus. You do that by good conversations about how she is to be treated,
01:15:59.160
how she can be respected, how people will respect her. You teach her how to uphold boundaries,
01:16:06.220
how to communicate clearly and effectively what is appropriate and how people will treat her.
01:16:11.080
And then you show her what it means to be a good man and how he treats his people.
01:16:15.520
Totally. Yeah. You, it's, it's safe to say that any kid that is getting like mental and physical
01:16:22.280
abuse, um, is on the path of probably having very low self-confidence. Of course. And so I would
01:16:31.880
double down Austin in what, how do you create opportunities for these kids or kid stepchildren? So kids
01:16:40.000
to, to build confidence, help them realize how amazing they are and what they can accomplish and
01:16:50.340
get them the rep. So they know it for themselves, right? Don't, don't just double down. Like you're
01:16:55.560
so amazing the way you are. No, like give them the reps to, so they can prove it to themselves that
01:17:02.100
they're capable of doing hard things, right? Pure, like have them build their self-confidence for
01:17:08.700
themselves. The other thing is be careful not to judge, have empathy with your children and what
01:17:20.340
they're struggling with and how they might even show up. One thing that has been just really present
01:17:26.220
for me over the last couple of weeks is this idea that uncertainty and fear
01:17:33.800
promotes self-reflection or promotes, uh, survival in self. So if Ryan, if you're in a relationship and
01:17:46.440
you're fearful, who are you thinking about? Yeah, me, of course. Just you. So you thinking,
01:17:54.860
being thoughtful towards mom and dad and thinking about other people starts going away in an environment
01:18:00.920
where there's a lot of uncertainty and fear. So, so these kids might be very selfish. They might
01:18:08.160
come across like they're very selfish. It's because they're in survival. So don't jump to too many quick
01:18:15.360
conclusions. Think critically about what might be happening every other week that is dictating or
01:18:23.760
altering their behavior a little bit. So then that way you can navigate those waters effectively and,
01:18:30.660
and, and, and in an empathetic way and not generate more uncertainty and more fear for them because
01:18:37.280
you know what I mean? You're losing your patience or, or whatever else. And so just really double down
01:18:42.180
on the psychology of what might actually be occurring. So that way you can navigate those waters better.
01:18:48.560
Yeah. I love it. Powerful. We've got a lot of good questions. Did we, did we hit both
01:18:52.620
iron council and Facebook today? Awesome. Yep. Yep. We got them. We got through them all. I'm sure
01:18:57.540
there'll be more that pop up and we'll try to get those answered next week. Hopefully we gave you
01:19:01.000
guys some things to consider. I will say this is sometimes the questions you might hear do not
01:19:05.780
directly apply to your unique situation, but I think more often than not the answers that we attempt to
01:19:13.820
provide apply broadly if we're giving you the correct answer. Absolutely. So regardless of your
01:19:21.140
situation, whether it's talking about a stepchildren versus your own children or dealing with a difficult
01:19:29.360
person at work versus dealing with a difficult family member, these are all applicable in every
01:19:35.920
single facet of life. If you choose to look at it that way, if you think, Oh, I got to tune out for
01:19:39.680
this one because I don't have stepkids. It doesn't apply. There is knowledge to be gained in every
01:19:45.720
conversation and every scenario and every situation in every experience if you're looking for it. And
01:19:52.120
that's one thing that's really served me this last year as we kind of wind up 2024, I'm going to say
01:19:57.160
2014, 2024 is just being curious, letting judgment go, letting expectations of other people go.
01:20:08.780
You and I kind of bantered a little bit about that on Instagram, like no expectations of the way other
01:20:13.180
people show up, let them show up. Um, and just being curious, you know, like what makes you tick?
01:20:20.840
What makes you think that, you know, you don't have to agree with it, but you might be curious about
01:20:24.900
why, uh, or in a scenario where you think you can't learn anything, ask yourself, man, this isn't like
01:20:30.880
the best meeting that I ever want to be in, but is there something I can take away that will help me
01:20:34.620
be better at my job? Or this isn't a conversation I really want to have with the missus. It's going to
01:20:39.820
be contentious and frustrating, but can I learn something about her or the way I communicate with
01:20:44.300
her that might help our relationship get better? Always be curious, always be looking for ways
01:20:49.740
to develop, to grow, to learn and to get better. Absolutely. We have two pretty quick kind of call
01:20:56.780
outs. One is the iron council. We're going to be opening that up, uh, for an enrollment in roughly
01:21:01.360
about a week or so. A week and a half or so. Yeah. So be ready for that, uh, to learn more about
01:21:06.400
the ICA, at least until then, uh, that's order of man.com slash iron council. And then of course
01:21:11.740
to get your swag for the holidays, your order, man, uh, hoodies as well as some windbreakers and
01:21:18.960
a few other things. That's store.org. The camera hat that we have. There's a lot of cool new stuff
01:21:24.580
in there. Yep. So store.org.com. Yep. Awesome guys. We'll go check it out. We'll get it to you
01:21:30.640
before Christmas. If you do it quick, other than that, uh, we'll be back on tomorrow. No, Friday,
01:21:35.980
Friday. Yes. I've done this for eight years and I still forget when we'll be back Friday. All right,
01:21:42.780
guys, have a great day until then go out there, take action and become a man. You are meant to be.
01:21:47.320
Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life
01:21:56.320
and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.