Developing a Healthy Relationship with Failure ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES
Episode Stats
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Summary
In this episode, Ryan talks about the importance of failure and how to deal with it in order to be a better man. He also talks about a recent experience that he had with failure and gives a framework for dealing with it.
Transcript
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You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart
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your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.
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You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong. This is your life. This is
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who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,
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you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler.
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I am your host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement. Thank you for being
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here. Thank you for believing in the mission of reclaiming and restoring masculinity. It continues
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to become more and more evident that we are lacking strong, virtuous, righteous, honorable,
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capable men in society. And we're experiencing that with lockdowns and mandates and government
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overreach and what we see not only here in America, but abroad. And I really believe that if more men
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stepped up and knew how to step up and were more capable, we wouldn't see so much of this overreach
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and those attempting to grasp for power over us. And I've got a lot to say about that. In fact,
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in the coming weeks, I'm going to talk a lot about power and what is it and why should we fight and
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rebel against it? And what do we replace it with? If we're not after power ourselves or we don't want
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other people in power over us, then what do we replace it with? So I've got some thoughts that I'm
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going to be sharing with you in the coming weeks on that. But today I wanted to talk with you about
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our relationship with failure. I've got an experience that I'm going to share with you
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here shortly. And then I'm going to give you a framework. And I share frameworks with you guys
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because frameworks work best for me. If I have one, two, three, four, five steps, I can more accurately
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and confidently accomplish what it is I'm after and what I want to accomplish. So guys, if you're new to
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the podcast, we're interviewing incredible men. We just had Jason Wilson on the podcast,
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the highest downloaded podcast to date since I started podcasting six years ago. We recently had
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Dan Crenshaw. We had Madison Cawthorne, Andy Frisilla, Grant Cardone, Tim Kennedy, Steve Rinella,
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John Eldridge. Guys, you know who I've had on the podcast. And then next week we've got Ben Shapiro.
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So this lineup is phenomenal. And my goal is to help you with the tools and conversations and
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resources you need to thrive as a man. And I've got a new book coming out. So be aware of that.
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Make sure you subscribe to the newsletter at orderofman.com so you don't miss any of those.
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wherever you're doing the social media thing. And this will help get the word out.
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All right, guys, enough of that. Let's get to this conversation about a healthy relationship
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with failure. So the other day I posted on Facebook in our Facebook group, in fact,
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which you can check out at facebook.com slash groups slash order of man that we've got an event
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this weekend. In fact, as you're listening to this, our event is currently running and it's a father-son
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event. It's all designed to give 20 dads with 20 of their boys, the skills and conversations and
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resources and everything they need to thrive. And I had made this post on the socials about our event
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that happens to be sold out and how excited I am about it, especially since we're running it from
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our new facility, which is here on my property in Maine. And what I had said is that five years ago,
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we launched an event and not a single person signed up, not one, not that one signed up or three signed
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up, but we just didn't have enough. No, no one signed up, not a single soul. And so I lost a lot
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of money in that deal. I definitely lost some pride and I lost some sleep over it as well, because I was
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concerned as to why I couldn't get anybody to sign up. And what I had said on this post is that in those
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sleepless nights, I spent a bunch of time thinking about how I would make this order of man thing
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work and how I would make these events work. And part of the solution is this event that we're
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running here and having the property and the facility and everything else. And so the last three
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or four years, we've sold out of every single event that we've ever put on and hosted. So I talked
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about the embarrassing failure that was five years ago and that sort of thing. And I use the term fail,
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failure, fail, right? And I was taken back. I was blown away with how many men came back and said,
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you know, it's only a failure if you don't learn or failure is just your first attempt in learning.
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And you didn't really fail because you got better. And while I appreciate the encouragement and the
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positive support, I think there's a deeper conversation that needs to be had here. It's amazing
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to me how incapable we as men are of saying the word fail. We refuse to say it. And so we come up
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with little, little workarounds and clever little catchphrases. Like I said earlier, first attempt
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in learning. It's only failure. If you didn't learn bullshit guys, it's failure. Let's, let's,
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let's not change the definition of words to fit our own narrative or to attempt to make ourselves feel
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better about our own inadequacies. And this is very important because if we don't acknowledge
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and embrace the idea of failure, we're never going to improve. And I'm going to explain that here to
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you in a minute. And you might think, well, you know, Ryan, it's just semantics and maybe to a degree
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it is, but even if it's semantics, I want you to wrap your head around the concept of failure.
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Failure. I've never once shied away from failing. I've never once shied away from fail-ure. Now I
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don't believe that I'm a failure. I don't define myself by fails, but the truth of the matter is,
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is that I've, I've fallen short of meeting an objective in my life. Whether that's the relationship
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I have with my wife. A lot of you guys know, I went through a separation years, almost 12 years ago
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with my wife. That was a failure. Now we didn't divorce. We're still together. And so you might
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say, well, see, you didn't fail. Yes. In the grand scheme of things, we're still together, but there
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were some failings on my part in my business. I struggled guys. I have struggled in so many
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different areas and capacity of my business. I've failed when it comes to my health. I've failed when
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it comes to other objectives that I have. And we need to acknowledge the fact that sometimes you're
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going to fall short. And again, it doesn't mean you're a loser. It doesn't mean you're pathetic.
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It doesn't mean you're a piece of shit. It just means you failed. And so if we can learn to
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compartmentalize the experiences that we have, then we can better equip ourselves to not repeat the same
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mistakes over and over again. But if we're trying to coddle ourselves through our own head talk and
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through our own narrative about why, oh, I didn't really fail. This is a learning opportunity.
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Like that ain't going to serve you gentlemen. Is it a learning opportunity? Sure. Is it a failure?
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Yes. And both can exist. Learning and failing are not mutually exclusive.
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You can fail and you can still learn. You can fail and not be a failure. You can fail and get
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better. You can fail and do the things you need to do so that you don't repeat the same mistakes next
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time. They don't exist in this little bubble of like, if I fail once, then I'm just done. My life's
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over and I'm not a man. And like, just end it right here because there's nothing better I can do moving
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forward. No guys, compartmentalize it. You failed. You failed to show your wife how much you appreciated
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her. You failed to resist the temptations that come into your life. You failed to grow your business the
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way that you wanted to. You failed to pay off debt. You failed everywhere all the time. All of us have
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all failed. And we need a better relationship with the concept of failure because if we're running away
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from it, whether we're trying to come up with clever little cute catchphrases or we're just not putting
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ourselves in situations where we can fail at all, then how are you ever going to improve? How are you ever
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going to get better? How are you going to make your life into something that it currently isn't? You're
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not. So let's talk about a very, very simple framework. This is a three-part framework.
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And I would love for you guys to start using the word fail more. Hey man, I really failed on this one
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thing. And by the way, that's not the entirety of the thought process or conversation. Oh, I failed,
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period. No, I failed, comma. So therefore, I'm going to do X, Y, and Z next time so I can be better
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or achieve what it is I'm after. It's not, I failed is not the entirety of your thought process.
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I failed. Therefore, I'm going to do this. That's starting to be more of a complete picture.
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So let's break this down. I work best in frameworks. A lot of you guys do as well.
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And then let's discuss, share with me on the socials, join our Facebook group, join the Iron
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Council, which is our exclusive brotherhood at theorderofman.com slash Iron Council. And let's
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discuss the concept of failure and start having a better relationship with it and not realize,
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or excuse me, realize that it's not the end of the world if we failed in any one thing.
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So the first thing that you need to do is you need to accept that sometimes you fall short.
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And isn't that what failure is? You fell short of meeting a particular objective. And if you never
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fail, what if that just means that you don't have any objectives, right? I've never failed. I've only
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learned. Well, maybe you ought to come up with some goals and objectives that push you a little
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further so that you actually fail. Because if you've never failed, then I got to ask, what have
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you even tried? Have you even tried anything meaningful? Have you ever reached for the stars?
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Have you ever pushed outside of your comfort zone? Have you ever done something that you did not think
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you could do? And if you say to me, well, I've only learned. I've never failed. Okay, well,
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you're playing it safe then. Embrace it, guys. There's the concept of failing forward or failing
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fast. I actually like those phrases better than I've never failed or first attempt in learning.
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Fail forward, fail fast. At least you're saying I failed. At least you're embracing it, accepting it.
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If there's any sort of addiction in your life or struggles in your life,
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what's the first step always? Accept it. You have to accept it.
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And if you're not willing to accept it, then period, end of discussion, nothing further can
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be done. But just accept it. You know what? I failed. And don't label yourself around it.
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I learned this from my friends over at Mind Pump. If you're fat, it doesn't mean you're fat. It means
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you have fat. So you would say, I have fat. I'm not fat, right? You're not defining yourself by it.
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You're not a loser. You may have lost. You're not a failure. You may have failed. So we're not going
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to attach a bunch of insignificant meaning to it. Actually, it is significant, but we're not going
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to attach a bunch of meaning to it that just isn't there. And by the way, if you guys are interested
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in Mind Pump, good friends of mine, you can go check out mindpumpman.com. Mind Pump Man.
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They put together a resource for my listeners, four or five different articles on what they do,
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health, fitness, all that stuff. But there's a lot of psychology. It's very entertaining that
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goes behind it. Just check out mindpumpman.com. That's where I learned that concept of you're not
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fat. You have fat. You're not a loser. You may have lost. You're not a failure. You may have failed.
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So the first thing you need to do is accept it. And because we accept it, then we're able to move
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forward into the next two steps. And the second step is that you have to analyze where you failed.
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Now, look, none of us wants to wallow in our failure. If you fell short and you didn't do
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what you wanted to accomplish, none of us want to spend any amount of time thinking about any longer
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than we have to about that embarrassing moment. And guys, it is embarrassing, especially if other
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people are involved. If I'm in a jujitsu competition or any sports competition or just in business in
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general, or I've got clients or my family sees me struggle, that's embarrassing. And you know what?
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That's okay too. Because at least it means I care about it. If I was indifferent to my failings,
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that would probably mean that I don't care. And that's weird. There's not a single person listening
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to this podcast who doesn't care about aspects of their life. And if there are some of you who are
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listening, why are you even listening to this? Because this is about growth. This is about
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progression. This is about expansion. It's about getting better. And so you accept it. And then
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point number two, you analyze it. And so you have to revisit it. You have to wallow in the pain a
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little bit. You have to feel the sting. You have to be uncomfortable. Tim Kennedy said it best in our
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conversation months and months ago. He said, and I'm paraphrasing, you guys go back and listen to it,
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it was very insightful. He said, if you could bottle up pain and discomfort and failing and losing and
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not winning and the pain and the sting of defeat, he's like, bottle that up. I would drink that all
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day long. And yet what most guys do is they go out and they go straight to the pill or straight to
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the bottle or straight to the website, right? The pornography website, whatever. And that's where
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they go. And they bottle that up. They package that and it's sold to them. And they think, well,
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because I'm sedating myself, you know, that somehow this just goes away. Well, you guys all know that
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an ostrich who buries his head in the sand isn't really free from threat. It just can't see it.
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Our children do the same thing. I've got young children. I've got one who's five. And so every
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once in a while, we'll play peekaboo. Not so much anymore because he's kind of grown out of that,
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but even younger, they play peekaboo, right? They put their hands over their face and it's cute.
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And then when you guys open your eyes, you say peekaboo and there you are. Well, they believe,
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like they actually believe that if they cover their eyes, the threat goes away or that you're
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not there anymore until of course they learn. And we laugh and it's cute and it's funny.
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We do the same thing as men. We laugh at kids because they're stupid, right? And they're not stupid.
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They're, they're ignorant. They're naive. They're innocent. And yet we don't learn any different
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as men. Like, Oh, I failed. I'm going to go hide in the corner and talk and not talk about it. And
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just like pretend it didn't exist. And hopefully nobody saw me. Does it go away? No, it doesn't
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go away. It's still there. You just never addressed it like a man. And so it has time to grow and
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metastasize. And then it will rear its ugly head in the worst possible scenario because you never
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dealt with it like a man. And so you need to deal with it, wallow in it, feel it, feel the sting and
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the pain and the agony and wallow in that defeat. Not for the sake of throwing yourself a pity party
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or getting pity from other people, but that you can feel the weight of it. Like when I lose and I fail,
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I want it to sting because I don't want that to happen again. I don't like the pain. And so I don't
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want it to happen again. So what I do is I spend a lot of time analyzing. All right, where did I go wrong?
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With this particular event I was telling you about, it's like, okay, well, what did I do?
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Was my messaging off? Was my branding off? Do I not have a large enough audience? Was what I was
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offering not compelling enough? Did people not get it? Was it too expensive? Did I not market it well?
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There's an infinite number of variabilities and factors that it could have been. And I needed to
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spend some real time digging into the failure and figuring out what the hell was the problem.
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And the conclusion that I came to in that particular scenario was that my messaging was off.
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I did not clearly articulate a unique selling proposition. I didn't have a great funnel for
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letting people go through that process eventually to the registration page. And I really, really
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failed in that department. And I didn't embrace it. And I didn't say, well, see, like this isn't meant
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to be. That's what a lot of people say. Well, see, I guess it just wasn't meant to be, or even worse as
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a Christian myself, what I hear other Christians say is they'll say, well, you know, it just wasn't
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God's will. Really? You're going to put that shit on God? You're going to use the tools that he has
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given you inadequately, inferior to the way that they could be used. And then when they don't work,
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because you didn't use your tools, your voice, your health, your intellect, your connections,
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the assets you have, you didn't use them to your ability. You're like, see, God doesn't want it to
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work. No, maybe he actually did want it to work and you just didn't use it effectively. And so you
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can pray to him for guidance and direction. Sure. You should. And you can look to other people and that
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might be an answer to your prayers. Hey, what is this guy doing? What's that guy doing? But you can
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only do that in this step two, this analyzation process. What did I do well? What didn't I do
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well? Where did I thrive? Where did I fail? What assets did I have that were good? What assets do I
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need that I didn't have access to? Who's done this before? What can they teach me? What questions should
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I be asking? Break it down? Because when you break it down, you start to move into this third step.
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And that third step is act, act. If you're wallowing in your own self-pity and you're like, see, you know,
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it just wasn't meant to be. And God doesn't want it to be. And I'm a failure and I'm a loser and I'm a
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piece of shit. And like, I'm never going to do anything because that hurts. Okay. Well, you didn't
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complete the cycle guys. And that's why a lot of you have an unhealthy relationship with failure
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because you're only hitting one of these things. You accepted it to the nth degree, but you didn't
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do anything about it. So you failed in one particular instance, you accepted it. And then
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you put all this weird packaging around it. And you said, see, I'm a failure. I'm a loser. I don't
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deserve to be here. I don't deserve to have this level of success. My mother and dad did this to me,
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the economy, the president, my friends, people are out to get me, karma, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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And you accepted it wholeheartedly. And you never did point number two or point number three.
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And because you didn't want to feel like shit next time you failed, and there will be a next time.
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Instead, you said, well, I didn't really fail guys. You know, it wasn't a failure. It was a learning
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opportunity. It was a learning. I meant to learn. Come on now. Let's not fool.
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We can fool ourselves. That's the worst thing we can do. We can spend a lot of time fooling other
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people and dinking around and pretending, you know, like we didn't really struggle as much and
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try to look good in their eyes, but you're never going to fool the man looking back at you in the
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mirror. And so if you say, well, I didn't, I didn't fail guys. Like I, I was just learning. It's
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just, I was, I was training. You know, it's like when you're at the golf course and you're,
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you step up to the tee box and you take a rip and you miss it. You're like, oh, this is a warmup
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swing. No, no, you just missed it. And everybody knows you just missed it. And you know, you just
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missed it, but you tell yourself, I was just, I just, it was a warmup. No guys, come on now.
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Let's be truthful. We talk about that a lot. Let's, let's have some integrity.
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And part of having integrity is acknowledging that you aren't perfect and you aren't as good
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as you think you are. And you don't always get it right. And when I say you might as well point it
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back at me, cause I'm not always right. I'm not always perfect. I don't always nail it out of the park.
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It just is what it is. So everybody's got the acceptance part, right? Where do you go from
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there? Do you label that as, as being you, I'm a failure, or do you say, okay, well, you know,
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like, look, yeah, I failed. I struggled. I'm at the golf, the golf, the tee box. And I swung and I
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missed what do I have to do? Okay. Well, I was too, too far back. My knees weren't bent. My swing
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wasn't proper. Okay. Oh, let's figure it out. Okay. Good. And then you step up, you hit it,
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hit it on a line, hit it where you want, put the ball where it needs to be. But you only did that
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because you accepted it. You analyzed where you went wrong. And then you acted, you took another
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swing. There's a lot of guys out there who have this like false sense of bravado, this machismo,
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this excessive pride. Like I'm strong. I'm bold. I'm assertive. I'm an alpha. I'm this,
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I'm that. Oh, but no, I'd never get into another relationship. Oh, I know. No, my boss screwed
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me. I'd never do that again. Oh, this. Okay. Are you really that tough or are you afraid?
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And it's okay to be afraid guys, but it's not okay not to act in spite of your fear.
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That's what men do. It isn't the absence of fear. I'm afraid. I'm afraid every time I get
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behind this microphone, not to the point where it hinders my ability to do it, but I'm like, okay,
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well, what are the guys going to think? Are they going to judge me? Are they going to like what I
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have to say? And there's always a small percentage of people who don't, but I don't let it paralyze me
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because I realized that their only way to complete this process and have a healthy relationship with
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failure is by working through the entire process. And the last act, the last step is to act.
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And then we measure our performance again through the acceptance. Hey, you know what? I did really
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well that time, or no, I didn't do so well. And we go through this cycle over and over and over again.
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And so let's cut out the nonsense with the first attempt in learning. And I didn't fail. I was just
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practicing and I was just learning. And that wasn't a real swing. That was just a warmup. And then you
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hear guys, this is the one I like a lot is 2021 was just a warmup. But you know, 2022 is, is, is for
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real guys. 2022 is going to be the same as 2021 for the overwhelming majority of you, because you're
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fooling yourself. You're willingly and openly fooling yourself. Stop, stop. You failed. I failed.
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We've all failed. Now, what we do from there is what will define us as men. All right, guys,
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let me know. Shoot me a message. Tell me about your relationship with failure. Maybe you think I'm an
00:22:28.700
idiot. Maybe I just spent, I don't know, 20 minutes explaining something that didn't land with you or
00:22:33.260
didn't, didn't resonate. Or you think, oh, that was stupid. It was semantics, but there's a deeper
00:22:37.040
conversation that needs to be had here. So if you think I'm an idiot, let me know. Not that I need to tell
00:22:41.540
you, you're going to tell me that anyways, but if you think I'm right, you think I'm wrong,
00:22:44.760
or you're going to fall somewhere in the middle, then let's, let's talk about it. Let's discuss.
00:22:48.320
This is what the Order of Man podcast and movement is all about. You can do that at the Facebook group,
00:22:53.540
facebook.com slash groups slash Order of Man, great conversations happening there. Or you can do that
00:23:00.000
in our exclusive brotherhood, which not only are great conversations happening, but also we're driving
00:23:05.140
each other towards action. We're completing the process, challenges, assignments, accountability,
00:23:12.260
camaraderie, brotherhood, pushing, motivating, pulling, inspiring us all in the same direction.
00:23:19.560
Orderofman.com slash Iron Council. All right, gentlemen, let's develop those healthy relationships
00:23:25.480
with failing and failure. All right, guys, we'll be back on next week. Ben Shapiro is on the podcast
00:23:32.280
next week. Until then, go out there, take action and become the man you are meant to be.
00:23:37.500
Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take charge of your life
00:23:42.000
and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.