Order of Man - CRAIG BALLANTYNE ｜ When Discipline Becomes Too Fragile

00:00:00.000 You're listening to a men's self-help podcast, so it's safe to assume that you're interested

00:00:05.660 in becoming more disciplined, structured, and productive. But there is a side of discipline

00:00:12.160 that many of the self-help gurus will not talk with you about, and that is when discipline

00:00:17.320 becomes a liability more than an asset. My guest today, Craig Ballantyne, joins me to

00:00:23.240 talk about what that even means, what it looks like, and what to do about it. We also cover

00:00:28.960 why it's so important that you plan your days out months in advance, how to keep yourself

00:00:33.420 from distractions, but building flexibility into your day, how much a man can get done

00:00:39.980 in what he calls slivers of time, and why you should never paint yourself into a box you

00:00:45.280 don't belong.

00:00:46.020 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart

00:00:50.800 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You

00:00:56.380 are not easily deterred, defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This

00:01:02.660 is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said

00:01:07.720 and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:11.840 Gentlemen, welcome to the Order of Man podcast. I am your host. I'm also the founder of this

00:01:16.340 movement to reclaim and restore masculinity, and we've been going strong for 10 years now.

00:01:21.580 Very excited that you're tuning in, very excited for this conversation, and also very hopeful

00:01:26.760 and optimistic about the growth that we've been experiencing lately, and what I see happening

00:01:32.520 as we roll into the remainder of 2025 into 2026. I've got some big plans I'm going to start

00:01:39.640 introducing and rolling out to you, so stay tuned. And also, if you would, make sure, I'm

00:01:45.080 just going to ask this real quick before we get into it. If you would, just leave a rating

00:01:48.400 and review for this podcast. We're getting close to, I want to say last time I looked

00:01:53.140 about 9,000 reviews on Apple podcasts. I don't even know what it is on Spotify. I should look

00:01:58.560 at that, but if you guys would leave that rating and review, that'd be a huge boost to

00:02:03.640 what we're trying to do and get the word out. This is a grassroots movement, and it has been

00:02:07.000 for 10 years, and we built it to what it is because men like you are out there sharing

00:02:11.560 the work that we're doing. So leave the rating and review, and maybe even take a screenshot

00:02:16.180 as you're listening to this and post it up on the socials or send it to a friend.

00:02:20.080 Also, I do want to introduce you to some good friends of mine over at Montana Knife Company.

00:02:24.660 I was having a conversation with my two oldest boys, lacrosse coach, the other day, and I

00:02:30.040 noticed he was wearing a Montana Knife Company hat. So we had a good conversation about this

00:02:34.920 company. I think you probably know by now they make all of their knives in America, and

00:02:40.220 they're amazing, whether you're out in the field, everyday carry, in the kitchen. And it's

00:02:45.700 cool when you bump into somebody who has their apparel on and believes in what they're doing

00:02:50.200 like I do. So if you're looking for a solid knife and every man should have a good knife,

00:02:55.180 look no further than Montana Knife Company and use the code ORDER OF MAN, all one word,

00:03:00.380 ORDER OF MAN at checkout when you do. All right, let me introduce you to my guest, Craig Ballantyne.

00:03:07.500 He's a high-performance coach. He's an author. He's an entrepreneur. He works with plenty of men

00:03:13.380 and women and helping them achieve success without sacrificing their peace of mind. He's also the

00:03:19.680 creator of the Perfect Week Formula, where he teaches very practical systems, how to master your

00:03:25.340 time, build structure into your day, and designing a life that's rooted in purpose and flexibility and

00:03:31.980 freedom for you. He draws on his own experience, overcoming anxiety and burnout like we all have.

00:03:37.560 He talks about clarity and consistency and execution as keys to achieving personal fulfillment. But

00:03:45.620 he's got a, his latest book is called The Dark Side of Discipline. And he explores the hidden costs of

00:03:52.060 relentless self-control, how that same drive that creates success can also build in rigidity and

00:03:59.440 isolation and detachment and how it can become a liability in your life. But he challenges you to

00:04:07.100 integrate flexibility and connection through that pursuit of excellence. Guys, I really think

00:04:13.560 you're going to enjoy this one. Let me know how it goes and please connect with Craig and share this

00:04:18.060 podcast with others. Here you go. Craig, what's up, man? So great to see you. We, uh, it hasn't been

00:04:24.420 that long since we did a podcast, but I'm glad to have you back on. Yeah, this can be a lot of fun.

00:04:28.920 Thanks. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm always impressed with, I think you're, you're one of the most

00:04:33.340 disciplined, structured people that I know. And I, I think that's good, obviously in a lot of ways,

00:04:38.160 because it helps us to accomplish a lot. I wonder if there's any, uh, if there's any downside,

00:04:42.880 whether it's too rigid or maybe brittle, if things don't go exactly right, or even how that,

00:04:49.760 how you handle the stress of always being so disciplined and regimented.

00:04:54.460 Yeah, it's a great question. And certainly when I was younger, I swung the pendulum really far

00:04:59.620 in one direction. And I think it was too far because, you know, I was cutting out social stuff

00:05:04.020 and it wasn't getting me ahead towards my big goal. So it's getting me a lot of, uh,

00:05:08.720 short-term gain and a lot of recognition from people and like productivity and stuff like that.

00:05:13.540 But my ultimate goal, like, you know, most guys listening to this was to, to be a great father,

00:05:19.020 to get married to a great woman. And I pushed that stuff off for a long time and kind of let

00:05:24.960 the discipline addiction get in the way. So it's a double-edged sword and you can really make the

00:05:30.300 most of it, but you can't be brittle. And I love that you use that phrase, you know, it's kind of

00:05:35.060 like people are anti or people are fragile, even though they should be building to be anti-fragile,

00:05:40.080 which means they get stronger in the face of anything. And so if you can't go and train because

00:05:44.680 you haven't had a certain type of coffee or pre-workout, or if you can't, um, you know, just

00:05:49.140 all of a sudden switch it on at any moment and be high energy because you need to go through some

00:05:55.120 anchor routine or something like that. If you have any of those things in your life, and those are just

00:05:59.580 two examples, then you're actually becoming fragile. You know, if you, if you can't have a great day

00:06:05.740 because you haven't had a certain meal, listen, you're putting yourself kind of in a box and

00:06:10.840 limitations and stuff like that. And you, Hey, listen, you need to have those routines and

00:06:14.740 structure. Those are going to make you productive on those 99% of days. But on days when the poop

00:06:19.960 hits the fan, you got to be able to be reactive and, and bounce back and be resilient. And that

00:06:26.220 kind of stuff, like it, it came up for me today. So I've been up, uh, right now it's eight o'clock

00:06:30.660 where I am. And I've been up since two 15 in the morning, which is, you know, I get up early,

00:06:35.520 but that's even early because that's early. That's yeah. You know, our 14 month old boy is,

00:06:41.140 uh, it's getting some molars, I think. And so he was crying and my wife, my wife is training really

00:06:46.920 hard for high rocks right now of all things. And she's kind of beat up. And I knew that I couldn't

00:06:53.240 let her get up. She, she would love to, she loves our little boy loves spending time with him, uh, even

00:06:59.100 in the middle of the night. But I'm like, no, you said, you're going to stay in bed. I'm going to go and

00:07:02.040 get them. And I had to spend an hour and a half with him, uh, getting him back to sleep. So now

00:07:06.700 I'm behind on my morning routine. And then sure enough at, uh, you know, I finally get into it

00:07:12.120 at four o'clock and then sure enough at four 40 or three year olds, we have a one, two and three year

00:07:16.480 old, uh, you know, we got all the goodness right now. And, um, it's the most amazing thing in the

00:07:22.400 world. And, and, uh, you know, it's the, the three year old came down at four 40 and needed some help.

00:07:29.120 And because she came down at four 40, I was able to get her back to bed, but she woke the two year 0.96

00:07:33.260 old up. So the two year olds downstairs at five 10. And then my wife came down, which is about the

00:07:38.580 regular time that she gets up and, you know, we worked together and we were resilient. And if there

00:07:43.700 was like 10 minutes where I thought that, uh, you know, they were okay to be together and, and they

00:07:49.300 were having a good time and she wasn't screaming too much, then I would go and do a little bit of work.

00:07:53.320 And, and I knew through my planning and preparation, which is like a linchpin and success. And we can

00:07:59.780 talk about that in a second. I knew that through the planning and preparation, I knew what to go

00:08:04.260 and do. And from my experience of 25 years of working in what, um, there was this woman named

00:08:10.760 Alice Monroe and she was a writer and she won all these awards. And she was a mom of three, a single

00:08:16.460 mom of three who was working in a bookstore in the 1960s. And she only had to write in the slivers of

00:08:22.920 time. And I love that phrase, the slivers of time. And so when I was a broke personal trainer, Ryan,

00:08:28.540 25 years ago, you know, I had training clients all day, but I was writing for men's health magazine

00:08:33.400 and trying to build my online business. And I did it in the slivers of time. So I'm one of those people

00:08:38.560 who, if you give me 10 minutes, I'm like 10 minutes, man, I can get a crazy amount of work done.

00:08:44.180 Whereas most people think 10 minutes, what am I going to get done? I may as well scroll my phone.

00:08:48.460 It's kind of the same with a workout. You know, if you can't get a 60 minute workout in,

00:08:53.080 some guys are like, Oh man, what am I going to get done? But the real right resilient mindset is

00:08:59.060 you give me 10 minutes and I can kick my butt. I just got to do the right exercise. I don't even 0.98

00:09:02.820 need a piece of equipment. I know what to do. And that's the mindset going into it. So, you know,

00:09:07.480 we've had a crazy day to start the week, but I'm grateful for all of it. And, um, it's,

00:09:14.540 you know, this is the cliche. Remember the days you prayed for this. I would much rather have a

00:09:19.780 day like today than be, you know, that lonely 40 year old guy that didn't have any of it.

00:09:26.500 Yeah, that that's, well, it's also interesting that phrase, remember the days when you prayed

00:09:30.900 for this in the professional realm, because today's going to be a busy day. I'm taking two days off this

00:09:36.680 week, Tuesday and Friday for some travel. And I know that I've got three days to accomplish what

00:09:42.400 normally takes me five days. So it's a little bit stressful. I'm, I'm having to pack my calendar

00:09:48.560 and make everything as tight as an efficient as I can. Uh, and I get stressed and I'm like,

00:09:53.400 oh man, I wish I wasn't this stressed. But then I remember just like you said, 10 years ago where I

00:09:59.060 would have given anything to be as busy and, and, um, impactful as we've been able to be over the past

00:10:07.620 10 years. So I really think it's a matter of, of, uh, framing and that slivers of time.

00:10:13.920 And that's powerful too, because I jumped on this podcast a little bit early just to make sure I was

00:10:18.480 ready for you to join us. And I had about 10 minutes before you jumped on and I thought the

00:10:24.980 same thing. I'll get my phone out. Instead, I hammered out a dozen emails and just cranked through

00:10:30.700 them because I had 10 minutes to get it done. And yeah, I think that's what a guy's got to do,

00:10:34.560 especially in such a busy, chaotic, hectic environment. Absolutely. Because you have your

00:10:40.100 goals and you, we need the training of discipline to support that. We need the mindset of resilience

00:10:48.100 to deal with the setbacks that throw us off the schedule. And, you know, I went a little too far

00:10:54.560 with the discipline and at times I was fragile, you know, it's like, oh my, you know, now I'm in a bad

00:10:59.100 mood because I didn't get X, Y, Z in the morning. And, and over time, as I became more mature and as

00:11:06.220 some of my friends, like Bedros Koulian, who's a very good friend of mine, a good friend of yours,

00:11:10.480 like he would call me out on it. We're like, bro, come on, man. And Bedros is super California cool.

00:11:15.360 And that's the way I describe him. And I learned a lot by modeling his behaviors of how to deal with

00:11:22.160 setbacks. And so fortunately I, I grew into that position, but I think you bring up a very good

00:11:28.180 point about making sure that discipline serves you and you are not a servant to discipline.

00:11:35.240 And when you kind of like, oh yeah, man, like, okay, I get it. I'm going to use, everything is

00:11:41.240 going to be a benefit to me. And I'm not going to be a slave to some routine, um, and let it affect

00:11:47.540 my mood because, you know, I always use this, um, kind of silly story is it's, uh, you know,

00:11:54.120 if you think of a pro athlete, like whatever game and sport people are watching, if you happen to

00:11:58.920 like a pro sport, right? Like think of LeBron James, cause everybody kind of knows who he is.

00:12:02.740 Like imagine you paid like 500 bucks for a ticket, right? You know, the crazy prices for sports these

00:12:08.160 days and you're like taking your son because maybe he likes them and you go to one of these games and

00:12:12.540 you're like, okay, LeBron's got to play awesome tonight. And LeBron's well, like all huffy puffy

00:12:17.220 because, you know, somebody put his Gatorade in the wrong area and broke his superstition and he

00:12:21.740 plays a horrible game. Like you wouldn't accept that, right? You'd be like, I want my money back.

00:12:25.320 Yeah, that was horrible. But it's the analogy is for us, we are pro athletes. We are expected by

00:12:32.540 whether, you know, if we own a business or our family, we're expected by all these other people

00:12:37.860 to show up and play the game of our lives every single night. Just like we want the pro or, you know,

00:12:43.800 your favorite country and Western singer or favorite performers of any type, we expect

00:12:48.440 them because they're pros to turn pro and show up every night. And we must have that same mentality

00:12:55.140 for ourselves that no matter what happens, if, you know, we get a flat tire or, you know,

00:13:00.360 dog pooped and we stepped in it, we got to show up as our best selves.

00:13:04.520 Yeah. I can hear, I can hear the kids now, uh, still, still on their, on their rant and their

00:13:11.560 terror for the morning, but that's, that's how it goes, right? Exactly. Do you, you work at home

00:13:17.060 primarily then? Yeah, I work at home now. We've set ourselves up pretty well. So we have, uh, we've

00:13:23.800 had an interesting journey and I'll give a real quick synopsis just to give everybody a good story

00:13:27.800 here. So, um, I went, I'm, I'm an old dad. I met my wife, uh, just before COVID, we got married in

00:13:33.760 2021 and she got pregnant and we live in Canada, uh, right now. And we lived in Canada then we didn't

00:13:40.140 like the way things were going. We thought, you know, I don't know if I have to go to the, um, the

00:13:44.060 birth and my wife has to wear a mask and I'm not allowed in the delivery room. Like we're not happy

00:13:47.640 with that. So we moved to Mexico where we could control, uh, the birth situation. So we moved to

00:13:52.780 Cancun of all places. Um, cause one of my friends had, had his kid there and we ended up

00:13:57.680 having our kids in this tiny little hospital in Playa del Carmen of all places. And each one of

00:14:03.200 them got a Mexican passport, uh, because if you're born in Mexico, um, you fill out the paperwork and

00:14:08.000 you're your Mexican citizen. So they all had that benefit of second passport, but then we got 0.95

00:14:13.680 Spanish speaking nannies, um, all day long. And it was really fantastic. Mexico is such a family

00:14:19.320 oriented place. Oh, you know, you and I had, you had that event, um, down in Cancun just after I moved

00:14:24.520 there and that's where we met. And so anyways, we, when we moved back to Canada a year ago,

00:14:29.920 after our son was born that we're happy to be in Vancouver now, you know, no place is perfect,

00:14:34.460 but Vancouver's weather and nature, it's just perfect for me. And it's really great for my

00:14:39.400 mindset and her family is here. So we have a good setup here. And we actually in, in Vancouver,

00:14:46.620 there's a large Mexican population of all, of all things, because a lot of Mexican women come to Canada 0.98

00:14:51.740 for, um, studies and a lot of Mexican men come to Canada for construction work. So there's a lot 0.95

00:14:56.920 of Mexicans here. So we now have two, two Mexican nannies, uh, all day long, um, six days a week. 0.99

00:15:03.180 Well, actually seven days a week. And our children are bilingual because of it. So we ended up, you know,

00:15:09.360 a couple of Canadians went to Mexico, came back with Mexican children and Canadian children,

00:15:13.720 and they're bilingual. And it's really wonderful that we've, I feel it's a leg up for them to have

00:15:19.160 English and Spanish. And like my three-year-old, she flips from the, she has a good vocabulary in

00:15:25.800 both languages. And she just flips from like talking to us to talking Spanish to her nannies. 1.00

00:15:31.320 And, you know, she's rattling off sentences and paragraphs and, and making jokes in Spanish.

00:15:36.800 And it's just unbelievable to watch. And so, um, yeah, so I work at home. So long story,

00:15:43.000 uh, to get to, I do work at home. Um, I work before the kids get up and, you know, on a good day,

00:15:48.740 I'll get up around three, three, three, uh, 345 and work until six when, when my wife will come down 0.86

00:15:55.560 with whoever wakes up first upstairs, uh, usually our son. And then it's family time from six until

00:16:02.420 eight when, uh, the nannies show up. And then I go to work from eight until 11. Uh, we have a basement

00:16:09.100 office. I feel film a lot of stuff down here. And then from 11 to one, I go to the gym, I eat lunch.

00:16:14.440 And then from one till about three 30 or four, I go back hard on the work. And then from four until

00:16:21.200 seven 30 is family time. And we go to bed super early so that, um, you know, I can get up early

00:16:27.780 right now. The kids are not cooperating at all. You know, that you, you know, you've, we're in the

00:16:33.800 phase where it's like, just keep them alive, you know, in that last hour of the day, they're

00:16:39.600 running around with toothbrushes in their mouths and falling on the marble floor in the bathroom.

00:16:44.060 And it's, and then they will not go to bed and you're like bribing them. And yeah, it's, it's,

00:16:49.540 uh, it's challenging last hour of the day, but that's my life. And, and man, it's the best life

00:16:54.100 I've ever had. It seems pretty structured how, so whether you're working at home and you have the

00:17:01.220 structure that you have, or you're working in a corporate office or, or company environment,

00:17:05.760 we can get really inundated with, uh, with distractions and people that want to have

00:17:12.740 conversations and people that want to clamor for our time and attention. Um, for you, it might be

00:17:18.580 your kids or your wife, or, you know, one of the nannies needs something. How do you keep yourself

00:17:23.940 focused in those shorter periods of time and not let everybody else's problems and needs,

00:17:31.220 and desires to creep into your day and steal your productivity?

00:17:37.920 Yeah, it's a great question. And so, so let's address it on the corporate and work side first,

00:17:42.380 where we have a little more control over it. And, um, yes, the other person is emotional,

00:17:47.140 but they're not as emotional as a two year or three year old. So what I like to do is a little

00:17:52.340 bit of reserve reverse psychology on people. When, when people ask me for my time or when people ask me

00:17:57.920 for a call, I will always frame it as, Hey, listen, I know you're super busy and I don't want to take

00:18:04.660 up your time. So if you could send me a three minute loom video, give me the most important

00:18:11.260 stuff. And then that will help us finish the call in 10 minutes, because I know that you have a crazy

00:18:15.840 amount of stuff to do and I don't want to be stealing your time. Right? So, so I have availability

00:18:20.060 from eight to eight 15, shoot me that video, send it to me before a 4 PM tomorrow. And then the day

00:18:27.120 after that, we'll get on a quick call from eight to eight 10 and we'll finish off the rest of it

00:18:33.060 and see what you've done there is you've totally controlled it, making them feel good and showing

00:18:40.040 how it's a benefit for everybody involved. And you know, the old cliche is that people don't like

00:18:45.800 change, but if I gave you a lottery ticket that showed you that you won $10 million, you'd love

00:18:51.740 that change. Right? So every great change, right? People don't like change because they fear that

00:18:58.320 that's going to lead to stress for them. But if you reframe the change in somebody's life as a benefit

00:19:05.600 for them, then they will accept it. Same as reframing these periods of time. So, you know, I like to

00:19:13.360 do that to, you know, cause it's a benefit to them too, because now they're not wasting their time and

00:19:18.260 they're going to get more done, but it also protects my time. So I'll look to do that as much

00:19:23.540 as I can on the work side. And over the years, I have really pushed hard, um, with my team and we go

00:19:31.680 through seasons where, where we kind of get out of this rule, but we push really hard on, on thinking

00:19:38.600 about how, you know, does this have to be a meeting? And even if we have a structured like weekly

00:19:45.340 meeting, I'm okay with canceling it. If I feel like it's not worth the time, like we're just going

00:19:51.720 to be going through the motions in this meeting. Meetings are for decision-making only. They are not

00:19:56.120 for updates. So if you're having a meeting to update people, it's actually a waste of time. And what you

00:20:02.400 need to do, if you are an entrepreneur or if you're even a team member at work is the next time you're in a

00:20:07.680 meeting where it feels like a waste of time, it feels like it's just updating. And so it could

00:20:12.460 be done by a loom video or properly written email, or even a short video talking head video, just look

00:20:18.840 at everybody in the room and count them. Okay. There's 10 people in here. Average salary is $75 an

00:20:24.600 hour. This meeting of an hour, but here, here's the, here's the thing that most people, you know,

00:20:31.180 so you look at it and go, that's $750 meeting. It's not, it's a $1,500 meeting because nobody comes

00:20:37.480 into the nine o'clock meeting having worked right till eight 59 and no one leaves the nine

00:20:44.740 o'clock meeting at 10 o'clock. Well, first of all, mostly didn't go long, but no one. And then as

00:20:49.560 immediately working by 10 Oh one. So it's really double the time because about eight 30 for the

00:20:54.880 nine o'clock meeting, people are like starting to think about the meeting, you know? And so it's

00:20:58.940 really, every meeting is two hours and therefore every person in the room, you have to discover the

00:21:05.260 cost of their hourly worth, multiply it by two, add it all up and go, what am I doing? I just had,

00:21:10.840 I just spent $1,500 on a meeting when it could have been done in a three minute loom video. Oh my

00:21:15.940 goodness. And so looking ruthlessly at your meetings is very important. Can your 60 minute meeting become

00:21:23.220 a 45 meeting, your 30 minute meeting become a 25 minute meeting. And if you think, well, what am I

00:21:28.280 going to do? Oh, say five minutes. Well, now you get to go to the bathroom instead of having eight 30

00:21:32.420 minute meetings back in a row. You know, you get to have some water, you get to work in some

00:21:36.200 slivers of time and you just get that little bit of buffer time. So we're always looking to do that.

00:21:41.000 But as I said, sometimes, and right now we're going through a series or a season of our business where

00:21:46.800 we actually do need to have more meetings, but in every meeting we have a very structured agenda for

00:21:52.680 the meeting. We have very strong. We have what we call a specific definition of success for the

00:21:57.520 meeting. So in order for this meeting to be successful, we have to have made this decision,

00:22:01.700 this decision, and this decision, not update you on it, but actually have made these decisions

00:22:06.860 so that information is sent to these people in advance. And it's not, I don't know if anybody's

00:22:12.780 ever heard the Bezos story, but Bezos, you know, at his meetings, you go, you used to go in and you'd

00:22:18.220 get this thing and everybody'd sit there for 20 or 30 minutes and reading the six page report. So they

00:22:22.660 had all the information and then they would make the decision in the meeting. And that's how he

00:22:26.440 structured his meetings. Very, very decision focused. And so just respecting your time

00:22:31.420 and the time of other people through communication will help you control your time in busy, chaotic

00:22:38.940 environments. And then in the home.

00:22:41.900 Well, and not to mention that, well, I was just going to say not, yeah, not to mention that the

00:22:46.760 most productive people within your organization don't like meetings. So not only are you wasting

00:22:52.460 your time, money, and energy, you're demoralizing your highest producers. They don't want to be in

00:22:58.500 a meeting. They want to go out and produce. I do remember something that I heard years ago and it's

00:23:04.180 been really helpful, whether it's a formal professional meeting or even just somebody who

00:23:09.380 wants to talk to me about some personal issue or something for a minute. As I learned that every

00:23:15.580 meeting has three things and you, you mentioned one of them. It has a start time. It has an agenda

00:23:21.980 and it has an ending time. And if people want to get on the phone with you and it doesn't have those

00:23:28.800 three elements, I'm not interested in doing it. You know, some people will say, Hey, you know,

00:23:32.760 I'll just give you a call whenever. Nope. That's not how meetings go. Let's get something scheduled.

00:23:37.740 Or I'll often say, if somebody reaches out and said, Hey, Ryan, can I call you at 10 o'clock today?

00:23:42.780 Hey, what did you want to talk about? Like, it's really, I don't, I don't want to shoot the breeze.

00:23:48.080 I don't want this meeting to go longer than it needs to. Like, what is it that you want to address?

00:23:52.720 And then I go to the video or the synopsis or give me an overview. And then we'll talk after that.

00:23:57.560 That seems to be so helpful for me. Gents, I'm going to take a step away for a minute. I want to talk

00:24:03.240 about our event coming up in January. This is called the uprising. Now it's not just another men's event.

00:24:08.800 It's really a call, a call for every man who's ready to reclaim control of his life.

00:24:15.580 This world has dulled many men's masculine strength and leadership and purpose. But this

00:24:21.640 uprising event that we do is where men who want to remember who they are and also what they're

00:24:27.460 capable of. It's built on challenge and brotherhood and being honest and truthful with each other.

00:24:34.320 And you're going to be pushed mentally, physically, emotionally, alongside men who refuse to settle 0.97

00:24:39.500 for mediocrity. It's where iron sharpens iron. We leave our excuses behind and we rediscover and

00:24:47.520 recommit to courage and discipline and courage and conviction and all the things that make us as men.

00:24:54.240 You're going to leave not just with the memories of this event and experience, but a mission,

00:24:59.140 because we're going to teach you what to do and how you can build out a plan and a formula and a

00:25:04.420 roadmap for success in 2026. You're going to forge the mindsets and the skills that you need to lead

00:25:11.400 yourself and your family and your clients. And you're going to be able to build this brotherhood

00:25:17.000 in person, face-to-face, shoulder-to-shoulder. It's not about being comfortable. I'll tell you that.

00:25:22.540 It's about transforming your life. So if you want to stop drifting, maybe you're tired of being

00:25:28.300 disconnected and you want to build yourself into something more, join us at The Uprising. That is

00:25:34.240 going to be held January 15th through the 18th, 2026. And we only have 20 spots available for that.

00:25:41.360 So if you go to orderofman.com slash uprising, you can get registered there. All right, guys,

00:25:46.040 do that right after the show. For now, let me get back to it with Craig.

00:25:50.220 Absolutely. It's definitely putting those things in place. And, you know, the end time is,

00:25:54.500 is key. And when you have that communicated in advance, everybody does a lot better with it.

00:26:01.780 So there's, so there's that side. And then in terms of the, the family stuff and the kids,

00:26:06.560 you know, working at home is a lot of my routine is from my days in the past when I was a single guy.

00:26:14.720 And a lot of people would always give me a hard time. Oh, when you get married, when you have kids,

00:26:17.860 you're not going to be able to do this. And I knew, and I know how important a couple hours or even an hour

00:26:25.160 in the morning before anybody else gets up. It's so essential to me. So how do we set ourselves up for

00:26:31.720 success there? Well, we set ourselves up for success to make sure that the kids are on a routine, that the

00:26:36.700 kids are on a routine of getting to bed at a certain time, knowing that they're going to sleep a certain

00:26:40.660 number of hours, making sure that they have a good bedtime routine as much as we can. It's getting a little

00:26:45.980 challenging now, but you know, it's like making sure that they're not having the wrong food before

00:26:50.600 bed, making sure that they're winding down properly, making sure that we have the story time and,

00:26:54.760 and the mommy time and that sort of everything that we know they need, they get before bed so

00:27:00.700 that when we do get them to bed, they sleep very well. And we have blackout blinds for them. We have

00:27:05.180 the right temperature control for them. We have everything that they need. Like, you know, with toddlers,

00:27:10.580 you got to make sure that there's a certain stuffed animal in there, because if you forget to

00:27:14.440 properly prepare the bed and it's, you know, seven 30 and all of a sudden, where's my two-year-old's

00:27:20.940 favorite is hop hop. That's her bunny's name. And if, if, if she had brought down hop hop during the

00:27:26.760 day to the play area and I had forgotten to take it up, you know, just after dinner is when I start

00:27:32.760 getting the kids beds ready. You do not want to be looking for hop hop at seven 25 at night when you

00:27:38.840 would put the kid to bed and it's like, Oh my God, we finally got her into the bed. And now I got to go

00:27:44.140 find hop hops, you know, so it's all planning and preparation. And then, and then I've just

00:27:49.640 monitored over the course of the day. And, and so this is the lesson here is cause and effect,

00:27:54.440 or, you know, making sure that you are observing something and making note of it. And so I know

00:27:59.900 the times of day that are most magical in the house is when they're eating lunch. Um, because,

00:28:05.420 you know, they usually go out and do an activity. My wife's taken them to some play place right now

00:28:09.060 and they, they come back from some activity and they're really, you know, they're telling

00:28:13.560 me all about it and you know, they're eating their chicken nuggets or whatever it is. And

00:28:17.740 they're just having a good time and they're getting changed and going to bed. And then

00:28:21.700 they almost always sleep from about 1230 to 230 or three. So we have them on a, on a routine

00:28:27.160 every single day. And I know I want to be there for them, um, at that time. So when the nannies

00:28:33.520 show up, there's like when our nannies show up, they sprint to the door. They look at these

00:28:38.240 girls like big sisters. It's really, really beautiful and sweet and, and, um, kind. And

00:28:43.660 they have such an environment which they flourish and go and read their books and all that stuff.

00:28:47.300 And I'm like, I know they're in good hands right now. And then they're going to go to

00:28:49.960 the play place. And so I have to sacrifice and I have to go downstairs and work even though

00:28:54.460 as much as I want to hang out with them. Um, and then I go back up and I see, well, I get

00:28:59.820 back from the gym right when they're having the lunch. And I know that's the time. And of course,

00:29:03.720 if my wife needs anything over the course of the day, uh, if anything bad happens, then

00:29:08.460 I'm going to stop what I'm doing because they're the number one priority. But 99.9% of the time,

00:29:13.660 nothing needs my attention. And we do that. And then when they get up, I start to wind, um,

00:29:18.980 you know, in the middle of the afternoon, I start to wind down my work day and, and it's

00:29:22.400 just through like observing that and knowing, okay, if there was any time of day that I do not

00:29:28.540 want to miss it's these times. And then therefore in the other times I have to be very, very dialed

00:29:35.000 in with what I'm doing and saying no to a lot of stuff. And the lessons out there are for everybody

00:29:41.200 who, even if you don't have kids, if you're 19 and a hustler, if you're 60 and you're, you know,

00:29:45.960 starting another business and your kids are out the door, you have to identify the times of day when

00:29:50.800 you're most productive and you have to block it off and do not let anything else get in there.

00:29:54.720 And then you have to identify anything that's wasting your time and start to minimize that.

00:29:59.820 And then you have to delegate the work that's, you know, not yours to do. Like for example,

00:30:04.760 you were saying that just before this, that your, your housekeeper got in and your dog was barking

00:30:09.980 because your housekeeper came in. Well, you've delegated that work because that's not what you 0.99

00:30:13.060 were put here on this earth to do. And I'm not diminishing those people that do manual labor,

00:30:18.420 what, you know, that cut lawns and, um, you know, not at all, shovel snow and all that sort of stuff.

00:30:23.520 I've done a ton of that in my life, but that at this point in your career, that's not what you

00:30:27.860 were put here to do. You were put here on this earth with certain God given talents and you need

00:30:33.800 to make sure that you are putting and outputting your talents and not letting that time get sucked

00:30:41.240 away by, Oh, you know, I should go and rake the, you know, I better rake the leaves. And you got to

00:30:45.740 pay somebody to rake the leaves and you have to do that thing that you were put here to do. So that

00:30:50.400 delegation is key. And then same as in your business, you, you hire good people and then

00:30:55.460 you do their work, you know, cause you, you're hold onto it or you don't trust them to do it

00:30:59.340 cause you don't have time to train them. That's not how it's supposed to work. You're supposed to

00:31:02.920 find good people who have their God given talents and bookkeeping, video editing, et cetera.

00:31:08.060 And you do your main thing and you give them the other work to do because that's what they were put

00:31:13.300 here to do. And you delegate to them and you give them proper instruction so that you can trust them

00:31:18.720 and you train them and you get them indoctrinated in the culture of your company so that they know

00:31:23.620 that they're doing their job for more than just money for the impact they're having on other people,

00:31:28.700 whether you're selling shoes or whether you're the, you're a lawn care company or whether you're,

00:31:33.180 you know, do an order of men, like you just have all that stuff in place so that time becomes

00:31:39.260 very well leveraged and you do your best not to miss out on things.

00:31:44.940 Yeah. I heard one time, you know, people always say, Oh, you can't, the one thing you can't create

00:31:50.900 more of is time. And I understand the sentiment and I'm not nitpicking at it, but you actually can,

00:31:57.720 you can, when you, when you have somebody else doing work that you would normally do,

00:32:02.740 you recapture the two, three, five, 10 hours that it would take you. And you just created

00:32:07.160 additional time for you. Or you turned that hour into now two, three, four hours because it's being

00:32:14.740 leveraged because somebody is doing something that they're better at than you are. Editing is a

00:32:19.280 great example of that. I think though, Craig, one of the biggest concerns that people have when it

00:32:24.340 comes to delegation, and I know this is something a lot of men struggle with. I have too, and still

00:32:28.540 continue to struggle with it sometimes is that this, this time that I free up, you know, if I free up

00:32:36.200 two hours, let's say a day by having Chad do my podcast editing,

00:32:40.800 that time has to be filled with something. And I know so many men and myself included were concerned

00:32:47.300 when I was getting started that I wouldn't be busy enough to make that make sense where I couldn't

00:32:54.040 maybe pay that person or I couldn't generate enough revenue to justify hiring somebody else and freeing

00:33:00.120 that time up. Is that something that you see a lot of men deal with as their fear of delegating out

00:33:05.780 activities they should not be doing? Yeah, it's definitely one of the fears. And I know that

00:33:11.600 feeling of when you have some extra time, it's this void. And if you don't have a properly

00:33:18.400 planned activity, if you don't know exactly what to do in that void of time, you end up filling it

00:33:23.800 with stuff that's, you know, almost as useless as what you delegated. And so understanding,

00:33:28.580 understanding your business is very important and understanding like, and it's not even your

00:33:34.740 business. It's what's, what is the activity that will give you the greatest return on investment

00:33:41.960 in your life? And so there are some men whose greatest, you know, the activity they need to

00:33:47.620 spend their time on is their health. It might be, you know, that they're not working out and they're

00:33:52.680 super overweight or, you know, unhealthy in some way because they've spent so much time working and

00:33:58.440 doing all the things. And, you know, maybe they've generated a good income and they finally

00:34:04.500 started to delegate something. Well, now you got to go work on your health. You don't need to go and

00:34:09.280 start making more money in your business. What you need to do is go and work on your health,

00:34:12.500 or maybe you need to work on your relationship, or maybe you need to work on your faith or whatever

00:34:16.200 it is. You know, the areas of importance, where are you going to get the greatest return on

00:34:20.640 investment from your time? And if it is on the business side, then you have to start looking at

00:34:25.660 what are the revenue generating activities that I should be doing? So we call them RGAs in the

00:34:30.620 business, RGAs, revenue generating activities. And they should be very clear to every business owner.

00:34:36.220 If they're not, you need to step back and take that time that you've just earned back from delegating

00:34:40.840 and figure out what's going to move the needle in this company. Is it going to be growing relationships?

00:34:45.820 Is it going to be filming more content? Is it going to be taking the content that I've filmed and kind of

00:34:51.500 curating it into a book, which can then reach another audience that tends not to listen to the

00:34:56.400 podcast? And you have to just identify what are the big leverage points. And then that's where your

00:35:01.340 activity time needs to go. So it's, it's, um, it's being more strategic. A lot of people are very

00:35:07.140 tactical. They can figure out activities to do, but they're not always moving you in the biggest

00:35:12.720 direction. And so that's where it's the stepping back. You know, in, in the latest book that we wrote,

00:35:18.060 the dark side of discipline, I say, you know, a lot of people are doing hard things out there, the cold

00:35:22.980 plunging, they're, you know, doing CrossFit or high rocks or whatever it is, but they aren't doing the

00:35:27.720 hardest thing of all. And the hardest thing of all for the average person these days is to sit there and

00:35:33.240 think in silence and figure things out because there is so, we're just so used to stimulation, whether it's from

00:35:40.540 an audio book or a podcast or a TV show, or from everything around us and all the distractions that are

00:35:46.720 available. But the biggest needle movers come from when you actually are able to sit there and take

00:35:53.160 all that information that you've collected over the years and connect the dots and figure out this is the

00:35:57.980 major move I have to make. And now I'm going to focus on deep work time on that major move. And when you

00:36:06.580 can figure that out and do that, that's where you would get that huge leverage point.

00:36:10.820 Yeah, that makes sense. I was writing it down. I'm taking notes here because these podcasts are just as much for

00:36:18.380 me as anybody else. And when you're talking about revenue generating activities, I was thinking to myself,

00:36:23.240 all right, well, what, what are mine? And so I wrote these down. Podcasting, obviously doing this, this is a

00:36:30.200 unique skill set that I have and have to do within the business, obviously. But also outreach to podcast guests,

00:36:36.320 running my coaching and group calls, and then engaging in social media, those those four or five things are the only

00:36:43.660 things that I should be doing. And the only things I want to be doing, because I like doing those things. And I don't

00:36:49.740 like the other stuff. So I'm trying to offload and delegate and hire for those other activities.

00:36:54.900 Yeah, you've really figured out your zone of genius. And where you know, that is, or as Bedros would say, like, you're 95,

00:37:01.080 five, five, here are the 5% of activities that only you can do only you should be doing. And they generally

00:37:06.960 align with things that you'd love to do. And so just make sure that as you look at your calendar for the

00:37:12.960 week, even the month, that you are getting adequate time in that area. And so over the years, I've written

00:37:19.380 books called the perfect day formula and perfect week formula. But as I work with people, especially on the

00:37:24.900 creative side, you know, people that need to create content or people that write sales copy, etc. I've

00:37:32.520 realized that people need to look at the month ahead. Because when we looking at planning tomorrow,

00:37:38.180 it's very acute, it's a little bit reactive. And when you look at planning the week, it's a lot more

00:37:43.440 proactive, but it's still a little reactive. But when you think about here's what I need to get done in the

00:37:48.740 month of November, December, January, whatever, you need to look ahead at the entire month and start

00:37:54.400 blocking out half days, and full days. Because one thing I learned way back when I was a broke,

00:38:00.600 struggling personal trainer in 2002. And I started to grow my online business. And I finally had enough

00:38:08.960 kind of side hustle income where I could stop training clients on a Thursday afternoon. And I went

00:38:14.920 from doing, you know, 30 minutes of work on my business, six days a week, to doing four hours in a row on

00:38:23.080 my business in one afternoon, it blew my mind. Like, I was like, I cannot like, so if I worked

00:38:29.380 three hours in 30 minute segments, or I worked three hours in a block, the amount of work I got done in

00:38:35.720 the three hour block was three to five times more than the even though it was the same amount of time,

00:38:42.840 it was three to five times more because you're transitioning in and out. And so if you, you know,

00:38:49.240 anybody listening to this, if whether you're working on a book or scripts or a sales copy, or even legal

00:38:56.220 dispositions, or whatever it is that you, you know, legal briefs, whatever it is that you do, you will get

00:39:00.700 more done in bigger blocks. And so when you look ahead as to where can I really get big needle moving

00:39:08.160 revenue generating activity, it's, it's, you know, the slivers of time is good. But the blocks of time are where you're

00:39:15.960 going to get the mega moves. So I'm all for slivers of time, as we talked about before. But if you can

00:39:21.340 start blocking off time in the months, and it's a lot easier for you to say in three weeks from now,

00:39:26.500 I'm going to take that Thursday afternoon, and work entirely on this main project that I really want to

00:39:32.640 get done. And then you just have to stick to that. And you cannot let anything fit, you know, find its

00:39:38.180 way into it. But that's so much easier on the brain than like saying this Thursday, I'm going to take

00:39:45.880 Thursday afternoon off, because you've already got like 19 things on your to do list for this week. And

00:39:51.020 it's a lot harder mentally. So planning out those half days is just another leverage point that I found

00:39:57.440 with creative types will will help them be more productive over the month than if they were just

00:40:04.040 planning their day, you know, their, their work the day before. Yeah, I, you know, there, I agree

00:40:11.080 with that. And I definitely use that in my own life. The challenge that I often have, and I'm sure a lot

00:40:16.400 of other guys do as well, is that I get bored pretty easily. And I, I don't get distracted, but I get

00:40:24.860 bored. I'm like, Okay, this, I don't want to do this anymore. And so I found myself having to shorten

00:40:30.440 that time block. So I might move four hours of focused attention into two, two hour blocks,

00:40:37.460 not 10, you know, blocks, but two, two hour blocks, because that allows me to get up, go walk around,

00:40:47.420 pump some, you know, pump some, some blood through my veins and like move around and get some energy

00:40:53.140 again, or maybe do check on social media and send a couple of messages to people and then come back to

00:40:58.860 the thing. So I'm trying to find that, that really good balance between that time blocking strategy,

00:41:05.840 but not allowing myself to have a law of diminishing return, because I'm losing my focus and energy on

00:41:11.760 the thing that I'm that's in front of me. No, I think that's a good approach. And, and, you know,

00:41:16.520 some people might do 50 minutes on 10 minutes off, you know, Pomodoro stuff, some people might do 90. 0.94

00:41:22.460 I'm definitely like after 90 of cranking, I'll need to get up and get off my butt for five minutes, 0.54

00:41:28.540 but generally get back into as quick as possible, not to lose momentum. Everybody's just needs to 0.87

00:41:33.600 cause and effect, you know, observe themselves, identify what works and customize it for themselves.

00:41:40.220 But the general principle of having longer blocks is key, and then figuring out the right way for you

00:41:46.300 to do it. But, you know, sometimes, sometimes, you know, you just have to make sure you don't get too

00:41:52.080 fragile in your ways and say, Oh, I need to have a, you know, a break after 45 minutes of work,

00:41:56.420 whatever. Sometimes you just have to power through. Yeah, well, and I like you said that a couple times

00:42:01.960 now is it don't let anything get in the way power through. And I think that there's this popular

00:42:08.660 narrative that says that everything should be enjoyable and fun, and you should be happy all the time and do

00:42:15.840 what makes you happy and only do it. Those people have never written a book. Those people have never written

00:42:20.860 a book. That's true. Good point. I'll tell you what, man. Good point. Listen, I'm sure that, you know, Kobe

00:42:26.720 Bryan or, you know, your favorite UFC person, I'm sure there was times where as much as they love winning

00:42:32.740 in the octagon or winning on the court, I'm sure there was some days that were a grind. And there's, there's

00:42:38.620 always going to be some grind time. I mean, I can't even imagine like Tony Robbins doesn't feel

00:42:43.800 something is a grind. Maybe he doesn't, maybe he's a unicorn of some type, but, but 90% or more of

00:42:49.980 people will have to, we'll go through periods of time where it's like, I don't really want to do

00:42:57.360 this, but you have to look beyond the doing and look at the outcome. And my wife and I were just

00:43:04.820 talking about this the other day is it's a grind. You know, we've talked about the nannies that we have

00:43:09.720 and there's a lot of turnover. You know, a lot of them go home to Mexico. You know, some of them,

00:43:14.680 some of them are able to be here for six months or two years on a tourist or student visa, and then

00:43:19.900 they have to leave the country and there's no way around it. And one of our nannies is leaving in two 0.92

00:43:25.400 weeks because she needs to go see a family member who's really sick. And she's not sure when she's

00:43:29.220 going to come back because it's, you know, it's a very important family member. And it's a grind to find

00:43:34.480 new people. It's a grind to go and interview 10 nannies in order to find one. And then the one comes in 0.97

00:43:39.620 and she, you know, she interviewed well, but she disappoints her or she's, or you think she's

00:43:44.540 awesome, but you can't control whether or not your toddler likes her. Like we've had great nannies

00:43:49.480 and the kids just don't want to play with them. You know, it's, there's something about them,

00:43:53.860 but, but they were awesome because they, you know, in between when the kids were sleeping,

00:43:57.560 they would clean, they would do laundry and they were proactive, but you know, the ultimate boss is

00:44:03.640 the two-year-old. So, so it's a grind finding people and anybody who's an entrepreneur

00:44:09.320 in construction, manufacturing. I mean, almost any industry understands what a grind it is to find

00:44:16.080 good people these days, but you have to look beyond the grind, right? And look at what's the outcome.

00:44:23.000 And so for us, our kids have never noticed the grind of finding these nannies because our kids,

00:44:31.200 man, they're just, they haven't lost their innocence. You know, they're three, two, and one,

00:44:35.220 there's been no traumatic events. You know, there's, they've been only treated well by people.

00:44:40.620 They're learning Spanish. They're playing. They look at these people like sisters. It's really,

00:44:45.860 we've just really created a wonderful environment for them. And it's hard on mom and me, but the

00:44:52.420 outcome, the outcome matters. Like, like we just look at these kids every day and go, Oh my gosh.

00:44:58.480 Um, you know, cause we know so many people who can't have kids that are trying IVF, all this stuff.

00:45:04.240 And, and at age, age 47, I was able to knock out, you know, three kids in three years, you know, and,

00:45:10.660 um, you know, got super like, how blessed am I? And so now, and now we provided this environment for

00:45:17.900 them, but yes, there is going to be some times where it is a grind, but we look, we have to look past

00:45:23.860 that and look at the outcome. And if you're training for something, whether it is training for

00:45:30.840 MMA, whether it's training for a sport, whether it's training for CrossFit or a Tough Mudder,

00:45:36.240 whatever you're, you're going to have some workouts where it's like, okay, if there's probably something

00:45:40.300 else I'd rather be doing than this, but it's about the outcome, uh, that, that you're aiming for.

00:45:45.840 And that goes for work and that goes for writing books. And, you know, whoever is peddling that

00:45:50.580 you're going to enjoy every single minute of it is, is probably a little, uh, self-serving in some

00:45:56.620 way, but, you know, you know, I definitely still feel like I I've picked a vocation where, you know,

00:46:04.560 it feels like work, but I, you know, I'm very happy to work. I look forward to working and I do work

00:46:10.000 every single day. I, I write at four o'clock in the morning, 365 days a year. And if someone was to

00:46:16.000 take that away from me, I'd be upset. Um, I, it just, you know, it's hard to explain to people

00:46:21.160 that when you're sitting in front of a computer, they think like, oh, you would hate that. But

00:46:24.800 it's like Picasso painting, you know, it's like, you wouldn't tell Picasso not to paint on Christmas

00:46:29.120 day if he loved doing it. So anyways, I'm, I'm, I love the output of my work, but sometimes it's

00:46:34.780 brutally hard and that's life. Yeah. But you, but you do attach it to the outcome and that makes it more

00:46:40.940 manageable in those hard moments when you're thinking about, I like this concept that you

00:46:46.480 were talking about fast forwarding to the next month and, and mapping that out, planning that

00:46:51.840 out, thinking about how it might work. What, what specific things are you looking for when you're

00:46:59.240 planning for the following month? Because sometimes it's hard for me to plan for tomorrow, let alone

00:47:04.160 30 days from now. What you're looking for is stuff that you just can't, you know, you quote unquote,

00:47:10.480 can't find time to do, you know, it's important. Um, and it can be in any area of your life.

00:47:16.900 Like, for example, it could be that you, you need to go hunting with your brothers. For example,

00:47:21.980 I just randomly, uh, that, that comes to my mind. I know some people like, you know,

00:47:25.960 they don't have enough fellowship with their brothers. They got three brothers. They never

00:47:28.980 see them. Oh my gosh, we should get together more often. Well, if you do better planning and

00:47:33.900 preparation, like someone just needs to take the initiative and say, Hey, you know, November 17th,

00:47:38.700 we're going to go to this farm, you know, we've got, I'm just making stuff up. I don't,

00:47:42.300 I'm not a hunter, but you know, we got the deer license and all this stuff. And I know

00:47:45.360 this guy says, we need to fix that. Yeah. Right. Right. Exactly. You know, I come from a farming

00:47:50.620 and hunting background, but you know, I just not into it these days. And, but you know, it's like,

00:47:54.380 you just have to take the initiative and then it's the same in your business. Like, man, I really want

00:47:59.920 to start a YouTube channel. I really want to start a YouTube channel, but I got all these fires I'm

00:48:03.320 putting out every week. But if you look ahead to next month, you know, something in your brain

00:48:08.240 just says, Oh yeah, I can block off, you know, Thursday, December 4th to start a YouTube channel

00:48:14.960 and, you know, film my first couple of videos because most people don't have anything scheduled

00:48:19.780 that week, let alone that day. And it's mentally like, okay, I can do it. Now it's the hard part is

00:48:26.780 sticking to it as you get closer. And all of a sudden the fires start, you know, showing up on your

00:48:31.000 calendar, but you have to, you know, you should, you should, the one way that I got over this back

00:48:36.480 in the day when I was doing these types of things was I would, I would rent out a studio or a room

00:48:43.380 at a hotel, like the conference room. And I'd pay the videographer in advance. And now I'm like, well,

00:48:48.740 I'm all in on this. And the day would come and I'd be like, I don't want, I don't want to go film

00:48:53.440 these videos for my YouTube channel, but I've already paid for the room and I've already paid for the

00:48:58.420 person. So I got to show up. And so, you know, doing stuff like that is kind of like a burn the

00:49:03.320 boats moment. Um, so those are the types of things. It could be something around, um, my wife and I do

00:49:09.440 date days because, you know, we go to bed so early and most restaurants don't open early enough for us

00:49:14.220 to have date nights at a restaurant. So we do date days. And so, you know, we, we, you know, there's a

00:49:19.760 lot of these cold plunge sauna places in Vancouver and we go to a, you know, we kind of just do the

00:49:24.540 circuit and try a new one every month. And that's our date day. And, you know, we might go and do

00:49:29.240 coffee shop or lunch after and have some time together and have a, you know, it's a really

00:49:34.420 enjoyable reflection time when we talk about the family and all the types of stuff we do, but it's

00:49:39.720 the same as planning a vacation. Like no one's going to plan a seven day vacation for this week,

00:49:45.080 you know, unless you're like the most spontaneous person in the world. Right. But we plan a seven day

00:49:50.560 vacation months in advance because there's nothing else on the calendar. And so that's the mindset.

00:49:56.720 You just have to look at all there's, everybody's got a list of things they want to do, but never

00:50:00.840 have time to do. And, you know, some of those are not worthwhile and some of them are worthwhile,

00:50:06.400 but you're like, where's the time for this? And so that's how you make the time for it is by looking,

00:50:14.260 you have to look extended into the future because if you're like, oh yeah, I'll do it next month,

00:50:18.360 but you don't put it on the calendar next month comes along and it's still like number 11 on your

00:50:22.920 to-do list. And there's no way that you're going to get around to it. So that's the mindset for

00:50:27.360 looking forward. It's, it's, what do you really feel like you're missing out on life? And that's

00:50:32.780 the stuff that deserves the real planning in a head. Yeah. I like that because so many people,

00:50:40.360 you know, it's the someday mentality, right? Someday I'll do that someday, you know, next month will be,

00:50:45.240 I won't be so busy. Uh, next year I'll be in a better financial spot. It's like, you're,

00:50:50.640 you're going to be in the same financial spot you are right now. If you don't change anything,

00:50:53.800 you're going to be just as busy as you are right now, next month. So just map it out,

00:50:59.260 plan it out and get it going. Yeah. You're probably going to be busier actually.

00:51:02.800 Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and then it's the, the toughest part of it is the protecting of it.

00:51:08.960 So there must be either accountability or there must be, you know, a financial investment that

00:51:14.860 is painful enough that you can't back out of it. And it just needs to be on there. Um,

00:51:20.560 and then that's how you'll actually follow through on it. And, you know, in most cases,

00:51:25.480 you're like the, the day before you're like, Oh, I hope somebody cancels on this. Or like,

00:51:30.180 I hope there's some way out of this. And there ends up being no way out, but you get it done.

00:51:34.420 And all of a sudden you're like, man, I got to do this more often. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love

00:51:40.740 that planning. It, it is hard, you know, to at first, I think, and some people will say, well,

00:51:46.100 you know, I'm just not a planner. It's like, you don't have to be, but if you want to be efficient,

00:51:50.440 then this is what you're going to do. And if you want to get things done, then you'll figure out a

00:51:54.440 way to quote unquote, become the planner that you say you're not. Right. Right. I mean, I'm a big

00:51:59.380 language person because for a long time I suffered because of the language I used on myself. So I used

00:52:04.280 to say I was an introvert and I put, you know, when you say you're an introvert, you put yourself in a

00:52:08.700 box. When you say you're not a planner, you put yourself in a box. When you say, I can never be

00:52:12.500 on time. You put yourself in a box. When you say, I can never lose weight. You put yourself in a box

00:52:16.320 and being in a box is a bad place to be. So everybody listening to this, the next time you catch

00:52:24.720 yourself saying, Oh, I can't do, or I'm not that make a note, make a note and then decide to change

00:52:33.260 because everything is a learnable skill. Being, becoming a planner is a learnable skill. Becoming

00:52:40.000 a less introverted person is a learnable skill. And, and not to say that being an introvert is bad,

00:52:46.060 you know, it's, but it's the hiding behind the excuse is what I did of being an introvert. Like,

00:52:52.160 you know, people said, Oh yeah, you're introverted. And I'm like, okay, that means I don't have to go

00:52:55.840 to events and be social. That means that if somebody wants to talk to me, I can just say,

00:52:59.800 no, I don't really want to talk and kind of be selfish. And so in being an introvert allowed me

00:53:05.360 to be selfish, just like being a planner allows you to miss out on things or to disappoint other

00:53:10.120 people. Oh, I'm not a planner. So I can't plan, you know, to meet up with you next month. Well,

00:53:14.520 that's hurtful to somebody else who, you know, would love your time or, um, especially if it's a very

00:53:20.020 important relationship. So you're being selfish by saying, I'm not a planner or I can't be on time

00:53:25.660 that disrespects other people whose time is valuable. And so all of those things, or I can't

00:53:31.240 lose weight. Well, that's disrespectful for your family because if you're in a position where you,

00:53:36.660 if you don't lose weight, your health is going to suffer. And you know, this could cause disability

00:53:40.900 or, or an early death. That's disrespectful to the other people because you just want to hide

00:53:45.960 behind, I can't lose weight. Well, no, everybody can lose weight. It is a learnable skill. It is

00:53:51.240 hard. There's going to be a grind, but everybody can do it if they are willing to set aside the

00:53:57.140 language. Um, and, and the negative self-talk is, uh, doesn't get, you know, it gets some attention,

00:54:05.320 but it doesn't get the attention that it deserves because, you know, we help people with a lot of time

00:54:11.180 issues in our business. And then we uncover that a lot of the time issues just come from a lot of

00:54:16.020 self-talk, negative self-talk. And a lot of the negative self-talk as, you know, Bedros and I talk

00:54:22.300 about this all the time is most people are, their negative self-talk comes from their childhood,

00:54:27.400 right? You know, something happened to them when they were, you know, eight, nine, 10, 11 years old,

00:54:31.560 and they are hanging onto that subconsciously or consciously. And, and, uh, you know, Bedros and I was

00:54:37.760 just talking about this the other day that everybody's really just a 10 or 11 year old,

00:54:41.180 you know, every adult is just a 10 or 11 year old walking around with those problems and traumas

00:54:46.860 from being 10 or 11. And, you know, my parents started fighting the most when I was 10 years

00:54:51.480 old. And I remember those fights and I didn't understand what was going on and all types of

00:54:55.760 stuff. And, and that probably was the trauma that, you know, there's a little t trauma that,

00:55:00.300 but cumulatively it became a problem because they fought so much. And that really affected a lot that

00:55:07.800 subconsciously has driven a lot of the things that I've done in my life until I unpacked it and

00:55:13.800 realized how it was driving me in a positive and negative way. And, and, you know, that from my

00:55:23.020 childhood and then, and the self-talk controlled me for a while until I understood it and then was

00:55:29.460 able to take control over it. And, and this can happen for everybody. So if you have negative self-talk

00:55:36.160 and you're putting limitations on yourself and you're putting yourself in a box, ask the closest

00:55:40.860 people around you to like raise their hand when they catch you doing it, if you're not noticing

00:55:45.860 when you're doing it, because it really is important because in, you would not allow your child to speak

00:55:53.380 in negative terms about themselves. You would not allow your team members, you know, or coworkers to

00:56:00.300 say, well, you know, I can never show up on time to this meeting. I'm just not that person who shows up

00:56:04.440 on time. Like, could you imagine like, Oh yeah, that's fine. Just, you know, 15 minutes late.

00:56:08.720 No one else will care. Like you would never allow that in anybody else, but we allow that in

00:56:13.220 ourselves, which is, uh, you know, kind of funny, kind of sad, but kind of funny. So, so it's that,

00:56:18.640 that's an important thing. I used to do the same thing with the introversion. I remember using that

00:56:23.960 as an excuse not to go introduce myself to people. And then I made this decision one day and it was,

00:56:28.860 it was just a decision. I was at an event and I told myself, Oh, you know, I don't want to go

00:56:33.360 introduce myself to this person. I don't want to annoy them or put them out or be weird or looked

00:56:38.060 at, you know, all the things that we say. And I remember in that moment, I'm like, you know what?

00:56:43.100 Everybody else is going to do it. Everybody else is, I want to meet this person. I want to connect

00:56:46.780 with this person. I'm not going to say that I'm introverted or come up with any excuse. And I gave

00:56:51.320 myself permission and that's how I view it. Permission to be outgoing, permission to be somebody that I

00:56:58.380 wasn't previously all because of a decision that we get to make each and every day.

00:57:02.620 Yeah. That's awesome. What I did was years ago when Bedros used to run the fitness business

00:57:07.520 summits and I spoke at all of them. I remember it was like 2017 or 18. I, I put this out publicly.

00:57:14.300 Hey, everybody go into fitness business summit. I'm going to hug a hundred people at the event.

00:57:19.300 And, uh, you know, I hugged some people who had known for like five years and they thought it was the

00:57:23.360 weirdest thing in the world. Right. It's like, Oh my God, this guy who never talks to me is just

00:57:26.660 hugging me. Um, but you know, I was keeping track. I was posting like, here's hug number 64.

00:57:32.060 And, you know, it wasn't the only thing that changed my life, um, around the introverts or

00:57:37.760 introversion stuff, but it was really helpful. And, uh, you know, some of the other things I did was

00:57:43.080 I just made a commitment that as soon, because I used to be at these events and be like dreading

00:57:48.140 leaving my hotel room. And I would, you know, I would stand in front of the door and put a big smile

00:57:52.700 on my face, walk into the hallway and start looking for people to talk to. And then

00:57:56.540 I made a commitment that I'll never use my phone in an elevator. And so whenever people get into an

00:58:01.620 elevator, I don't care where I am, I'm going to say hello to them. And sometimes you actually make

00:58:06.400 a person's day by doing it, but, but it's a learnable skill. Like every time I did that,

00:58:10.820 maybe the first few ones were awkward. Right. But you're like, Oh, you learn. So you go, okay,

00:58:16.020 so here's what, you know, I said, hello, maybe my tone of voice was a little, maybe I'll say it like a

00:58:19.920 little bit different next time. And then, you know, maybe when I hug somebody, I'll, I'll be like,

00:58:23.500 Hey man, great to see you. Big hug. And, and then they'll feel less awkward about it. And you just

00:58:27.420 learn these little techniques over time. And just like you give yourself permission, you learn the

00:58:32.400 techniques. And the next thing you know, Hey, I'm actually like, I'm not a white belt in social

00:58:36.980 skills anymore. I'm like, I'm like a white belt with four stripes on it. You know, I guess I am

00:58:42.700 still a white belt, but you know, lots of, lots of learning to go. Yeah. Well, and it feels good 1.00

00:58:48.360 to be able to craft and mold and shape yourself into something you weren't previously, especially

00:58:54.300 if you attached it to the outcome, like you were talking about earlier, you know, I thought to

00:58:57.980 myself, man, if I really want to grow this movement and I really want to connect with powerful people

00:59:02.680 and I want to learn from people, I need to go where they are. I need to put myself out there.

00:59:07.460 They're not going to introduce themselves to me. Why would they do that? So I'm going to have to be

00:59:11.140 the one to go out and do this. And I tied it to the result that I wanted and it made it much more

00:59:16.860 manageable. And now I enjoy it. And so people will, I might sometimes say, you know, I tend to be a

00:59:22.600 little bit more introverted and people are like, what are you talking about? Yeah. Because I

00:59:26.380 understand the importance of being outgoing and putting myself out there. So I do it in spite of

00:59:33.620 my natural inclination to retreat a little bit in those environments. Yeah, totally. I say I have

00:59:39.680 introverted tendencies, but I'm not an introvert, right? It's tendencies to be introverted, but I'm

00:59:45.840 not an introvert because I didn't want to label myself. And then the other thing that I'll say on

00:59:51.300 this is that years ago, I used to have these anxiety attacks. And I realized that even if I was

00:59:56.900 just answering somebody's question on email or Twitter or whatever, the anxiety would go away.

01:00:03.740 And so I realized that all of these things are, you know, they're selfish, anxiety, selfish,

01:00:11.160 and the introversion selfish. And if I just like go and think about all that matters is the outcome

01:00:16.820 on the other person, you know, all that matters is the impact, the feeling that they're going to have.

01:00:21.740 You know, just forget about me. I can get rid of my anxiety by going and helping another person.

01:00:27.040 Everybody wins. So pushing yourself into these new, uncomfortable situations,

01:00:31.960 you know, that's where your growth is going to happen. And that's where you're, you're ultimately

01:00:37.360 going to get results that compound into something that is going to give you better results. And if

01:00:42.520 you stayed in your old format. Yeah, for sure. Well, I love the idea of, of reaching out. I love the

01:00:48.960 idea of pushing yourself and obviously being disciplined and thinking about what the future holds.

01:00:53.600 Craig, I always appreciate our conversations, man. Tell the people how they can learn more about the

01:00:58.580 work that you're doing, learn to be disciplined, but not too brittle or fragile and connect with you.

01:01:04.100 Yeah, absolutely. So we wrote a book kind of on that discipline angle called the dark side of

01:01:08.640 discipline that came out that's on Amazon. And the perfect week formula is the ultimate time

01:01:14.320 management book. So when people ask me like, what book should I start with of yours? It's,

01:01:19.260 I would always say perfect week formula if you need to get more time. So you can find those on Amazon.

01:01:24.160 And then if anybody wants to follow up in conversation, you can hit me up on Instagram

01:01:27.760 at real Craig Valentine. I love Instagram. It's the only social media I understand. So

01:01:32.760 you can hit me up there and I answer all my DMS and happy to have a conversation with somebody.

01:01:38.140 Awesome. Craig, we'll sync it all up, man. I know you're a busy guy and you've got a tight agenda for

01:01:42.720 today, but I do appreciate you taking some time to connect with me and the guys. And I know the men

01:01:47.900 will be served by what you shared today. Thanks, brother. Appreciate you.

01:01:50.840 Yeah. There you go, guys. My conversation with the one and only Craig Ballantyne. I always enjoy

01:01:56.880 my conversations with this guy. He is so sharp, so disciplined and has really created a lot of

01:02:02.180 success for himself. So make sure you connect with Craig, check out his books, tag somebody,

01:02:08.020 share this, do the podcast review like I talked about earlier. And then if you want to learn more

01:02:13.160 about some of these principles and how we're doing this, then make sure you go to

01:02:17.200 the uprising in January, January 15th through the 18th. And you can find out more at orderofman.com

01:02:24.180 slash uprising. All right, guys, we will be back tomorrow for our Ask Me Anything. Until then,

01:02:30.340 go out there, take action and become a man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of

01:02:35.740 Man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.

01:02:40.800 We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

01:02:47.200 We'll be right back.

Order of Man - November 11, 2025

CRAIG BALLANTYNE ｜ When Discipline Becomes Too Fragile

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript