Order of Man - Discipline is Overrated ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

00:00:00.000 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart

00:00:04.900 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:00:10.240 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who

00:00:16.900 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.360 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler.

00:00:27.220 I'm your host, and I'm the founder of the Order of Man podcasting movement, which if you don't know

00:00:32.180 what this is all about, my job is to give you tools, conversations, resources, connections,

00:00:38.580 information, books, events, whatever it might be, to help you become a better man.

00:00:44.380 I am on my own personal path. I'm trying to improve my fitness, my relationships, my business,

00:00:48.900 my finances, my spiritual well-being, every facet of my life. Some I have dialed in, some I don't,

00:00:55.000 some I'm further along, some I'm farther behind. And I'm sure that's the case for you too. But if

00:01:00.640 you're a man and you want to improve in any capacity of your life, then you're in the right

00:01:05.200 place. We've been going strong for eight years, and we've been helping literally hundreds of

00:01:10.440 thousands of men improve their fitness, improve their finances, improve their relationships,

00:01:15.640 improve their spiritual connections, and just be more fulfilled and more purpose-driven,

00:01:21.520 more manly. So glad you're here. Today, I've got a really important discussion on the conversation

00:01:27.720 of discipline. You probably saw the title of this podcast is Discipline is Overrated.

00:01:36.400 And let me explain, because I know there's going to be a lot of people who don't agree with me right

00:01:41.280 away. But I think as I explain this, and I talk about five or six steps to prove my point that

00:01:47.300 discipline is overrated, that you might get closer to agreeing with me on this. And then hopefully

00:01:51.620 that drives the needle forward, which is what we want. So let's talk about this first, this idea of

00:01:57.320 discipline being overrated. What we often hear is that motivation, inspiration is overrated. And I

00:02:04.460 would suggest that maybe to a degree it is, but there's certainly value in motivation. There's

00:02:10.640 certainly value in being inspired. Why else has Tony Robbins, for example, or any influential speaker

00:02:18.740 that you might be inspired by been so successful in their lives? Because people crave it. We desire

00:02:24.140 it. We want it. We feel good. It motivates us. It gets us going. It causes us to take action. So it's a

00:02:30.600 great thing. Let's not discount motivation and inspiration. I'm not saying it's the end-all save-all.

00:02:35.060 It's not going to move the needle indefinitely. It obviously is fleeting. And in order to maintain

00:02:41.720 levels of motivation, we have to continually find things to be inspired by, to be motivated by. And

00:02:48.820 a lot of the times it's external. It's not intrinsic. It's external motivation. This guy, Andy Frisilla,

00:02:56.220 for example, said something and it fired me up. Jocko Willink said something and now I'm riled up.

00:03:01.080 Jordan Peterson said something. And now I want to do that thing. So that's good. It serves its purpose,

00:03:06.600 but let's not let it stop there. So I would say the next tier is that now you have discipline.

00:03:12.580 And to me, discipline really isn't based on the way you feel about something. Motivation is

00:03:18.560 emotional-based. I'm excited. I'm energetic. I'm happy. I'm joyous. I'm glad. Those are all emotions.

00:03:26.160 So it's emotionally based. Where it falls short is the willpower. And where discipline picks up

00:03:34.200 is that it's not emotionally based. I would suggest that it's more logically driven.

00:03:39.100 I set out to accomplish this and I'm going to exert my will. I'm going to exert some sort of

00:03:46.180 dominance over my potentially even lack of desire to do a thing. So for example, on a micro scale,

00:03:52.740 I've got a thousand things to do today. I've been gone on vacation for the past 10 days

00:03:57.120 and I've got a laundry list of things that I need to do. So much so that I'm a little demotivated by

00:04:07.120 it. Like I don't feel like doing it, but I know it needs to get done. And so I tackle the task,

00:04:12.720 check it off my list. I tackle another task, check it off my list. And I'm willing, I'm exerting

00:04:18.080 myself through the day by exercising discipline. It's not based on how I feel. It's based on the

00:04:24.560 fact that I made a commitment to do X, Y, and Z. And I'm going to get it done because that's just

00:04:32.040 what needs to be done. And that is a very, very potent combination. When you have motivation,

00:04:37.840 which means that you're feeling inspired and you have discipline, which means you have the logical

00:04:42.200 willpower to drive on, you're unstoppable. So why then do I say discipline is overrated?

00:04:49.880 Well, I'll tell you why. We know that discipline and or what's required to exercise discipline is

00:04:57.100 willpower is fleeting. We know that we have a tank throughout the day that when we're exerting our

00:05:04.840 will and we're forcing ourselves in a way to do tasks that that actually gets depleted throughout

00:05:12.160 the day. So if you're banging your head against the wall, because you said you would do this thing

00:05:18.400 and I'm going to go to the gym and I'm going to eat right. And I'm going to, uh, you know, do all my

00:05:22.480 tasks and I'm going to make all my phone calls. I'm going to talk to these people. That's exhausting.

00:05:27.720 It really is exhausting. You guys who exert discipline on a daily basis, know how exhausting

00:05:35.980 that can be. And if it's exhausting, then it's safe to say that at some point you're going to

00:05:41.540 burn out. And I've seen so many guys, including myself who burn out and burn up because they just

00:05:47.400 exert their will over everything for a short period of time. And then they fizzle out and we hear this,

00:05:55.380 right? I hear this all the time from guys and I've experienced it in my own life. Oh man,

00:05:58.680 I was on a tear. I was doing really well with my fitness and my, my, my business was taking off and

00:06:03.860 it was exploding and my relationships and everything was firing on all cylinders. And then, you know,

00:06:08.540 I got complacent and I kind of fell off the wagon a little bit. And I have over the past several months.

00:06:14.740 That's because I was trying to just dominate everything because I felt like I had to.

00:06:20.780 So if discipline is overrated, what then do we replace it with? Well, I would suggest that we

00:06:29.300 don't replace it with anything, but that we supplement it. So this is a three-part formula.

00:06:34.120 You have motivation. Good. Check. Got it. You have discipline. That's good. Check. Got it.

00:06:39.800 What is the third component? The, the, the best thing that you can do for improving and reaching your

00:06:45.960 goals. Here it is. It's not sexy. It's systems and processes, systems and processes beat motivation

00:06:54.800 because they're not fleeting. It's the system. You just follow the system system and processes

00:06:59.380 beat discipline because there's no willpower or at least less willpower being exerted when we're

00:07:06.580 following a system. That's why having systems in place are so powerful. Look, I could get up

00:07:13.400 and I could go to the gym every day and I could show up and I can make something up and I could

00:07:19.240 grind my way through it. And I could bang my head, my proverbial head, if you will, against the wall

00:07:24.100 and just try to knock it out. And I'll experience results. You know, many of us as men will do that

00:07:29.560 because we can just plow our way through things, but there's, it's ineffective over the long haul.

00:07:35.340 So I want you to create systems and processes. So now that we have that introduction, that it's a

00:07:39.100 three-part formula. It's not just discipline. It's not just motivation. And also it's not just

00:07:44.280 systems and processes. It's all three working together. Now let's talk about how to effectively

00:07:49.480 create systems and processes that will help you inevitably produce the results that you desire

00:07:54.840 in any facet of your life. Number one, you need to get crystal clear about what you want.

00:08:00.680 If I say, for example, that I just want to get in shape, I could go to the gym. I could show up,

00:08:06.980 I could do some curls. I could, you know, do some sit-ups. I could do some bench press. I could do

00:08:12.600 some squats. Like I could do some things. I look around, maybe I see somebody doing some

00:08:17.860 glute bridges. And so I decided to do those. And so it's kind of haphazard and I'm just throwing it

00:08:22.300 at the wall and seeing what sticks. Okay. If on the other hand, I'm crystal clear about getting down

00:08:29.000 to a certain body fat percentage and then knowing why that's important or deadlifting, pulling a certain

00:08:34.700 amount of weight and knowing why that's important or, you know, losing, losing weight, changing your

00:08:41.060 body makeup, completing a difficult physical challenge, like a race, a marathon or a Spartan

00:08:46.780 race or something like that. Okay. Now I'm starting to crystallize what it is I'm after. Like there's too

00:08:52.520 many men who are just, I want a better relationship. I want to have better sex. I want to, I want to be

00:08:58.900 happy. What? Okay. Well, welcome to the club. You want to be happy. We all want to be happy.

00:09:06.080 We all want to be satisfied. We all want to be fulfilled. What's going to do it for you?

00:09:11.320 What is your thing? That's what we need to figure out. And the best way to do that

00:09:15.060 is to get crystal clear in a few areas of your life. So number one is getting your spiritual,

00:09:21.360 mental, and emotional health. These are the non-tangibles, your spiritual, mental,

00:09:25.320 and emotional health in check. You want to work towards improving that facet of your life.

00:09:31.520 Okay. Number two is you want to dial in your relationships and those change. You know, you

00:09:36.040 might really need to work on the relationship with your wife right now. There might be one of

00:09:39.560 your children who really, really needs your attention because they're going through a difficult time.

00:09:44.220 I imagine a young son or a young daughter, maybe a young teenager who's coming into his or her own

00:09:51.180 and they're trying to figure out what's going on with their hormones. And they're trying to keep up

00:09:55.960 with all their buddies at school and they're playing the comparison game. And then they're

00:09:59.740 dealing with all this social media bull crap. Okay. That's a child that probably needs a little bit

00:10:04.960 more of your attention right now. And so that's what you're going to focus on. Not, I want to have

00:10:08.760 better relationships, but I want to build a deep connection with my daughter, with my son. And here's

00:10:15.480 exactly what I'm going to do about it. So we have mental, spiritual, emotional health. Number two,

00:10:20.280 we have your relationships. Number three, we have your physical health, right? Get lean,

00:10:25.700 get strong, lift heavy weights. Yeah, sure. Run and do this other stuff, but lift heavy weights.

00:10:31.520 Look like a man. I can't tell you how often I go around and I see these limp, wet noodle looking 1.00

00:10:35.980 guys. And it's like, I'm trying not to be judgmental, but when I look at an individual like

00:10:42.960 that, I can't help but think that that's a person who is not trying to establish some level of potential

00:10:48.840 in their life. Like go lift some heavy objects, put some muscle on, get strong. I'm not saying

00:10:55.760 that's the only thing you need to do. Like look like a bodybuilder. We all have different goals,

00:11:00.500 but I know plenty of runners. Cam Haynes is a great example. The guy doesn't look like a bean

00:11:05.720 pole. Like he lifts heavy things. He's very capable of doing physically demanding tasks. David Goggins.

00:11:12.640 These are guys who are strong. They're fit. Like that's, that's what we want to be. Dial in your

00:11:18.980 new, your nutrition. That's hard for me. Admittedly, that's where I struggle. I can go to the gym all

00:11:23.400 day long. Nutrition's hard for me, but we can exercise some discipline and we can have some

00:11:27.760 systems in place to be able to dial in our nutrition. We'll talk more about that. And the

00:11:32.140 last component is financial. Get your financial affairs in order, guys. Get your house in order,

00:11:37.700 as my friend Sean Whalen would say. Get the debt paid off. Sell the trailer you're not using. Sell

00:11:43.720 the side-by-side that you haven't used. If you've got a boat, it's winter, like maybe sell the boat,

00:11:49.900 pay off some debt, get rid of student loans, consumer debt, credit card debt, car payments,

00:11:55.280 all of this bull crap that we have that we're consumed by. You know, I've got a friend who I was

00:12:00.800 talking with, with these guys and you know, he's saving five, six, seven, $800 a month by selling

00:12:06.400 some stuff, getting rid of some stuff, getting rid of things that he has payments on that aren't

00:12:10.320 necessary. This is what we can do. And what are you going to do with an extra $500 a month in your

00:12:15.380 pocket or 800 or a thousand or 1500? I can think of a lot of things. Maybe it's pay off additional

00:12:20.700 debt. Maybe it's start a business. Maybe it's to invest in your wife because she wants to start a 1.00

00:12:26.800 business. I don't know, but I'd like an additional $1,500 in my bank account every month. And what good

00:12:32.500 could I do with that? No bank creditors calling me, not worrying about opening the mail because

00:12:38.360 it might be the credit card company calling to collect their payment that's overdue. I don't

00:12:44.440 want to be consumed with that. And not to mention when there's opportunities to serve, I went to

00:12:49.340 breakfast this morning and I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but let me give you an example.

00:12:53.060 I went to breakfast this morning. The lady, she was a great server. She gave me great service. I felt like

00:12:59.140 intuitively she could use a sizable tip. And so I left her a nice tip. I'm not talking about 20 or

00:13:05.300 30%. I'm talking about more than the meal cost itself because I'm in the financial position to

00:13:11.780 be able to do that. And I think she needed that money more than I did. You can't do that if you're

00:13:16.900 not financially free. If you're financially strapped, you're not capable of doing that.

00:13:23.380 Or what about an investment opportunity? What about a real estate deal that comes along or a buddy

00:13:28.420 that wants to get into a business with you that you're really excited about? And you can't do it

00:13:32.200 because you've got 17 cars and you're $140,000 in consumer debt. Guys, get out of debt and get

00:13:41.640 crystal clear about how much you're going to pay off, when you're going to pay it off by, how exactly

00:13:45.900 you're going to do it, et cetera, et cetera. That's number one. Get crystal clear on what you want.

00:13:49.400 Number two, now we begin to reverse engineer the process. We reverse engineer the process. So if I want to

00:13:57.000 have a 500 pound deadlift and that's the thing I want to accomplish and I have a good emotionally

00:14:03.300 charged reason for doing it, then I'm going to work backwards to figure out, okay, well, here's how

00:14:08.900 I do that. I've got to put three leg days in at the gym. I've got to do deadlifts. I've got to do

00:14:14.380 squats. I've got to do leg presses. I've got to do front squats and rear elevated Bulgarian split

00:14:22.140 squats and all this lunges, like all this kind of thing that you guys know. I don't have to explain

00:14:26.160 it to you, but you reverse engineer the process. So I'm going to do exactly this plan, like not show

00:14:31.540 up and like do some legs. No, these are the exact lifts that I'm going to do. And if I do this,

00:14:38.760 then in the next 90 days, I will be able to accomplish that pull. And how do you know?

00:14:42.840 Well, you got to work with experts. You got to hire experts. You got to work with experts. You got to

00:14:47.180 hire coaches. You got to work with mentors, guys that have experienced these results in their own

00:14:52.920 life and, or have a proven track record of helping other people accomplish these goals in their lives.

00:15:01.100 That's what it means to be credible. They're accomplishing it and, or they're helping other

00:15:05.740 people accomplish these goals. If I hire Johnny Loretty, which I do to help me with my fitness and

00:15:11.540 help me with my nutrition. I mean, I look at the guy, he looks like fricking captain America.

00:15:16.000 Odds are, he knows how to get a dude in shape. He's in shape. I'd like to have his physique.

00:15:24.500 Maybe he can replicate those results for me if I follow the system. So we reverse engineer the

00:15:31.040 process and we know the process works because we follow credible sources. We don't turn to our broke

00:15:37.260 buddy to ask us how to get out of debt. He doesn't know how. Now he might be on the path or maybe he was

00:15:45.700 broke or even bankrupt at one point that doesn't disqualify him because now he's dug himself out

00:15:49.760 of the hole. And I hear this a lot. It's like, don't take marriage advice from a divorced guy.

00:15:55.000 I don't know if that's true. I think somebody who's gone through a divorce probably is keenly aware of

00:16:01.140 these somewhat self-aware, keenly aware of things he could have done better things that he wished he

00:16:08.400 would have done. Maybe he's onto his second marriage now, and that one is thriving. So should we

00:16:12.760 disqualify that automatically because he had a past failure? No. We want to look and see what

00:16:18.640 results he's producing now. In fact, I would say that being broke or being divorced or going through

00:16:23.560 health battles or any number of things that happened to us that are crappy situations, getting

00:16:28.920 through that and having the bruises and the blood and the scars to prove the battle that you fought and

00:16:35.620 clawed and dug your way out of that probably makes you more qualified than the guy who's never

00:16:40.840 experienced any sort of that. Because your life isn't free from conflict. And wouldn't you want

00:16:47.860 to know how to get out of that conflict from a guy who's gotten out of his own personal conflict?

00:16:53.320 I certainly would. So we're going to reverse engineer the process. Number three, this one

00:16:57.580 probably is my favorite. I call it flow and friction. Flow and friction. So what we're going to do when we

00:17:05.320 have a goal is we're going to try to get ourselves flowing towards that goal. And then we're going to

00:17:10.300 try to create friction with anything that would hinder us from accomplishing that goal. Flow and

00:17:16.880 friction. So let me give you an example. If we're talking about training and getting your body in

00:17:20.560 shape and getting your fitness in check, a very simple way for yourself to get into flow when you

00:17:26.200 don't want to get out of bed in the morning is to A, know what routine you're going to do the night

00:17:30.200 before to lay all of your clothes out, including your shoes and socks and underwear and shirt and

00:17:34.720 all the things. Get your pre-workout ready. When I do it, I actually put my water, fill up my water

00:17:40.400 bottle. I put it in the fridge and I have my protein and my supplements laid out, ready to go. So it's

00:17:46.460 just, it's streamlined. Flow. I don't have to think about it. There's no resistance in the morning.

00:17:54.080 Not like, Oh, I got to get out of bed. I don't, I don't know what I'm going to do for my workout.

00:17:58.900 And then I got to get up and I got to go into the closet and get my clothes. Like it's,

00:18:04.720 you're just creating friction that, that doesn't need to be there. Create flow. If we're talking

00:18:13.200 about relationships, the flow that you can create with relationships is that maybe you have a date

00:18:17.800 night designated, communicated with your wife. Maybe you have a babysitter that you've just got her on

00:18:25.720 lock from on, on Wednesday nights from seven to 10 on, on an ongoing basis, unless otherwise like

00:18:33.880 that, that's how you create flow. Like that's your sitter every Wednesday night from seven to 10.

00:18:37.600 She knows that, you know it, you know what she pays or charges, you know what you pay and it's 1.00

00:18:42.340 just done. It's dialed. The more that you can create systems in place that allow yourself to

00:18:50.900 grease the groove, if you will, the more likely it is that you're going to accomplish a thing.

00:18:55.040 So where does friction come into play? Well, friction relates to things that are harder

00:19:00.400 than they need to be. So one that I've worked out in my own life is I've shared a little bit

00:19:06.180 about my struggles with alcohol. Well, I need to create friction to consume alcohol because that's

00:19:11.860 not something that's good for me and it's not something I want to do. And it's not something

00:19:15.220 that's in alignment with my goals. So what do I do? Well, first there's no alcohol in the house.

00:19:20.880 You won't find a drop of alcohol in here because I don't want it in here. I want friction.

00:19:26.940 The other thing I try to do is I try to avoid going into convenience stores as often as I can.

00:19:31.920 I do occasionally, quite often, maybe more than I'd like to admit, go get, I've changed to sparkly

00:19:36.920 water. So I've been doing better on that, not sodas or any of that stuff. But I know that that's

00:19:42.440 where I was getting my booze. So it's like, okay, I can't go into that store anymore.

00:19:45.560 I just can't. And people will say, oh, well, that's weak. I've heard people say that. That's

00:19:50.960 weak. You can't even go into the store. Bro, it's not about weakness and strength. It's about

00:19:56.120 systems and processes that create predictable results. So you can call it weak if you want,

00:20:03.560 but you know what? I'm the one who's going to produce the results. And I don't care if it means

00:20:07.980 that I have to abstain or refrain from certain things and place barriers in the way to keep me from

00:20:14.100 doing things I don't want to do. It's crucial, guys, that we create friction on the things

00:20:19.820 that we don't want to do. I know guys who have gone, who have had affairs, who are tempted by that,

00:20:26.900 who sleep around, who womanize. I know plenty of men who do this. 0.98

00:20:31.920 And what I would suggest to a guy like that is probably don't be alone with other women if you're

00:20:36.900 married. Probably don't go out on even luncheons with women by yourself if you're married. Why put

00:20:43.140 yourself in that situation? This requires no discipline. It's just a system. It's friction.

00:20:48.700 It's part of the process. All right. So number, so we've got, let me recap here. Number one,

00:20:54.700 crystal clear about what you want. Number two, reverse engineer their process using experts and

00:21:00.120 even the experience you've had in the past. Number three, we're going to create flow and friction.

00:21:04.660 And number four, you need to reward your behavior, not the result. Reward the behavior.

00:21:11.980 So look, as I'm trying to get back in shape and I am, and I'm working on that, you know,

00:21:20.440 it's good to look in the mirror and see the results that you produce. But the way that I measure

00:21:23.840 my result or measure my performance, I should say, is the fact that I went to the gym this morning

00:21:28.860 and I busted my ass. It isn't what I look like. It isn't the number on the scale. It's the fact that

00:21:37.620 I won in this realm because I went in today, period. And some guys will say, well, but how do you know

00:21:46.740 if that's producing results? Again, this goes back to point number two, you work with experts,

00:21:51.940 you work with coaches, you work with people who are credible. Because I know Johnny's produced

00:21:56.900 results. And so I'm going to keep working with him because I'm pretty confident he can do the same

00:22:01.040 thing for me. I'm a hundred percent competent in fact. So I'm going to trust him. I'm going to trust

00:22:07.260 that because he's done it, that he can help me do it. I mean, one of my greatest pet peeves is when

00:22:13.560 you see somebody who's successful and somebody else asked that person for help and the person,

00:22:18.240 the expert, the person being solicited for help, gives some ideas and guidance and direction.

00:22:23.460 And the person asking for help is like, well, you know, I don't know. That might not work in

00:22:27.960 my situation. You know, I tried that. It didn't work for me. Bro, that's an expert. That guy knows

00:22:36.960 what he's doing. How about just shut up and listen and have some faith and place some trust in the

00:22:43.120 person who's done it himself and keep your mouth shut and do the work. And then after you've done it

00:22:52.000 for a long and sustained period of time, then we'll see who's right. And you know, who's right?

00:22:56.520 The expert's right. You're not right. I'm not right. The expert's right. Like I can't even imagine

00:23:02.500 hiring Johnny, for example, since we're, we're using this scenario and him give me a workout thing.

00:23:08.760 And I'm like, yeah, bro, I don't really want to do lunges today. Or, you know, you told me to do 10

00:23:14.420 reps, but I only felt like doing four. No, the program requires 10. The lunges are part of the

00:23:21.920 program. Do the program. That's it. There's no arguing or debating about it. If, and if you're

00:23:28.180 not going to do that, then don't spend your money hiring people to help you keep your money better.

00:23:33.720 But back to the point I was making is reward your behavior. And I'm not saying you have to throw a

00:23:40.100 celebration. Every time you go to the gym, you shouldn't. For me, that's becoming a standard.

00:23:45.160 That's just the, there's nothing exciting about that, but you know what? A little smile on my face,

00:23:50.380 a little, little congratulatory in my head saying, Hey, right. Good job today, man.

00:23:56.500 Like, I know you didn't want to go to the gym or I had a workout last week where it just,

00:24:00.560 it was brutal. I hate it. I didn't want to be there. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

00:24:04.060 I was pissed off. It, all the weights felt heavy, just crappy. And I did it a hundred percent

00:24:11.400 completion. And I got done. And I was like, you know, right. Good job, man. Like, I know you're,

00:24:15.580 I was still pissed after the workout, but I'm like, good job. You got up. It wasn't fun. You

00:24:21.300 didn't want to do it and you still did it. And so we're rewarding behavior. It's the same with our

00:24:25.200 children. You know, if all you reward them for is winning the game, well then winning the game is

00:24:30.740 the thing and how they do it doesn't really apply. What if they cheated? What if they didn't contribute

00:24:36.480 to the team? Was, is winning the game the most important thing? I think accomplishing your

00:24:41.560 objective is important, but that's an inevitable outcome of the work that you put in. And sometimes

00:24:46.980 you're going to fall short, especially in sports and competitive environments. You can put, you can

00:24:51.640 put balls to the wall. You can go all out a hundred percent, do all the work and still lose. So does

00:24:56.880 that mean you're a failure? Does that mean you're a loser? No, it just means you came up short, but you

00:25:01.000 know what? You can take pride in the fact that the behavior you exhibited, what you did leading up to

00:25:06.200 that point and how you conducted yourself is the win. That's the win. The 500 pound deadlift is not

00:25:12.680 the win. You know what the win is? The fact that you built up to the point of getting to 500 pounds.

00:25:18.980 Getting to zero debt is not the win. The fact that you're capable of paying off debt and not dumb

00:25:24.260 enough to get back into debt, that's the win. So let's celebrate the activity and learn to embrace

00:25:31.060 that the victories come in the activities. And the result is just a manifestation of the real work

00:25:36.660 that you've done day in and day out for months, years, decades. All right. Number five,

00:25:44.780 critique your performance. It's really, really important that you critique your performance.

00:25:48.980 You have to look at what you've done with your relationship or with your finances or with your

00:25:52.460 fitness or with your bank account or with your business or with that client or with whatever

00:25:55.940 and ask yourself as objectively as possible. How did I do? Where did I fall short? What could

00:26:01.400 I have done better? I would also say if you're hiring coaches and mentors in facets of your life

00:26:05.680 that you ask them, they're going to give you objective answers. You've got cloudy lenses on just

00:26:12.000 like I do. And they're clouded by emotion. They're clouded by stories. They're clouded by narratives,

00:26:18.540 false narratives. They're clouded by expectations. Those are the lenses that we wear. They're like

00:26:23.580 contact lenses. And everything that we look at in life is distorted because we're looking at it.

00:26:30.420 And generally men think, we think that we're better than we really are. Like, oh, I performed better

00:26:35.680 than I actually did. Guys, I got news for you. We don't, we aren't as good as we think we are. We can

00:26:43.560 always do better. And if you have a coach or a mentor, an instructor, a teacher, a guide to be able

00:26:48.520 to look at it and say, hey, you know what? Like you could have done that better. Or, hey, you did really

00:26:52.980 good in this facet, but if you tweak this little thing, it's going to improve your results that

00:26:56.740 much more. That's why I say even in the gym, if you just video, how many of you have videotaped

00:27:00.760 yourself? Videotaped. That's like old school. Recorded on your cell phone. You don't videotape

00:27:08.020 yourself anymore. Recorded yourself doing, you know, squats or a deadlift or something. And you're

00:27:13.660 like, man, that felt good. Good form. And you look back at the video and you're like, what?

00:27:17.800 I was a wreck. Right. Cause you have a clouded understanding of the way that you showed up.

00:27:26.020 I used to do this a lot. When I was in sales, we would do role plays. I would be the salesman

00:27:32.380 and they would be the customer or vice versa. And Brett Bartholomew, who's on the podcast

00:27:37.920 earlier this week, he talked about it as well. They do these role play sessions and you're like,

00:27:42.680 man, I nailed it. I did pretty good. And then you go back and you watch the video.

00:27:48.200 It's, it's like a completely different person. And you realize I'm not good at this. So guys,

00:27:53.080 we got to critique our performance and we have to enlist the help of other people.

00:27:56.060 Again, trusted, credible sources to be able to help us critique.

00:28:00.000 And the last point that I want to make that I think proves the point that discipline is overrated

00:28:04.020 and systems and processes where it's at is that you have to track everything. You've just got to

00:28:09.220 track everything. I was at the gym this morning and I track everything with my movement

00:28:12.500 through an app, but there's another guy there today. His name's Scott. And I hadn't met him

00:28:18.360 before, but I just introduced myself because I see him periodically. And he had his notepad,

00:28:22.260 you know, after every rep in his notepad, he was writing his, his totals down.

00:28:27.960 I mean, we see it in the gym all the time. My oldest son at my two oldest sons, in fact,

00:28:31.540 are doing powerlifting and they're doing a phenomenal job. And they came home last night and they're like,

00:28:34.780 dad, we both got PRs for five reps on squat is what they did yesterday. Well, how do they knew that?

00:28:40.460 Because they track it and their coach, but it is getting tracked. They know what a PR is because

00:28:47.700 they track the results, track everything. If you're in a relationship that you want to improve,

00:28:54.060 you can't say, oh, I hope it gets better, but not really have any sort of measurable, tangible

00:28:59.480 way to, to see if it is getting better. It feels better. Again, clouded lenses.

00:29:07.260 How do you know? Rate yourself. Just, just create an arbitrary scale.

00:29:13.160 Hey, on a, on a, on a, on a scale from one to 10, how are you with communicating with your wife?

00:29:18.400 I'm a five. Okay. Let's see if we can get you to a seven in 90 days on a scale from one to 10.

00:29:24.280 How would you rate your intimacy? Oh man, we just, we don't have sex anymore. Okay. Then it's a two

00:29:28.260 or a zero. Let's see if we can get you to a two or five. What would that look like? What does a five

00:29:33.800 in the intimacy department look like? What does an eight look like when it comes to communication?

00:29:39.920 Make those scales. Like if you ever have a hard time wondering how you're tracking this,

00:29:43.840 make a scale, rate yourself, reverse engineer the process, and then rate yourself in 90 days and see

00:29:52.360 if you improve. If you don't, you have more work to do. And by the way, you can fool yourself on

00:29:57.640 those scales while you want, but you're only fooling yourself. Nobody's going to check your

00:30:01.860 scale. Nobody even knows what, what your scale means. You're making it up. So be honest in that

00:30:06.320 assessment, but track everything. It's been said that what gets measured gets improved. So if you want

00:30:10.860 to improve relationships, you want to improve your business, you want to improve your bank account,

00:30:13.880 you want to improve your fitness, then track everything, write it down. And if you do,

00:30:19.800 you'll succeed at a higher level. So guys, that's how you do it. And by the way, a lot of what I

00:30:25.220 shared, I don't know if I said this earlier, but I want to give credit where credit is due. A lot of

00:30:28.940 this came from James Clear's book, Atomic Habits. He's been on the podcast. I have his book up here on

00:30:35.060 my shelf somewhere, but I would highly suggest that you read that book and apply it in your life.

00:30:40.840 So again, motivation, yeah, overrated for sure. Helpful, appropriate at times, but overrated.

00:30:48.240 Discipline, helpful, and appropriate at times, but also overrated. Systems, processes. When you have

00:30:55.320 all three of those, the trifecta of action taking, maybe we'll call it. Discipline, motivation,

00:31:04.000 systems, you become unstoppable. I hope that helps guys. Let me know. By the way, if you're interested

00:31:09.280 in a way to track a lot of this stuff, I use the battle planner. In fact, I've got it right here.

00:31:15.540 I personally use this battle planner. I created it for myself, but we have literally got thousands

00:31:21.600 of probably, gosh, probably, I know at least tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of

00:31:26.880 these copies into the hands of men, and they are brushing it with the battle planner. So if you go

00:31:32.340 to store.orderofman.com, you can check out the battle planner. It's there and it's available.

00:31:37.020 And that's a way you can track everything. And by the way, we talk a lot about some of these other

00:31:41.360 things as well in the battle planning tool. Okay. All right, guys, we will be back next week.

00:31:48.320 Got a good podcast as always lined up for you on men's work, shadow work, getting acquainted with

00:31:57.700 your anger issues. These are all things that I've certainly had to work on. And I've got

00:32:01.540 Connor Beaton on the podcast with Man Talks to address that. So I hope you join us for that.

00:32:06.200 Anyways, guys, appreciate you all. Thanks for tuning in. Hopefully you'll apply some of this stuff,

00:32:09.620 but at the end of the day, go out there, take action and become the man you are meant to be.

00:32:14.200 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

00:32:18.640 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - January 27, 2023

Discipline is Overrated ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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