Order of Man - CRAIG BALLANTYNE ｜ The Dark Side of Discipline

00:00:00.000 Every single man listening to this podcast is familiar with discipline and has applied

00:00:05.260 it in his life to varying degrees.

00:00:07.160 We generally think of discipline as an overall good thing, and I think it is, but it can

00:00:12.460 often lead to bouts of frustration and unnecessary suffering if utilized incorrectly.

00:00:18.560 My guest today, Craig Ballantyne, makes the case that discipline, although a powerful force

00:00:23.700 for productivity, does come with strings attached and isn't the end-all save-all it's often

00:00:29.400 made out to be.

00:00:30.740 Today we talk about what true discipline is not, why chasing the wrong target is so common

00:00:36.440 among men and what to do about it, what I call the self-help hangover and how to avoid

00:00:41.160 it, why you should know the distinction between standards and expectations, and how to avoid

00:00:47.060 what Craig calls the doom loop in your life.

00:00:50.100 You're a man of action.

00:00:51.500 You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart your own path.

00:00:55.700 When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time.

00:00:59.400 Every time, you are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, or strong.

00:01:05.460 This is your life.

00:01:06.540 This is who you are.

00:01:07.960 This is who you will become.

00:01:09.700 At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:16.560 Men, welcome to the Order of Man podcast.

00:01:18.680 I am Ryan Mickler, and if you're not familiar with what we're doing here, it's my job each

00:01:22.780 and every week to bring you some of the most incredibly successful men in their own right.

00:01:28.260 Entrepreneurs, athletes, scholars, fathers, business owners, New York Times bestselling

00:01:33.100 authors, you name it, warriors.

00:01:36.520 If they have a story to tell, if they've been through hardship, overcome that hardship, and

00:01:41.580 have lessons that we can extract and learn and grow from, I want to bring those guys to

00:01:46.260 you through this podcast.

00:01:47.700 We've also got courses and programs and other things available, but this is some great information

00:01:52.880 for you, and I just looked.

00:01:55.180 I think we're almost at 1,600 episodes that we've done now, so I want to thank you for

00:02:00.260 that.

00:02:01.320 Outside of that, I just want to introduce real quickly my good friends and, of course, the

00:02:05.480 people that help make this show possible in addition to you is my friends over at Montana

00:02:10.500 Knife Company.

00:02:12.060 I'm in the process right now of packing for a trip to Hawaii in the next couple of weeks,

00:02:15.920 a hunting trip out there with my son and good friends, and, of course, I do not leave home

00:02:20.580 on a hunting trip without an American-made knife built in America by Montana Knife Company.

00:02:28.180 I usually bring a handful of them.

00:02:30.020 Sometimes I give those to my friends, and sometimes I keep them for myself.

00:02:33.160 It just depends.

00:02:33.960 Anyways, if you're looking for a good knife this year, whether you're hunting or cooking

00:02:37.800 in the kitchen or an everyday carry or even a tactical knife or something out in the field,

00:02:42.160 I would check out Montana Knife Company.

00:02:44.460 Again, 100% made in America by great folks over at Montana Knife Company.

00:02:49.340 When you do pick up your knife or any of the gear that they have over there, make sure to

00:02:53.120 use the code ORDEROFMAN.

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00:03:02.240 Now, let me introduce you to Craig.

00:03:04.000 He is an entrepreneur.

00:03:05.380 He's an author, and I've known Craig for, gosh, probably seven or eight years now.

00:03:09.680 He's also a high-performance coach, and he's really well-known for his expertise in productivity

00:03:15.600 and discipline, which is obviously the focus of this conversation.

00:03:19.620 He first rose to prominence in entrepreneurship and fitness as an expert and creator of the

00:03:26.700 Turbulence Training Program, but he transitioned into personal development and has written several

00:03:32.700 best-selling books.

00:03:33.760 The Perfect Day Formula, which is one I highly recommend.

00:03:36.700 Also, a book called Unstoppable, and then his newest book, The Dark Side of Discipline.

00:03:43.700 Craig's also the founder of TheEarlyToRise.com, and he has helped thousands of entrepreneurs

00:03:49.940 to build successful businesses through his views and perspectives on structured habits

00:03:55.940 and very clear routines.

00:03:57.820 You're going to hear a lot about that today.

00:03:59.280 Enjoy this one, guys.

00:03:59.900 Craig, I think it's really important that we talk about what discipline is because it

00:04:07.200 seems to have become one of those words that gets tossed around so much that it's deflated

00:04:14.120 and it loses some of its meaning.

00:04:16.660 Absolutely.

00:04:17.260 So I've come down to this very simple definition.

00:04:19.760 It is simply this.

00:04:23.160 Discipline is putting a level 10 effort into your level 10 problem.

00:04:26.820 And if you're not doing that, you're just not as disciplined as you can be.

00:04:30.840 And a lot of people, unfortunately, are chasing what I call perverse forms of procrastination.

00:04:35.280 They're doing a lot of good things that are getting in the way of the great things and

00:04:38.580 getting in the way of them actually being disciplined and putting that level 10 effort

00:04:43.200 into their level 10 problem.

00:04:44.600 So I guess the level 10 idea is interesting.

00:04:49.620 When we start talking about those levels, I think sometimes that's obviously subjective,

00:04:53.520 right?

00:04:53.840 Totally.

00:04:54.000 Your level 10 might be different.

00:04:55.440 Or my level 10 in a year could actually be my level 7.

00:05:01.080 Ideally, it should be, right?

00:05:02.680 Right.

00:05:02.860 Because I'm getting better at improving.

00:05:04.160 Yeah, definitely.

00:05:04.820 Yeah.

00:05:05.520 But how do you know if you're pursuing a level 10 problem?

00:05:10.000 Because I know that there's a lot of men out there who are lacking purpose and

00:05:14.300 direction in their lives and they feel like there's something more, but they don't really

00:05:17.620 know what they should be pursuing or if what they're pursuing is something worth pursuing.

00:05:22.940 Yeah.

00:05:23.100 Let me give you a little background on this whole idea of the level 10 thing.

00:05:26.520 And so, you know, Bedros Koulian is a good friend of yours, good friend of mine.

00:05:29.560 And for years, he ran this thing called Fitness Business Summit.

00:05:32.980 And Fitness Business Summit is this event where personal trainers would come in and gym

00:05:36.740 owners would come in to learn about sales and marketing.

00:05:40.020 And I would look out in the audience because I spoke at it every single year.

00:05:43.600 I'd look out and there's James and Jenny and Johnny.

00:05:45.960 They're out in row 10, same seats as last year.

00:05:48.200 And this year, they're 8% body fat.

00:05:50.480 They're really ripped.

00:05:51.280 And they have eight bucks in their bank account.

00:05:53.280 And they would come to the event and we would teach them all this sales and marketing.

00:05:56.840 And then they would go home.

00:05:58.560 And what would they do?

00:05:59.980 They wouldn't do anything with it.

00:06:01.400 Instead, they would take all the information they got from all the other personal trainers

00:06:04.680 there about making their workouts better.

00:06:06.600 And so they'd come back the next year and they'd be 7% body fat and they'd have seven

00:06:10.800 bucks in their bank account.

00:06:11.920 And this is just an extreme example of them going home and putting a level 10 effort into

00:06:17.040 a level one problem, which is their body fat, their fitness.

00:06:20.220 And a lot of men listening to this are out there already really jacked, already really fit.

00:06:26.280 And you're putting a lot, you know, you're doing your two-a-day workouts and you're rucking

00:06:29.460 and you're doing all this stuff.

00:06:30.680 But are you having the difficult conversations with your business partner or your team members

00:06:36.480 or your spouse?

00:06:38.400 You know, are those molehills in the most important areas of life becoming mountains because you're

00:06:44.180 too darn busy putting a level 10 effort into getting, you know, 1% lost body fat when you

00:06:49.840 already got veins, you know, coming out, you know, of your arms and your shirt.

00:06:54.540 Like, and so it's just this mismatch.

00:06:57.120 And you're not a bad person because of this.

00:06:59.960 You're simply what I call a wild horse.

00:07:01.980 We use that phrase in the book.

00:07:03.800 I'm a wild horse.

00:07:04.980 You're a wild horse.

00:07:06.560 It's good to be a wild horse.

00:07:08.020 You're ambitious.

00:07:08.860 You want to be at all.

00:07:10.020 You want to have it all.

00:07:11.080 You want to have all the vacations.

00:07:12.360 You want to have great, you know, trucks and cars and a home gym.

00:07:15.300 And you want to have a great marriage and you want to have awesome kids.

00:07:17.960 You want to raise them and you want to have freedom and you want to be wealthy.

00:07:21.200 If you're an entrepreneur, you want to have it all.

00:07:24.240 But when you want to have it all, you know, if you're a wild horse, you're just off running

00:07:28.100 around in all these directions.

00:07:29.280 And I feel like because of this thing, the phone, that our ability to be reactive or

00:07:35.800 our opportunity to be reactive to all these things that pop up, you know, there's this

00:07:39.720 challenge, there's the ice baths, there's the ultra marathons.

00:07:42.460 Because if you just run marathons these days, like you don't even run, man.

00:07:45.720 Like you got to run an ultra marathon.

00:07:47.120 And then, you know, the ultra marathoners get looked down on by the Badwater ultra marathoners.

00:07:52.020 And, you know, it's just all this, you know, peeing contest of like, who's the most insanely

00:07:56.260 hardcore, you know, physical challenge person.

00:07:59.680 But that's not really what discipline truly is.

00:08:02.840 To me, discipline is knowing what really matters in your life and then putting the blinders

00:08:07.860 on and pursuing only what really matters to you, to your core values inside of your heart,

00:08:12.740 inside of your vision.

00:08:13.720 And so to figure that out, we have to do the hardest thing of all, which most people

00:08:18.760 won't do this these days.

00:08:20.520 And most people have never done this in history because it is so hard.

00:08:23.940 And that's thinking.

00:08:25.160 And it's even harder in this day and age with all the great podcasts and all the great

00:08:28.840 audio books out there to always have inputs going into your head.

00:08:32.000 You're always gathering more information.

00:08:33.600 You're always hearing about new challenges.

00:08:35.160 You're always getting new opportunities.

00:08:37.840 But what you need to do is you need to stop the inputs.

00:08:40.420 You need to step back.

00:08:41.620 You need to spend some time in silence and figure out, all right, what really matters

00:08:45.900 to me?

00:08:46.840 Where do I want to be in the next three to five years in my business, with my family?

00:08:51.060 Where do I want to be living?

00:08:52.140 What do I want to have accomplished?

00:08:53.880 What really matters?

00:08:54.860 What is my specific definition of success?

00:08:57.280 Not as, you know, not what is Joe Rogan's specific definition of success or this guy's

00:09:01.960 specific definition of success or, you know, what I saw from some guy I've never seen

00:09:06.080 before on the internet.

00:09:07.060 What's his specific definition of success?

00:09:09.040 What is it to me?

00:09:09.840 What really matters to me?

00:09:11.580 And when you have spent some time in that self-reflection and introspection, you get

00:09:15.960 the correct orientation.

00:09:17.780 And this is what's missing from a lot of people's lives is, is not that they're not, it's not

00:09:22.220 that they don't have discipline.

00:09:23.220 It's not that they don't have ambition.

00:09:24.420 It's not that you're not willing to work hard.

00:09:26.400 It's just that you're going in the wrong direction because you haven't stepped back and

00:09:31.020 figured out which direction is right for me.

00:09:33.760 And when you do that, when you finally figure that out, then all of your efforts go in the

00:09:39.320 right direction and you accomplish more.

00:09:41.740 But it all starts with that right orientation.

00:09:44.140 And so we take people through a little vision exercise to figure out what matters for the

00:09:47.700 life where they want to be.

00:09:49.080 You know, we're talking about big why and core values for their family and for their

00:09:52.720 business.

00:09:53.060 And then also just that phrase, what is your specific definition of success for the short

00:09:58.620 term?

00:09:59.120 So we know what matters to you.

00:10:00.420 And then we get you running your own race, even if it's in the other direction than what 0.87

00:10:04.500 everybody else is going.

00:10:06.660 Yeah, I think that's, you know, one thing, as you were saying that, one of the things that

00:10:10.540 I've seen is when we help our men with their, their goal planning, um, one of the areas

00:10:16.760 that we focus on is, is calibration.

00:10:18.960 And so that's getting right with yourself, your mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing,

00:10:23.520 um, or maybe it's condition and that's your physical health.

00:10:26.000 And I'm using a, uh, obviously a silly example, but if somebody says to me, you know, um, I'm

00:10:32.600 really working on my self-development.

00:10:34.380 So I'm going to read, uh, a book a month.

00:10:38.480 And then I ask him and I say, okay, that's great.

00:10:40.240 A book a month.

00:10:40.840 How many are you currently reading?

00:10:42.140 Well, yeah, I read a book a month right now.

00:10:43.700 It's like, okay, well, you're already doing that.

00:10:46.520 So that's not really a goal.

00:10:49.400 It's the same thing as your, your fitness guys where they're like, yeah, I really want

00:10:53.460 to get fit and shredded and I want to work out as hard as I can.

00:10:55.780 And you ask them, Hey, what are you doing right now?

00:10:57.000 They're like, I'm getting fit and shredded and working out as hard as I can.

00:10:59.360 It's like, well, good, you're already doing it.

00:11:01.300 So maybe there's something else that you can pursue that is more meaningful.

00:11:06.240 Cause you, it's like brushing your teeth.

00:11:08.080 I would never make a goal in my life to brush my teeth daily because I think, I hope most of

00:11:13.960 us listening to this podcast are just already doing that.

00:11:16.680 But push yourself outside of your comfort zone and give yourself something to do that

00:11:21.320 you've never done before or that you're hiding from.

00:11:25.460 That's what I found a lot.

00:11:26.540 A lot of people know what they should be doing, but they hide from it.

00:11:29.360 Yeah.

00:11:29.540 And that's the level 10 problem is that when, when people say, well, how do I figure out

00:11:33.480 what my level 10 problem is?

00:11:34.760 It's like, you know what your level 10 problem is.

00:11:36.780 You know, it's the thing that you, you dream about that you wake up in two o'clock in the

00:11:40.560 morning and go, Oh my God, I don't want to dream about that anymore.

00:11:42.680 Or you wake up in the morning and it's cloudy outside.

00:11:44.920 So you immediately get in a slightly bad mood and all of a sudden your mind turns to that

00:11:48.840 thing.

00:11:49.200 And oftentimes it is actually a difficult discussion and the difficult discussions in our lives

00:11:54.380 really need to be with, you know, if, if we own a business, it's either a business

00:11:58.540 partner or a team member where things are, you know, they started going sour about six

00:12:03.080 months ago.

00:12:03.560 We push it off, we push it off and Oh man, or, you know, in your relationships, it's

00:12:08.680 something that is festering between you and your wife and you need to sit down and have

00:12:13.540 this really hard conversation. 0.99

00:12:14.780 But gosh, hard conversations suck. 0.68

00:12:18.040 You know, people, I joke about this on Instagram and people always like this one is like people 0.94

00:12:22.440 will go and do the most incredibly difficult things in order to avoid a hard conversation.

00:12:28.460 Like you will CrossFit seven days a week.

00:12:30.600 You will work out twice a day.

00:12:32.080 You will do ultra marathons, you will cold plunge all to avoid having a difficult conversation

00:12:38.700 with somebody because it is so hard for us.

00:12:40.980 And listen, I'm, I've ran from difficult conversations in the past and it sucked.

00:12:45.780 In fact, you know, we have a coaching program for business owners and we, we actually built

00:12:50.080 out a two page worksheet to help somebody have a difficult conversation because we see this

00:12:55.580 all the time.

00:12:56.560 And, you know, it's like putting yourself in their shoes.

00:12:58.720 What do you think is going to be their worst reaction?

00:13:00.460 What happens if you get their worst reaction?

00:13:02.520 What happens if you get their best reaction?

00:13:04.280 How can you reframe this problem in their mind so that it's not really a problem?

00:13:08.180 That's an opportunity.

00:13:09.140 How can you take person full, we have people start by saying it's, I take full responsibility

00:13:15.120 for the, you know, the, the situation and how it's gotten to this point.

00:13:18.960 And, you know, so that we bring down their defenses because everybody is just really, really,

00:13:24.540 not everybody.

00:13:25.540 Most people are really fearful of the difficult conversation.

00:13:29.200 But if you think about where most people's problems in life come from, it's because they've

00:13:34.540 avoided this.

00:13:35.460 And if they just would have had that conversation six months ago, yeah, it would have sucked,

00:13:39.160 but you would have ripped the bandage off.

00:13:40.860 And now all of a sudden, you're not talking about ripping the bandage off.

00:13:43.820 You're talking about divorce, divorce lawyer and some real hard conversations all because

00:13:47.920 you didn't have that one six months ago.

00:13:49.660 And so we just want people to, to, you know, attack that head on.

00:13:54.940 And then you can make time for all the other stuff that you want to do as a wild horse,

00:13:58.800 like, you know, the CrossFit and all that stuff.

00:14:00.360 But, you know, make sure that you're taking, you're taking the time to focus on what matters.

00:14:06.600 Right.

00:14:07.520 I think I heard Jordan Peterson or I think it was Jordan Peterson say something like the,

00:14:13.660 the, the answer, I'm paraphrasing, but the answer you seek is in the place you're,

00:14:17.920 you're, you're afraid to look.

00:14:19.800 It's a Joseph Campbell or something like that.

00:14:21.460 Yeah.

00:14:21.660 It's a Joseph Campbell.

00:14:22.440 Oh, is it?

00:14:22.740 Okay.

00:14:22.920 Yeah.

00:14:23.240 From the hero's journey.

00:14:24.740 The, the, the, the answers you seek are in the cave that you fear to go in or something.

00:14:30.380 It's something right.

00:14:31.340 Something like that.

00:14:32.280 And it is true. 0.71

00:14:33.220 It's like when, when I think like of in the past of areas where I want to improve on,

00:14:39.440 because I used to have really introverted tendencies and, you know, so, but I also wanted to be the

00:14:44.840 speaker and, you know, the kind of incongruent because, you know, you can go up there

00:14:49.400 and speak, but people want to talk to you after.

00:14:51.280 And if you like rush out of there, people are like, Oh, what's going on with this guy?

00:14:54.200 And they're not going to like want to see you speak again.

00:14:56.120 And so I had to really lean into that.

00:14:58.640 And, you know, one of those events that Bedros had, um, you know, the fitness business summit,

00:15:03.220 I went to it and I made this public declaration.

00:15:05.280 I'm going to hug a hundred people at this event.

00:15:07.540 And like some people listen to a hundred, hug a hundred people at a big event.

00:15:10.440 That's no big deal.

00:15:11.100 I do it all the time.

00:15:11.680 But for me as an introverted type of person, it was very difficult and I did it.

00:15:15.700 And I got a lot of weird looks from people who had known me for a long time, but that

00:15:18.980 was the cave I feared to enter.

00:15:21.100 And, but I had to do it.

00:15:22.380 And, and, you know, it helped.

00:15:23.960 That was years ago.

00:15:24.680 And now social settings are so much easier for me because I kept on doing those types of things.

00:15:30.040 It is interesting though, because when we look in that cave that we're, we've been unwilling

00:15:35.020 to look, um, you know, it looks a lot scarier than it actually is.

00:15:41.220 Oh yeah.

00:15:41.700 And when you get in there, I've realized I actually went on a hike yesterday and there

00:15:45.580 was a bit of a cave and I was looking in there with my phone.

00:15:48.160 Cause I didn't have a flashlight.

00:15:49.280 It was a lava tube and we're looking in there and I've got my flashlight.

00:15:52.520 I'm like, I don't know if I want to go in there.

00:15:53.980 I'm like, no, I do want to go in there.

00:15:55.020 You go in there and it's amazing.

00:15:56.240 It opens up and it's got this like really cool view.

00:15:59.220 And it kind of opened up on top, but I would have never been able to see that if I just

00:16:03.740 stayed on the outside and just looked at it from, from where I was in relative safety

00:16:08.200 or at least perceived safety.

00:16:09.400 But you get in there and you realize, oh, there are so many incredible blessings in here that

00:16:13.880 I would have missed if I didn't have the courage to step into it.

00:16:17.480 Yeah.

00:16:17.900 You know, I'll just tell a quick story about, you know, it's an embarrassing story.

00:16:21.000 Um, I went to South Africa on a safari in, in 2018 with, with a bunch of friends that

00:16:27.060 are friends with Bedros and they, we went to this place in, in Zimbabwe called Victoria

00:16:31.120 falls and you can jump off.

00:16:32.740 It's not a bungee.

00:16:33.540 It's called the, it's a swing where you jump off and you do 275 feet down and then it swings

00:16:38.040 you out over this Canyon.

00:16:39.680 And I was like, no, I'm not doing it.

00:16:41.520 I'm not doing it at all.

00:16:42.480 I wasn't even entertaining it.

00:16:43.900 And all my friends did it.

00:16:45.180 And at the end of it, I was like, why didn't I do it? 1.00

00:16:48.080 Like, what is stupid? 0.98

00:16:49.740 You know, I regret this. 0.99

00:16:50.880 And I was thinking about it for like the next 12 hours.

00:16:52.800 And then luckily the kids wanted, uh, my friend's kids wanted to go back cause there was a zip 0.88

00:16:57.460 line beside it and they wanted to do it again.

00:16:58.800 And I was like, okay, I'm going to go and do it.

00:17:00.740 And I, um, I'm a big fan of Tim Grover's book, Relentless.

00:17:03.860 And in it, he just says, don't think, you know, just stop, you know, stop thinking.

00:17:07.800 And so I was just like, I thought quickly and I said, listen, people do this all the time.

00:17:12.020 I'm just going to go up and they put the harness on me.

00:17:14.380 I just walked up to the edge.

00:17:15.460 I didn't think, and I jumped and it was a great experience.

00:17:17.860 And I actually truly believe that it was then helpful for me to enter another cave.

00:17:22.980 Um, you know, cause I was single up until 2019.

00:17:25.740 I didn't want to be single.

00:17:26.820 And so, you know, I pushed off the relationships for all types of reasons.

00:17:31.800 And then I just decided to like, you know, I got to put my ego aside and ask for help.

00:17:35.700 So I asked a bunch of my female friends who have large social networks to introduce me to 0.96

00:17:39.860 somebody.

00:17:40.140 And sure enough, you know, long story short, one of them became my wife.

00:17:43.400 And now we have three kids today, all because, was it because I jumped off that cliff in Zimbabwe? 0.97

00:17:49.420 Man, maybe I would have done the other thing too, but it really did help.

00:17:52.820 And so, um, every time you push yourself to do that thing, whether it's, you know, you're

00:17:58.600 a bodybuilder and you go and run a marathon like Bedros did, you know, 15 years ago.

00:18:02.460 Like he learned a lot from that and he still talks about it today, but it was something that

00:18:06.040 he didn't want to do.

00:18:06.980 So, um, you know, I don't know if you ever heard his story, like the first, first week

00:18:10.840 of marathon training, he ran in Chuck Taylor Converse.

00:18:14.040 Oh, he did.

00:18:14.720 And he didn't know why he was getting shin splints.

00:18:17.400 Brutal.

00:18:18.340 220 pound dude running in chucks on pavement.

00:18:21.500 What do they call him?

00:18:22.200 Over that weight.

00:18:22.980 I think they're called Clydesdales, right?

00:18:24.440 At that point.

00:18:24.960 Oh man, that guy is so funny.

00:18:26.180 But, but his, he was always about these six week challenges about trying something new.

00:18:32.920 And, and if you can listen, you can be jacked and you can read a book a week and you can kind

00:18:38.860 of do the same things over and over again.

00:18:41.240 But the real growth comes from, you know, when you put yourself in those beginner shoes and

00:18:45.820 you're willing to set the ego aside and be humble and go into those caves, um, you know,

00:18:50.440 you know, literally for you, uh, metaphorically for me, and you're going to come up better on

00:18:54.760 the other side.

00:18:56.180 Yeah.

00:18:56.980 Do you, you talk a lot about, I mean, you dedicated a whole section in the book, the

00:19:00.660 dark side of discipline to the, the concept and idea of suffering.

00:19:03.900 And we were talking earlier about, you know, how people suffer when they're not willing

00:19:07.840 to have these challenging conversations or they're not willing to address some scary

00:19:13.560 obstacle in a meaningful way.

00:19:15.000 Is that the suffering that you're talking about or is there suffering in just the monotony

00:19:20.160 and grind of the modern day version of discipline that we hear about?

00:19:23.660 I think there's, there is suffering in what I describe as suffering is when you miss out

00:19:28.840 on something, when you have a regret, when you lose something, um, when you underperform

00:19:33.320 to me, my suffering, whenever I feel really bad.

00:19:38.320 And I do feel bad, uh, from time to time is when I, when I know that I could have done

00:19:43.460 this level, like I could have done performed at X level and I underperformed and I underperformed

00:19:49.100 because I would either underprepared.

00:19:51.060 Um, you know, I just didn't give it my all for whatever reason it was, or, you know, I

00:19:56.640 fell back on bad habits and, you know, it could be in a conversation with my wife, it

00:20:01.140 could be in a workout or something like that.

00:20:02.920 But every time I feel something negative inside of me, it is because I underperformed and, and

00:20:10.980 now that's in the past, right?

00:20:12.960 And we, you know, we don't want to dwell on the past, but I, you know, I have to suffer

00:20:16.740 about that thing, like that underperformance, like I can't do anything about it.

00:20:21.180 And to me, that's suffering.

00:20:22.600 And so sacrifice is different.

00:20:25.900 Like we sacrifice in our workouts.

00:20:27.840 We sacrifice for our families.

00:20:29.660 We sacrifice, you know, getting up early and doing what we have to do for, for our wife

00:20:33.900 and kids that sacrifice.

00:20:35.460 But I, I believe there's joy in sacrifice.

00:20:38.520 You know, like when you go in and you go through a hard workout, it's not suffering to me, even

00:20:44.320 though some people might think it's suffering, but I don't think it's suffering.

00:20:46.500 I think there's sacrifice.

00:20:47.560 I think there's joy in it.

00:20:48.500 Like there is joy in hard work.

00:20:50.280 But suffering is when you regret it and, you know, living a life of regrets.

00:20:56.560 Like I'm not, I'm not an expert in this area and I, maybe I shouldn't speak about it, but

00:21:01.720 I see a lot of women suffering who hit 35, 40, 45 years old with no kids because they have

00:21:09.480 made a decision to, you know, chase their careers.

00:21:13.320 And I think that that is a, is a type of suffering, which is so sad.

00:21:18.100 And we see it, my, my wife and I see it all the time in people because they, you know, were

00:21:23.680 sold, you know, an idea that, you know, they shouldn't have bought into and they bought into

00:21:28.460 it.

00:21:28.720 And now they're stuck because maybe they found the guy and they can't have the kid and

00:21:32.800 that is suffering.

00:21:33.940 That is suffering.

00:21:34.980 And so I want, you know, and men can have their own version of it.

00:21:38.840 You know, like I lead off the book with about a friend of mine who chased discipline activities

00:21:44.700 and his wife walked out on with the kids because he was spending all his time doing that. 0.92

00:21:48.800 He didn't put his level 10 effort into his marriage.

00:21:50.900 Like that, that story made me write the book because that is suffering.

00:21:56.720 And, you know, I'm sure there's guys out here who've made a mistake in the past and

00:22:01.180 listen, I'm not perfect either.

00:22:02.720 And, and we all make mistakes.

00:22:04.360 And unfortunately some men are suffering because they don't get to see their kids as much.

00:22:09.120 That's suffering, right?

00:22:10.980 It, you know, doing a hard workout is not suffering.

00:22:13.400 It's sacrifice, but missing out on what you love, having regrets is suffering.

00:22:17.320 And if you figure out what you really want and you put that level 10 effort into it, you

00:22:22.500 at least give yourself the greatest chance of not having to suffer through regret.

00:22:28.660 I can appreciate the distinction between sacrifice and suffering because I have heard people often

00:22:33.860 talk about what you dub sacrifice as suffering.

00:22:37.340 And I can't help but think that if you need, if you feel like you're going to suffer doing

00:22:41.200 something, you're going to be less likely to do it.

00:22:44.160 So the workouts are a great example.

00:22:45.740 If, if people constantly tell you how horrible this is going to be and how hard it's going 0.97

00:22:50.200 to be, and it's going to suck and embrace the suck and embrace the suffering.

00:22:54.740 It's like, I don't want to do that.

00:22:56.700 And I actually don't feel that way when I go train because yeah, it's hard.

00:23:02.280 I sweat.

00:23:03.080 There's things I have to get through.

00:23:03.960 Some days I don't feel like going, but I've managed to find a sense of joy and satisfaction

00:23:11.500 and pride in it.

00:23:13.360 So even when it's difficult, I'm not suffering.

00:23:16.700 I'm working towards my goals and my dreams.

00:23:19.440 And that's way more manageable than just being miserable all the time.

00:23:22.960 Exactly.

00:23:23.680 Exactly.

00:23:24.000 I just don't think there's any, any place for misery in somebody's life unless it's an

00:23:29.500 unfortunate circumstance.

00:23:31.320 But you know, you can choose a path of sacrifice and achieve your greatest dreams.

00:23:37.360 And I don't think that suffering or misery needs to be alone there at all.

00:23:41.620 It's just a, it's just a brain reframe.

00:23:44.300 And that's a great way to say it.

00:23:45.620 It's like, you're going to make a story up about something, make one up that serves you.

00:23:50.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:23:50.920 And, and I've seen, I can't remember the exact wording of it, but I did see a good Instagram

00:23:55.840 meme of, you know, it's like, there's a, a, a split picture and one is an overweight person,

00:24:02.840 a glutton.

00:24:03.400 And, you know, it's like the path to hell looks like heaven.

00:24:07.040 And then on the flip side is, you know, this person working really hard, but they're in

00:24:10.820 great shape.

00:24:11.800 And the path to heaven looks like hell to some people.

00:24:14.760 And it's kind of like a similar thing to what we're talking about.

00:24:18.920 You know, the person who is fit, they're going to live, you know, in most cases, they're

00:24:23.420 going to live a long life.

00:24:24.280 They're going to have great energy.

00:24:25.620 They're going to have the systems in place that are going to give them back their time.

00:24:29.540 And yes, they're going to have to work for it.

00:24:30.940 That's, that's the result of work, but it's not suffering.

00:24:34.800 On the flip side, the person who's, you know, just eating fast food and overeating and drinking

00:24:40.940 and smoking weed and pornography and all that stuff, like they might get instant gratification.

00:24:48.920 Man, I'm just going to take a break from the conversation very quickly.

00:24:52.380 I've read so many books over the years and it's become increasingly difficult to keep track

00:24:58.240 of them all.

00:24:59.500 And with all the book recommendations I've given over those years, some of the best books

00:25:03.260 on masculinity and manliness do tend to get lost in the clutter.

00:25:07.920 And that's why we created the Order of Man Bookshelf.

00:25:10.080 It is a curated collection of powerful, very principle driven books, and they're all designed

00:25:17.460 to challenge and to sharpen you.

00:25:18.960 And most importantly, equip you as a man in leadership and fatherhood, discipline, like

00:25:24.800 we're talking about today, sovereignty and purpose in your life.

00:25:27.780 Now, each of these books is a book that I have personally read and found immense value in.

00:25:33.200 And they're all aligned with our mission of helping men become protectors, providers, and

00:25:36.680 presiders over themselves and for their families.

00:25:38.840 Guys, this is not just a shelf of random books you should read.

00:25:44.020 It's really a foundation for building a legacy in your life.

00:25:47.600 So check it out.

00:25:48.480 Head to orderofman.com slash bookshelf.

00:25:51.260 Orderofman.com slash bookshelf.

00:25:53.100 You can do that right after the conversation.

00:25:55.220 For now, let's get back to it with Craig.

00:25:56.760 There's another meme, I'm sure you've seen it, where it's this, on one side, it's this individual

00:26:05.580 who, like you said, is maybe obese and broken down and drunk and alone and just miserable.

00:26:13.580 And then on the other side, you have this gentleman who's healthy and sober and pursuing passion

00:26:19.500 and married and in a thriving marriage.

00:26:21.900 And on the left side with the guy who's miserable, it says, why are you this way? 0.55

00:26:25.220 And he said, well, my dad was a drunk and he was abusive and he was an alcoholic and he

00:26:29.640 never was present.

00:26:31.340 And then on the right hand side, it says, why are you this way?

00:26:34.080 And that guy says, well, my dad was a drunk and he was abusive and he was an alcoholic and

00:26:37.660 he was never present.

00:26:38.420 So two, and I know this is a made up story, but it's probably got some validity.

00:26:44.220 Yeah.

00:26:44.460 Well, it's like, it's the same story, but it's how you choose to look.

00:26:50.280 If that person was like that, it can compel you to be that same way or it can compel you

00:26:57.160 to be a different way.

00:26:58.280 But that's a decision that you have to make.

00:27:00.280 You didn't get to choose that circumstance.

00:27:02.340 I've seen some of his videos.

00:27:04.080 Man, what an incredible person.

00:27:06.200 So for people listening, you're like, who is this person?

00:27:08.220 Well, so Nick was born with no legs.

00:27:11.340 You know, he has the stumps and then I believe he just has a stump on one side and then he

00:27:17.400 has his arm on the right hand side and he has one finger and it's his middle finger.

00:27:21.740 And this guy works out.

00:27:23.440 He has a million followers.

00:27:25.100 He's one of the best motivational speakers in the world.

00:27:28.560 And he's just an incredible person.

00:27:30.720 Like he could, he drives like Dodge Chargers and, and Ford Mustangs and like has these.

00:27:36.100 Yeah, he's like a bodybuilder.

00:27:37.260 Yeah.

00:27:37.760 I mean, he's living life and he, so, you know, the doctors told his parents to abort him.

00:27:44.220 And so, I mean, his parents are, I mean, as, as you know, Nick's, Nick's the hero, but I

00:27:48.100 mean, his parents are the heroes.

00:27:49.260 Can you imagine that?

00:27:50.760 Could you imagine that?

00:27:51.820 Oh, it's so challenging.

00:27:52.060 Um, and, but they raised him to, to be this incredible human being.

00:27:56.440 And, and it's like, look at the choices that man has made.

00:28:00.760 And, uh, I had a mentor who was in a similar position.

00:28:03.760 Did you ever meet Sean Stevenson, the three foot giant?

00:28:06.820 Sure.

00:28:07.300 Yeah.

00:28:07.760 So Sean, I've never met him.

00:28:09.100 I know who he is though.

00:28:09.940 Yeah.

00:28:10.220 Sean unfortunately passed away because Sean had, um, you know, this is very inspiring and, and he was an

00:28:15.020 amazing speaker, an amazing public speaker, but Sean was born with a disease, uh, some type of bone

00:28:21.900 disease and he broke his bones 280 times in his life. Like when he was playing as a kid, he would

00:28:26.620 break his femur just playing. And so he only grew to be three feet high, but this man became again,

00:28:32.800 an amazing motivational speaker. He was funny as heck. He, he got married. Um, eventually,

00:28:39.000 unfortunately he fell and, and hit his head and because his bone bones were so fragile that he,

00:28:44.220 he passed away, but he touched lives, man. Like I hired the guy for a full day of, of, you know,

00:28:51.840 he's, he was a therapist and, and, um, a counselor and, and coach. And, you know, he really did help

00:28:57.960 me out with a lot of things I needed to get out of my own head about. And again, this is a person who

00:29:03.760 was gifted this situation and decided to make certain decisions, but you know, you wouldn't

00:29:10.620 judge him for being like, no, I'm just going to go play video games and I'm going to hide from the

00:29:14.280 world. Like I wouldn't, I wouldn't hold that against him if he decided to make that choice

00:29:17.800 because that's tough. But instead he decided to go into that cave that, you know, most people fear to

00:29:22.720 enter. Yeah. It's pretty amazing to see people in those circumstances where they do those things

00:29:29.760 and then it strips away all of our excuses and almost totally me at times feel, you know,

00:29:35.460 inadequate. You're like, man, if somebody like that can do that, what am I, what am I complaining

00:29:40.480 about? Why? Like I, I almost as if I have it too easy that life has become too easy or convenient

00:29:46.780 that it, this goes back to the point you were making earlier about things are good. So I don't

00:29:52.460 really have a reason to make them better because they're pretty good. Well, this is where I

00:29:59.460 have my internal feelings of regret because I know that so many other people have started out

00:30:04.860 in life with less than me, have started out in harder circumstances and have done more. And so

00:30:09.660 when people ask me like, Hey, what's your motivation to keep on doing stuff? It's that it's, have I

00:30:14.340 really done the most with the gifts I've been given? And Ed Milet has this great little story that

00:30:20.000 he teaches on stage where, you know, he believes that when Ed Milet dies and he goes to heaven, he's going

00:30:25.760 to meet the God's going to bring out like, this was the best version of Ed Milet that you could

00:30:29.580 have been. And Ed says, I want to make sure that I'm a hundred percent that person. And it's a really,

00:30:35.260 really good visualization. It really gets you thinking, okay. Yeah. So, I mean, like, you know,

00:30:39.860 John, who's listening to this, John's like thinking, you know, I could have done better at this. I could

00:30:44.680 be a better leader. Like I'm capable of doing those things. And so I got to keep going. I got to keep

00:30:50.760 going because man, when it's easy to be complacent and especially if you started from nothing and you

00:30:56.920 got to a place in your life where you have a lot of stuff, it is easy to be complacent, but then you

00:31:01.280 have to actually have to flip the script and say, okay, I've got everything I want, but have all the

00:31:06.920 people around me gotten what they want? And have I given everything that I can give to all the other

00:31:13.020 people out there? No, you'll never ever give everything you can to all the other people out there,

00:31:18.260 but that's where you have to then put your efforts because as someone who struggled with anxiety a

00:31:23.260 long time ago, it's because I got, you know, I got caught up in my own head and, and, um, you know,

00:31:27.000 really thinking about myself. And one of the things when I was going through my anxiety attacks was I

00:31:31.440 found that whenever I helped somebody else, the anxiety completely disappeared. And so I use that

00:31:37.580 all the time. It's like, whatever bad feeling ever comes into me, I'm, I know I can get rid of it just

00:31:43.960 by going out and helping somebody, whether that means answering a question on social media to a

00:31:48.020 complete stranger for like 10 seconds or a minute or two, or writing a post for a website or making

00:31:53.360 a video and sharing it. I'll just get rid of the bad feelings because I'm going out there and helping

00:31:57.580 somebody. And that's what drives me. And that's what should drive us all because there's always

00:32:03.000 the ability for us to, to reach another level of our potential with that. Yeah. Where does the,

00:32:08.180 the term doom loop come into play? Cause that's one thing you talked about in the book too,

00:32:12.240 is yeah, there's the suffering, but then specifically there's this loop that we get into.

00:32:16.200 So what does that mean? Yeah. So doom loop is a cycle of bad behavior and I had a lot of bad

00:32:22.360 cycles of bad behavior. Like for me, binge drinking was my biggest bad behavior that I ever had in my

00:32:27.280 life that held me back that I never got out of for, um, you know, I should have got out of it way

00:32:31.960 long, uh, earlier than I did, but it was just this thing that, you know, I'm in the loop. I'm in this,

00:32:37.160 here's my social circle. And what do they do? They get together on Saturdays and they binge drink,

00:32:41.720 you know, all my friends are here. My environment that I put myself in on weekends is conducive to

00:32:47.260 it. And so I just, I can't get out of this loop. How am I going to get out of this loop? I have to

00:32:51.520 make big changes in my behavior. I need a circuit breaker to get out of the loop for other men. 1.00

00:32:56.840 It might be, they go home and they just watch TV, you know, from 7 PM till 11 PM, they just watch TV

00:33:03.700 and they eat bad food. Okay. That's a doom loop. Oh man. And then they're so tired from that the night

00:33:08.620 before that they just go home and they get back in that loop. And we all find ourselves in various

00:33:14.440 bad loops. You know, some guys are into pornography. Some guys are into binge drinking or regular night

00:33:19.880 drinking. There's all types of these doom loops that we get in. And how do you break out of that?

00:33:25.300 You break out of it through what we call the effortless discipline systems. We need to, first of

00:33:29.560 all, eliminate the triggers and temptations and the toxic people that just drag us down into those bad

00:33:35.920 behaviors. And we need to eliminate the distractions. We need to eliminate the cues on our phone that

00:33:40.900 might make us go from, you know, watching some girl's CrossFit video to pornography like that.

00:33:45.620 I know guys who just like, that's their doom loop. That's how they get into that stuff.

00:33:50.020 And so we need to eliminate. And then after elimination comes preparation, we want to make

00:33:55.580 the path to the bad habit as hard as possible. And we want to make the path to the good habit as easy

00:34:01.640 as possible. We want to grease the groove. And how do we do that? It's better planning and preparation

00:34:05.780 than ever before. Anybody who's ever lost weight successfully knows how important better planning

00:34:11.900 is. Because, you know, maybe you tried 10 times to lose 30 pounds and then finally you did it.

00:34:16.420 What was the difference? Well, that was the time that you finally planned all your workouts and got a

00:34:20.280 coach. That was the time that you finally, you know, did all your meal prep or got a meal prep service.

00:34:25.160 That was the time that you actually prepared your meals for the week and got everything in place.

00:34:29.380 And then it finally clicked. And so whatever it is, whatever good habit you want to put into your life,

00:34:34.600 you have to put better planning and preparation to get into it as easy as possible. And then finally,

00:34:40.380 the last one, the effortless discipline systems are EPC, elimination, preparation, and connection.

00:34:46.260 And this is what is missing from most men's lives. This is what you provide through your communities,

00:34:51.020 which is so important because through connection, we get accountability. So many people wake up on

00:34:57.080 January 1st, set a goal and keep it to themselves. But you're the easiest person to let down.

00:35:02.340 If you have a community of like-minded people and you stand up in front of that community,

00:35:07.900 whether it's virtual or whether it's in person, you say, this is the, you know, in the next 30 days,

00:35:12.520 I'm going to do this, or this is the year I'm going to accomplish this, or in the next 90 days,

00:35:16.340 I'm going to lose 30 pounds, or I'm going to start my business this year, or I'm going to fix my

00:35:20.760 marriage. When you stand up in front of that group, you've burned the boats because you're a person

00:35:26.140 of integrity, and a person of integrity follows through on their word. And that is the missing link

00:35:31.540 because, again, most men, we just go through and we suffer in silence and we keep everything to

00:35:36.800 ourselves. But that's probably why we're not achieving all that we can. And for me, you know,

00:35:42.840 I mentioned Bedros a couple of times on here. There's the community aspect of the connection,

00:35:46.640 and then there's the individual aspect. And I always say that you want to have accountability

00:35:50.400 to somebody you deeply do not want to disappoint. Accountability to somebody you deeply do not want

00:35:56.440 to disappoint will help you move mountains in life. And for me, years ago, I was that introverted

00:36:02.460 guy. I wanted to be successful. And I had a bunch of coaches, and they helped me a bit, but I felt like

00:36:07.940 I was only doing 80% of what they suggested. And then I hired Bedros as a coach. And when he said

00:36:14.000 something, I didn't do just 100%. I did 110% because I looked up to him as like a big brother.

00:36:19.820 And if you ever disappoint him, you're going to get this Armenian desk there. And you don't want 1.00

00:36:23.860 to get the Armenian desk there. Totally. But if you find somebody that you look up to,

00:36:30.600 mentor, big brother, and not literal big brother, but like somebody or somebody in the community,

00:36:36.260 and you tell them something that you want to achieve something, your mind will just go into this mode

00:36:42.420 where it will make you follow through. And the follow through is what's missing from most people's

00:36:48.020 lives these days. But the follow through is, you know, it's everything.

00:36:52.120 Yeah. I really like that component. I mean, a lot of what you're talking about, I've seen in

00:36:57.300 Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habits.

00:36:59.740 Sure. Atomic Habits.

00:37:00.600 Atomic Habits. Yeah. And I think what you're alluding to is the idea of, and you actually talk

00:37:07.680 about this in the book, is the idea of systems. Do you say systems over discipline? That once you have

00:37:13.620 systems, discipline is not required. Help me flesh that out a little bit.

00:37:17.020 Yeah, sure. So everybody, you know, if you close your eyes and you think the word discipline,

00:37:22.120 what do you think? You think of somebody who looks like Ryan, you know, getting out of an ice bath

00:37:26.080 with an ax in his hand and, you know, tattoos all over his chest. Like everybody thinks that somebody

00:37:31.760 who does physically hard tasks, that's what you think of as discipline. You know, like white knuckling

00:37:36.380 your way through life, like put a piece of chocolate cake in front of me. I've just done a 72 hour fast

00:37:40.580 and I'm just going to stare it down. I'm like, okay. You know, you can only go through life

00:37:45.120 using so much discipline. You know, there's research that shows-

00:37:49.780 It's like willpower.

00:37:50.200 Yeah. Willpower and discipline are depletable resources. Like when you go and do a workout,

00:37:55.300 you can't work out forever because your muscle energy depletes. You can't, you know, ride through

00:38:00.540 life on like, I'm just going to mentally beat this. It's not going to work forever. What you need

00:38:07.280 are systems. Systems make things relatively easy, simpler at least, and require less mental effort

00:38:15.960 because the day-to-day, our day-to-day of like, hey, you know, getting in traffic and, you know,

00:38:20.260 having the discipline not to give the finger to somebody who cut you off, like that depletes 1.00

00:38:23.960 your discipline. And so, you know, you don't have this inexhaustible supply of it. But if you have the

00:38:29.200 systems of accountability, like, you know, one of the things, Ryan, that I've found over the years of

00:38:34.620 coaching people is that one of the most important keystone habits is people getting to bed on time

00:38:40.260 because if you don't get to bed on time, you don't sleep well and you have a greater chance of

00:38:44.260 hitting snooze. You hit snooze, then you are rushing around and you're late. You over-caffeinate. You

00:38:48.940 have some crappy food at a drive-through. You get caught in traffic because if you would have left

00:38:54.520 10 after 7, no traffic, but you left at 20 after 7 and now there's traffic. And now you're using this

00:38:59.860 up and you get to work and, you know, you're snapping at Sally because she did something in

00:39:04.040 the office and, you know, it's just negative domino after negative domino. But if you get to

00:39:08.740 bed on time, you get up on time. You're refreshed. You actually are making the right decisions all day

00:39:15.060 long and you're knocking down the good dominoes. So if that's the keystone habit and some people

00:39:20.800 might be going, ah, that can't be that simple. It is that simple. Whenever I see somebody who's in

00:39:25.300 disarray, I'm like, have you, have you been out late? And it's like, oh, I was at a seminar and I

00:39:29.920 stayed up late and I got home and I can't sleep. It's all, it almost comes down to that. So you need

00:39:36.080 a system to get to bed on time. And we teach a system in one of our books called the perfect week

00:39:40.540 formula. It's called the reverse alarm. An hour before bed, your system is that if you want to get

00:39:46.000 to bed at 10 o'clock at nine o'clock, an alarm goes off on your phone. That's part of the system.

00:39:51.580 And when the alarm goes off, you turn off all your electronics. You shut down your iPhone.

00:39:55.300 You know, on social media, you shut down your laptop, you turn off the TV, whatever else,

00:39:59.840 everything's turned off. And now you can only do what I call old school activities. You can read,

00:40:04.200 you can talk to your wife, you can make your lunch, hang out with your kids, take a bath,

00:40:08.160 take a shower, whatever. You can meditate, you can pray, you can read the Bible. But eventually,

00:40:13.200 like after about 40 minutes, you're like, ah, I'm ready to go to bed. You know, I'm tired now.

00:40:17.340 And so you get to bed on time from a system and you can put systems into place. Like I'm sure a lot

00:40:23.340 of people have used the system of a workout buddy before because, you know, you have a greater chance

00:40:28.420 of skipping your workout if it's just you. But if somebody's waiting there and it's going to bust

00:40:32.380 your balls for not showing up to the workout, you're going to go. That's part of a system. 0.98

00:40:37.160 And these things, you know, having a workout buddy is a whole lot more effective as a system than relying

00:40:43.940 on discipline alone or making a commitment to the community of, hey, guys, I'm going to take 60

00:40:50.420 days off alcohol. If you say that, you're much more likely to use that system to avoid that beer

00:40:57.720 when you're on a work trip and the flight's delayed and you're in the airport bar and you're

00:41:02.240 like, oh, man, you know, like if you didn't tell that group and use that system of accountability,

00:41:07.880 you'd probably have the beer. And so everything there in the system world is to make things easier

00:41:15.280 for you. You can set these up for your nutrition, your Bible study, whatever it is. Everything can be

00:41:20.940 made easier through systems. And those don't deplete your discipline and willpower for sometimes when

00:41:28.080 you need to use that stuff in cases of emergency. Yeah, definitely. Well, I remember years ago I did

00:41:34.560 an endurance event. It was called the Spartan Goge. And it was brutal. 50-hour endurance event

00:41:41.120 on Joe DeSena's property in Vermont. And it was wild. And some incredible athletes there too that

00:41:46.400 we were all performing with. But I had Joe DeSena on the podcast and he had said, oh, you should come

00:41:52.560 do this. And I'm like, cool, yeah, I'll do it. And before I knew what it was, I said, yeah, I'll do

00:41:57.140 the Spartan Goge because I had done some other Spartan races. And he's like, cool, here's this person's

00:42:01.200 contact. Give him a call and let him know you can come on me. I'm like, great, I'll do that.

00:42:05.520 And so I looked at it after the podcast. I'm like, oh no, what did I sign up for?

00:42:12.200 Right, but you've already made the commitment. I already made, I said I would do it. And I try

00:42:16.060 to be a man of my word. And so I went and did it. And I told, at the time we had a 10,000

00:42:20.720 man Facebook group. So this was years and years ago. And went and did the Spartan Goge. And there

00:42:26.240 were plenty of times where I was like, I'm going to, I'm done. I can't do this. I'm going to throw

00:42:30.180 in the towel. But I remember, I'm like, no, I told 10,000 men that I would do it. And if

00:42:37.680 I don't do it, then I have to go back to 10,000 people that I care about and want to win that

00:42:45.260 I didn't have what it takes. And there were some other motivating factors too. But that

00:42:52.900 was, to me, that was no longer discipline. That was part of a system where I told those

00:42:58.140 guys that I would do it. And I'm not going to face down not doing it. And it helped me

00:43:02.400 in a lot of those moments really get through some difficult times in that event.

00:43:06.500 Man, accountability is such a life hack. It truly is. And it is, you know, it's got some

00:43:12.380 components of it. It's got to be a community of like-minded people. And you have to, you

00:43:18.160 know, have your integrity. But when you do that, it is a burn the boats moment. So, you

00:43:23.780 know, a little word of caution, a word of warning is make sure you read the fine print, you know,

00:43:28.160 when you are committing to something. Before you start signing up for things. But, you know,

00:43:31.800 I think there's something to be said for that too. If it, you know, if you're trying to be

00:43:35.460 a man of your word, if you sign up for something, it's pretty acceptable in modern times, relatively

00:43:42.940 acceptable for you to back out of it. You can come up with all sorts of excuses or reasons

00:43:46.500 or whatever as to why you can't do those things. And most people will be pretty understanding.

00:43:52.100 But my philosophy is that even if you want to get out of it, you actually have to do it

00:43:57.480 because you have to feel the weight of your words. And if you're miserable for three hours

00:44:02.200 doing something you don't want to do, but you committed to doing it, maybe next time

00:44:05.740 you won't be as loose lipped with your commitments.

00:44:11.120 Absolutely. Absolutely. You got to learn a lesson one way or another, for sure.

00:44:15.760 For sure. Yeah. When you talk, you also talk about the last section of the book is really

00:44:20.380 on achieving more in your life. And I think obviously every man who's listening to this

00:44:24.620 podcast wants to achieve more in their life. But you talk about the fastest path. And sometimes

00:44:29.820 I'm, I'm, I'm not skeptical of what you're saying, but sometimes when we hear things like

00:44:34.780 that, it's, it's, we naturally gravitate towards the get risk quick schemes and the programs

00:44:41.400 and the hacks. And it's like, you know, I think there are more effective ways of doing things,

00:44:46.800 but the fastest to me anyways, isn't always the most effective. Help me understand that.

00:44:52.000 Yeah. So what we believe is that when you change your identity and have higher standards for yourself,

00:45:01.120 that this is going to help you make the right decisions automatically. And that's, what's going

00:45:07.640 to be the killer tool, the killer way for you to be able to achieve what you want. And some of these

00:45:15.160 things are going to happen quite quickly because when you, like, for example, some people would be

00:45:21.660 really shocked to say that you can quit pornography overnight. Right. And, and we have this story in

00:45:27.100 the book of some guy who does it because he simply raises his standards because we reframe things in

00:45:32.540 their brain and reframing things in somebody's brain is a super powerful way to get somebody to make

00:45:38.060 really big quantum leaps. And so we simply, you know, it was a coaching client of mine. I said,

00:45:43.200 because he, he knew that I don't watch pornography and I've talked about it before. And he was like,

00:45:47.880 man, you know, I really struggle with this. And I'm like, Hey, no, it's all right. Don't beat

00:45:50.800 yourself up. But just understand that you are an honorable man. You're a family man. And you're

00:45:55.560 just simply the type of man who doesn't do this. And those were the magic words he needed in order to

00:46:02.380 finally flip the switch in his mind and raise his standards. Now, listen, for me, it took me 10 years to

00:46:10.200 stop binge drinking. So I am not an overnight success story and everything. And I was probably

00:46:15.860 too immature to look at the whole standards thing as the quick fix, but it was a quick fix for my

00:46:23.280 friend. And so you need that level of maturity and that level of commitment and that level of

00:46:28.120 understanding your core values. But in that, in certain cases, you can really quit things as long

00:46:34.920 as they're not physical addictions. Obviously if they're a physical addiction, you know, you may need

00:46:39.020 medical help and it's a little bit outside the scope of expertise on that. But if it is simply a bad

00:46:44.040 habit, you can kick bad habits to the curb. It doesn't require 21 day fix or, you know, 60 days

00:46:49.900 or whatever it is. In some cases, you can just simply quit that. Once you say this is out of alignment

00:46:56.200 with who I am as a man, won't work for everything, but there's a lot of things that it can work for

00:47:03.300 and you can quit it really, really fast. So for people that are like, well, what do you mean by

00:47:09.760 the standards and identity? The standards are really the rules for your life. And we use this,

00:47:14.820 you know, my coauthor is a big fan of NFL football and Mike Tomlin, the coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

00:47:21.580 And they're really big on the Steelers organization of standards. Like they have certain rules for

00:47:27.060 performance and, and how you act as a Pittsburgh Steeler. And if you don't ingrain them, you're

00:47:32.880 gone. And it's like, this is the filter through which the organization operates. And for our own

00:47:38.940 lives, we need standards through which we use as the filter for how we operate. Because in this day

00:47:45.480 and age, there's so many decisions to make, right? There's so many things we see on social media.

00:47:49.400 There's so many advertisements you see driving down the road in America and watching on TV or listening

00:47:54.680 to the radio. And there's a lot of things that sound interesting, but you have to run everything

00:48:00.280 through a quick filter so that you can then decide whether to give it any of your attention or to just

00:48:06.120 say, sounds interesting, but I cannot do it. And if you're, if you're going to think about every

00:48:12.560 decision, you will be eventually emotionally and mentally fatigued trying to consume and process all

00:48:19.520 that information. But if you have like simple, like, no, we just don't do that.

00:48:23.540 Great. Like for example, like, um, my mom always has always gone to church every Sunday morning.

00:48:31.140 So if somebody said to her, Hey, why don't you come out and go to a, you know, we're going to go to the

00:48:35.660 play at, it starts at 12 o'clock. We're going to have to leave here at 10 o'clock in the morning.

00:48:39.440 My mom would say, I'd love to, but I can't. I always go to church. It starts at 11 o'clock on Sunday

00:48:45.780 morning. I can't go. So I don't even have to waste any mental energy thinking about whether or not I

00:48:51.780 accept that invitation because here are my standards and it doesn't fit in my standards.

00:48:56.560 I have a personal standard now that I don't consume alcohol at all anymore. So when I go out to a

00:49:01.500 business event and people like, Hey, you want to drink? If I'm with somebody who's trying not to

00:49:06.560 drink, they're going to do this, you know, mental gymnastics. Oh, I want to have a drink, but I

00:49:10.800 shouldn't have a drink. I got an early flight, but I, you know, I don't want the peer pressure. Like

00:49:14.820 it's emotionally exhausting to, you know, have that conversation in your head, but I'm like,

00:49:19.820 Oh, I'm, I just, I'm, I'm not the type of person who drinks alcohol. So thank you.

00:49:23.700 Let's talk about something else. You know, like it just, it's that immediate thing.

00:49:28.600 Well, and it's so, and it's such a firm line stance that people begin to,

00:49:32.540 they begin to expect it from you quite honestly, where it's like, Oh yeah, I don't even ask Craig

00:49:37.920 anymore. Cause I just, I know. And it's not a, it's not a deal. I think where people begin to get into

00:49:42.540 trouble is like you said, the mental gymnastics. And when they start compromising, I mean, it would

00:49:46.820 be easy for example, to compromise, to see your mom when you have other things, but if you break

00:49:52.120 down in that area, it becomes easier to break down the next time and the next time, the next time,

00:49:56.720 for different reasons that are really unimportant. Yeah. Is there, do you ever differentiate between

00:50:02.340 standards and expectations? Because I found in my own life that I might have an expectation to

00:50:08.700 produce a desired result, for example, but sometimes things are beyond my control and it doesn't work

00:50:15.060 out the way that you want it to. Or I know that I've had a lot of frustration in the past around

00:50:23.260 having standard, or excuse me, expectations of other people. And so is there room for a

00:50:30.520 differentiation between what a standard and an expectation of yourself would be?

00:50:34.480 Yeah, totally. And, and so again, the expectation, if it's an, if it's an outcome based thing outside

00:50:40.660 of your control, we, we need to be careful with like incorporating that as a standard, but standard

00:50:46.440 is simply a behavior in which you control. So I fully control whether or not I'm going to consume

00:50:51.060 alcohol. Now I don't fully control like, Hey, I'm going to wake up feeling every morning. I'm going to

00:50:55.860 wake up feeling amazing. You know, there's some days I'm not going to wake up feeling amazing that,

00:51:01.020 you know, that expectation is unrealistic, but it is, it's similar to something, um, that I learned

00:51:08.160 through my study of stoic philosophy that we only control our thoughts, words, and our deeds. So our

00:51:13.660 standards really need to be around our thoughts, our words, our deeds, because nothing else is within

00:51:19.380 our control, the results or somebody else's behavior, or definitely someone else's performance,

00:51:25.240 not within our control. So we do have to separate those, but the effort that if we're inside an

00:51:32.580 organization, we can have organizational standards that someone has to play up to those. And if they

00:51:38.240 don't, there's going to have to be some correction or there's going to be, have to be some, you know,

00:51:43.880 some, um, some leaving of the organization so we can set them, but it all have to be around the

00:51:49.580 behaviors and then the outcomes come because of that. Right. Yeah. I like that. I mean, the outcomes

00:51:56.900 as a result of the standards that you have, not necessarily the other way around. And I like your

00:52:02.040 reframing because you actually reframe something else when I was going through the book and you had

00:52:05.880 said, um, when it comes to your identity, we had talked about that a little bit ago. You had said

00:52:10.240 who you are is what you do. And I think most people have that backwards where it's what you do is

00:52:15.000 then becomes who you are. But if you let those things that you do lead, I think what ends up

00:52:21.720 happening is we could run the risk of, well, here's a great example. You see how many law enforcement

00:52:27.020 guys or military members who wrap up their identity so strongly in their line of work that once they're

00:52:34.260 retired or medically disqualified, you know, we see suicide, we see depression, we see anxiety,

00:52:39.780 we see frustration all because their identity was wrapped up in what they do.

00:52:44.120 They didn't identify their, their identity first and allow that to dictate everything else around 0.97

00:52:49.040 them. Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, what we're looking for here is, is again, it's the right

00:52:55.000 orientation and the orientation needs to come from more of our core values than that. Listen,

00:53:02.120 the core values that go into the law enforcement and core values that go into, you know, the special

00:53:07.080 forces is, you know, one of justice and one of, you know, effort and honor. And those things,

00:53:15.060 once you leave the position, those things don't leave you, you have left a position, which is,

00:53:21.320 you know, different than the core values that are associated with it. And so again, it's all a matter

00:53:26.660 of orientation and the reframing in your mind of what makes you the man that you are.

00:53:31.840 When you're doing the, well, when you're talking about orientation and vision, because we talked

00:53:37.980 about that too, what do you feel is the most compelling factors? Because we tell a lot of

00:53:46.000 guys, Hey, create a vision, cast a vision. I had a question even today where he didn't feel like his

00:53:50.720 vision was good enough. And I gave the recommendation that it doesn't need to be perfect. It doesn't need

00:53:56.240 to be amazing. Start with what you have, do what you can start moving towards it and then let the

00:54:01.560 vision be dynamic. Let it grow and change and morph and evolve over time as you do.

00:54:08.380 Here's the thing is that most people, um, their, their minds are just not wired for it.

00:54:14.520 So have you ever done the Clifton strength finders test?

00:54:18.240 No, uh, I don't, no, I don't think so.

00:54:20.200 Okay. So the Clifton strength finders test is interesting to us. It ranks you on 32 categories of like

00:54:25.880 mental competence stuff. And it gives you your top five and your, and your worst five. I can't

00:54:30.720 remember what my worst five, five are, but three of my top five are vision, strategic and futuristic.

00:54:37.880 And so my brain is wired to think in the future all the time. So you and I are doing this podcast

00:54:43.440 in the first half of the year. I know what I'm doing on December 13th at three o'clock in the

00:54:47.320 afternoon, which is insane to most people, especially my wife. She is the exact opposite of me in this. 1.00

00:54:53.160 And, and so most people are not wired to see the future, see their own future, let alone somebody

00:55:00.340 else's future, but to think in the future, it's just not, honestly, it's not normal. And so it is

00:55:06.140 very difficult for most men. So any man who's has a hard time with this, don't beat yourself up because

00:55:12.100 it's just not a natural thing to you. Some people do think this way, but most people don't. And so

00:55:18.000 what I recommend that you do is you find somebody, somebody's YouTube videos. Um, you know, there's

00:55:25.300 lots of people who put out really great planning stuff. Patrick Bat-David has stuff on this. Um,

00:55:30.820 he's one that comes to mind. There's a guy named Cameron Harreld who has really great books called

00:55:34.640 Double Double, which is about creating a vision for your, for your life and for your business.

00:55:39.180 I've put out a lot of YouTube videos on this. And so, so there's people like me who kind of train

00:55:44.640 you. Like, you know, some people are not naturally good in the gym. So they go to a personal trainer.

00:55:48.600 Some people are not naturally good at creating a vision or futuristic thinking. So go to somebody

00:55:53.520 who is. And what we do is we have kind of fill in the blank templates that will help you. Or we have

00:55:59.940 a list of questions that you've never thought about because they're not natural for you so that you can

00:56:04.760 start to paint a clear picture of where you want to get to. Um, I use the analogy of like when we were

00:56:10.440 kids, you know, whenever you're a kid, you know, somewhere or another, whether it's a TV show or a

00:56:14.540 comic book, you saw somebody with a treasure map. And that's what the vision is for your future.

00:56:19.340 You need to find out where X is on your treasure map. And then when you've done that, when you've

00:56:24.400 identified the vision, then you can start putting the little dotted lines, you know, that get you to

00:56:29.260 the treasure map, which is your, uh, straight line for success. So you need to have that and you need

00:56:34.760 some, some cues and some coaching on how to do it. But like you said, get the first thing out of your

00:56:40.560 mind and then review it regularly every couple of months and, and seek out resources that will

00:56:47.060 make you better at creating it. Yeah. Yeah. That's powerful. Well, Craig, I really appreciate

00:56:52.380 this, uh, this conversation. You've got the new book, the dark side of discipline, and I haven't

00:56:57.160 read the entire book, but I've gone through a lot of it over the weekend. Uh, you sent it over to me

00:57:01.280 and I've been really looking forward to this conversation. Um, will you let the guys know where

00:57:04.860 to connect with you, learn more about the book, pick up a copy of course, and find out more.

00:57:09.000 Yeah. We'd love to just, uh, for everybody grab the book on Amazon. So we have the hard copy with

00:57:13.840 the audio book, um, you know, audio books, hard work. So if you get the audio book, I really

00:57:17.740 appreciate it. Um, it is hard work. I can attest to that. Like imagine having to say every sentence

00:57:23.220 perfectly and yes. And then your editors come back and they're like, redo this, you messed up this

00:57:29.800 word or mispronounced this word or that word. I wrote my book, uh, and I read it out loud so that

00:57:36.840 when I go to the studio, I'm not going to have these tongue twisters. So anyways, I appreciate

00:57:40.540 all the book sales. Um, and then anybody can follow up with me on Instagram. I answer all my DMs. I

00:57:46.180 love chatting about fatherhood. I love chatting about, you know, systems. I love chatting about

00:57:50.820 time management. I'm, I'm, you know, super fanatical about that. And also, you know, the videos about

00:57:56.020 creating your vision. I'd love to share those with anybody. Excellent. We're going to sync everything

00:58:00.220 up guys. Go check it out. Some great work. I've been a longtime friend and fan of what you do. So

00:58:05.000 thanks for joining me today, brother. Thank you. All right, man, there you go. Mr. Craig

00:58:10.460 Ballantyne. He is sharp. Like I said, I've, I've known him for probably eight years and, uh, I've

00:58:17.940 always been impressed by his ability to deliver a very clear message that is transformative, that

00:58:23.440 actually helps people, that is time tested, has been proven. And he's a man who's obviously

00:58:27.920 implementing this stuff in his life, which makes the advice and insight that he gives very

00:58:32.180 credible, which is what we want. Credible insight. So make sure to connect with Craig on Instagram or

00:58:37.960 Twitter or wherever you're doing your social media thing. Uh, also check out his newest book, which

00:58:43.180 is called the dark side of discipline. If you would, if you enjoyed this episode, um, just pay it

00:58:48.540 forward. Somebody needs to hear this. Somebody needs to really understand what discipline is and what

00:58:53.440 to do about it in their lives and how to make their lives more successful. So just send them a text

00:58:58.820 and give them the link or, uh, take a screenshot, tag me, tag Craig and drop it on Facebook or X or

00:59:05.920 Instagram. And if you drop it on Instagram, I will reshare it in my stories as well. That's

00:59:11.440 something I always do because it's important to me that, you know, that I appreciate, uh, you guys

00:59:16.420 sharing. So please do that. And then outside of that, check out the order of man bookshelf at

00:59:21.200 order of man.com slash bookshelf. All right, guys, you've got your marching orders. We will be

00:59:26.920 back tomorrow for our ask me anything until then go out there, take action and become the man you

00:59:31.980 are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge

00:59:40.140 of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of

00:59:45.340 man.com.

Order of Man - May 27, 2025

CRAIG BALLANTYNE ｜ The Dark Side of Discipline

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