Order of Man

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

00:00:05.000 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.

00:00:10.480 You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong. This is your life. This is who

00:00:17.240 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.800 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler,

00:00:27.860 and I am the host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement. Welcome here.

00:00:33.800 Guys, I'm going to be shooting off the cuff a little bit today because I'm on vacation this week. So I

00:00:38.960 recorded this early, but I wanted to share with you some thoughts about the vacation that I'm on right

00:00:44.900 now with my family. I'm sure we're having a great time at this point, but it got me thinking about

00:00:50.760 some things in my life where, you know, I haven't always been able to physically or even mentally

00:00:58.340 take a break, take a vacation because I've been so consumed with pursuing and chasing my dreams and

00:01:07.080 my career aspirations and my financial goals that I haven't taken the appropriate time for myself and

00:01:15.660 for my family and the people that I care about. So I wanted to talk with you about that today and

00:01:20.900 give you some thoughts and insights into that. But also just wanted to let you know if you're new,

00:01:27.300 this is a podcast designed and dedicated to helping you become a more capable father, husband,

00:01:33.040 business owner, community leader. Society is lacking strong, motivated, capable, courageous,

00:01:39.820 bold men. I'm trying to become that for myself and I'm trying to equip you with the tools to do that

00:01:44.500 for yourself and for your communities and families. So welcome here. Welcome back. Please just leave a

00:01:50.000 rating and review, subscribe. It's a very small price to pay to listen to this podcast if you've

00:01:54.600 gotten any value from what we do here. And I know there's millions of you at this point who have. I

00:01:58.940 looked at the numbers the other day. I want to say we're close to 36 million podcast downloads at this

00:02:08.820 point, which is unreal. It's unreal to me how many men listen to this podcast, get value from this

00:02:17.080 podcast. You guys are messaging me every day. You're telling me what's working, what isn't, how you're

00:02:21.680 improving your lives, how you're becoming better men in a small part to what we share here. So glad

00:02:29.220 you're with us. All right, guys, enough of that. I don't want to do any announcements today. I just want

00:02:32.780 to talk with you about this today because I know so many men and myself included who get so consumed

00:02:38.360 with chasing business acumen and financial goals and all of these other things that they forget to

00:02:46.320 they forget the things that are in front of them right now. I made a post on Instagram the other

00:02:52.220 day and I said this very simply. I posted a picture of myself and my family right before we went to

00:02:56.640 church. This was on Sunday. And I said this, as strange as it may sound, I often need to remind

00:03:03.460 myself not to become so consumed with pursuing what I don't have that I overlook the incredible

00:03:11.020 abundance that I already do. And that has been one of my greatest challenges. I'm aspirational.

00:03:19.660 I'm forward thinking. I'm ambitious. This describes probably most of you. And sometimes we tend to leave

00:03:27.740 the wake of collateral damage in our path because we're so focused on pursuing what isn't ours already

00:03:33.200 that we forget how many incredible blessings that we already have, namely our families and our health

00:03:39.040 and the wonderful abundance of opportunities and possessions and the life health that we enjoy.

00:03:49.080 So this is going to be a short one. And again, this is off the cuff guys, but I want you to just stop

00:03:53.340 today for a minute or this weekend and just count your blessings. Be grateful for what you have.

00:04:01.000 Think about what you have. Figure out a way to be more engaged with what you have more so than maybe

00:04:08.700 what you want. And look, there's seasons. There's times for this. As I said earlier, I'm on a vacation

00:04:13.680 right now with my family as of the release of this podcast. And it hasn't always been this way. It hasn't

00:04:19.680 frankly, always been possible. There was times where I was worried about making the mortgage

00:04:24.020 payment or the car payments or not having that check bounce. And fortunately, at this point in

00:04:29.120 my life, I'm past and I'm beyond having that concern. But I get it. I understand. And there's

00:04:35.420 seasons to everything, but please just let it be a season. All right. No man has ever going to look

00:04:40.600 back as he's sitting on his deathbed and think about how much more he wish he would have worked or how

00:04:45.600 many more arguments he would have got to online or how many speaking tours he would have done.

00:04:51.940 What he's going to do is he's going to think about the baseball games that he missed with little

00:04:57.840 Timmy, the dance recitals he missed with little Sally. He's going to think about the conversations

00:05:03.980 that were left unsaid and undone between his wife and him, how he wish he could just spend a little

00:05:12.000 more time with her, make love with her one more time. These are the things you're going to worry

00:05:17.420 about as you're sitting on your deathbed. These are the things you're going to be concerned about.

00:05:23.120 So we have an opportunity today where we're not sitting on our deathbed, hopefully, and we have an

00:05:27.160 idea, uh, uh, uh, an opportunity to really think about what that might look like

00:05:34.840 and then to alter our course of action. Now it's challenging. Look, as a man who's ambitious,

00:05:42.860 as a man who has the, I believe, noble ambition and desire to serve his family, to make money,

00:05:48.400 to provide income, to provide means and protect, provide, preside the things that we talk about.

00:05:53.260 It's challenging to want to step away. These are what we call noble obstacles and noble obstacles

00:05:59.980 are things that we know we should be doing. And there's a truth and validity to the things

00:06:04.560 that we should be doing. And yet it's an obstacle to our own path of fulfillment

00:06:08.640 and leading and caring about the ones that we love.

00:06:16.100 So what I would say to you guys is think about how you really want to spend your time.

00:06:25.200 You know, everybody's going to tell you that you need to chase business. You need to chase money.

00:06:28.920 You need to chase all these external sources and you should, but I'll tell you what, when my wife and

00:06:33.380 I went through our separation about 12 years ago, I remember she looked at me with tears in her eyes

00:06:39.960 and she said, you know, I would have lived in a cardboard box if it meant being with you.

00:06:48.020 And I forgot that. And instead of turning to her, I turned to making money, gaining notoriety,

00:07:03.200 gaining influence, traction, business and financial acumen. And I did it at her expense.

00:07:11.760 And not only was it at her expense, it was at my expense because I realized that wasn't actually

00:07:19.620 what I wanted. I wanted those things, but the reason I wanted financial success, the reason I

00:07:26.900 wanted business acumen is so that I could be more present for my wife and my children, that I can

00:07:33.300 engage in the hobbies and the interests and the activities that were enjoyable and significant

00:07:37.260 and meaningful to me, that it wasn't the money itself. It was what the money, what the income,

00:07:43.060 what the business would produce for me. And fortunately I had some dark and desperate

00:07:51.820 times in my life where I realized that what I hate to see is I hate to see when men 0.99

00:08:00.240 wait till they hit rock bottom to correct themselves. So the message I want to share with

00:08:08.620 you today is now before it's too late, before you hit rock bottom or you have something catastrophic

00:08:16.660 or you have some life altering set of circumstances is don't get so consumed with chasing this other

00:08:25.800 life that you completely forget to live the life that you currently have. And isn't that the path

00:08:33.300 to satisfaction? Isn't that the path to fulfillment? Look, I'll tell you when I feel worse throughout

00:08:38.020 the day is when I jump on social media and I see everybody else doing everything that I think I want

00:08:45.220 to do. Well, I want to go on that vacation. I want to talk to that individual. I want to go on this

00:08:50.200 trip. I want to drive that car. Do I, do I really want to do that? Or is that what I'm supposed to

00:08:56.980 want to do? Because really, if I think about it, what I want to do is I want to spend time with my

00:09:01.880 family. I want to build the canoe and work on that with my son. I want to have deep and meaningful

00:09:07.900 conversations with my wife. I want to play Barbies and Lego with my daughter and my boys. And I want to

00:09:13.160 just be present with them. Now that's hard to do as we're running a business and we're running a life

00:09:21.380 and we're trying to provide income. But I would say a couple of things. Number one, plan ahead.

00:09:25.180 You know, I wrote down this morning because I don't want to miss a podcast even while I'm gone.

00:09:29.900 I wrote down nine podcasts that need to be done while I'm away. And I want to be fully present with

00:09:35.020 my family while we're on vacation. And so I need to do these podcasts ahead of time so that I don't have

00:09:39.440 to do them while I'm on vacation. So there's nine podcasts right here that I need to do

00:09:43.560 in order to make sure that I'm fully present with my family. So number one, you have to plan ahead,

00:09:49.180 guys. Right? If you're not going to plan ahead and you're not going to think about what needs to be

00:09:53.440 done, then it's going to be very difficult for you to be present at the moment with your family when

00:09:56.680 you're doing the things that you should be doing. Whether that's an extended vacation or whether

00:10:00.900 that's a weekend or just being at the baseball game. You know, are you at the baseball game or are you on

00:10:06.080 your phone? Physically, you may be at the game, but emotionally, mentally, you're on your phone,

00:10:12.280 you're distracted, you're somewhere else. You got to plan ahead, plan for these things, act

00:10:17.760 accordingly. Also take an inventory that I guess this would be number two, take an inventory of your

00:10:23.540 life. Are you doing the things that you need to be doing? Now I can't answer that for you. I don't

00:10:29.900 know what your heart desires. I don't know what your ambitions are. I know what mine are. And I know

00:10:34.520 that they, my actions and my ambitions weren't always in integrity. They weren't always in

00:10:40.480 alignment. And so I worked really hard to make sure that those things were in alignment and people now

00:10:48.200 say, well, wouldn't it be nice? You know, it must be nice that you have this, this opportunity to go

00:10:53.720 on this vacation. It must be nice. You have this opportunity to speak with these people. It must be

00:10:57.340 nice. You make X amount of income. It is nice. It's very nice, but that doesn't mean I didn't work for

00:11:03.820 it. That doesn't mean I didn't plan for it. That doesn't mean that there weren't sleepless nights

00:11:07.440 trying to figure out how to make this thing work and how to grow this business and how to do something

00:11:11.780 that was meaningful and significant, but also have time for my family and the things that are

00:11:16.320 important. I did all of that. And I'm still doing that today. How can I continue to grow this business

00:11:21.740 and my influence and my opportunity to serve you as men and also take care of the other things that

00:11:27.600 are important to me? And that's what we need to realize. We're multidimensional.

00:11:30.920 You know, I know guys who kick ass at business and yet they've been divorced three times. Their kids 0.59

00:11:38.300 hate them. They're probably on their fourth divorce at this point. Well, cool. Congratulations. You can

00:11:46.880 make a shit ton of money, but you can't maintain a relationship with somebody who cares about you to

00:11:53.160 save your life. Is that winning? Is that success? Hell no, that's not success. That's not success by 0.56

00:11:59.600 anybody's metric. And I just told you, I don't know what your heart desires, but I know that that

00:12:03.840 is not success by any metric, by anybody's measurement. Because again, go to their deathbed.

00:12:10.900 Not, I wish I could have put an extra zero on that bank account statement. No.

00:12:17.780 It's what I wish I could have hit the game. I wish I could have spent time with my family. I wish we

00:12:23.320 could have went on that vacation. I wish I would have done that thing. I wish I would have said yes to

00:12:26.640 those opportunities and those experiences. I've got personal friends who are like, you know, I'd love

00:12:31.020 to go do that, that thing and go on that adventure, spend time with my family, but I've got work.

00:12:37.160 That ain't it guys. I'm telling you right now that ain't it. And again, there's seasons. You got to do

00:12:44.100 what you got to do in the season, but seasons end, they come and go. And some of you guys, some of you

00:12:50.680 older gentlemen who listen to this podcast, maybe you're 50, 60, 70, 80 years old, listen to this

00:12:54.980 podcast, know exactly what I'm talking about. I wish you'd turn around and smack some of us in the

00:12:58.660 face who are 20, 30, 40 years old and say, guys, wake up. I've talked with plenty of you 0.92

00:13:04.960 older gentlemen who are wise because you've got the time. And then you have these young guys who

00:13:13.300 are arrogant and think they'll never get old. We're all going to get old. I just hit 40 this year.

00:13:22.140 That's not old, but man, it feels like it. I never thought I would hit 40. Never. And yet here I am.

00:13:30.560 So guys, my message to you today, again, as I'm on vacation, spending time with family and

00:13:34.700 creating these opportunities and really going to work, making sure that I can do it and doing the

00:13:39.720 podcast and get everything else in line so I can be fully present with my family. My message to you

00:13:43.920 is this. Don't get so consumed with chasing things and pursuing things that you don't have that you

00:13:52.400 forget to live your life today. I want you to be fulfilled. I want you to be satisfied. I want you

00:13:56.960 to be happy. Part of that is chasing our dreams. But the other part of it, a large part of it that

00:14:01.840 most of us overlook is being content and happy and fulfilled and satisfied with what we have today.

00:14:08.300 And that starts with gratitude. Be grateful. We spend so much time focusing on what we don't have

00:14:17.420 because we spend so much time comparing ourselves to other people on these devices. Stop it. Knock it

00:14:25.720 off. Think about what you have today. Be grateful for what you have today. Be fully present with what you

00:14:33.440 have today. And I guarantee your life will get better. And I don't actually think it's a coincidence,

00:14:38.440 but if you show gratitude and you believe you have abundance, I believe more of that will come

00:14:43.540 into your life. This isn't some woo woo fairy tale fluffy bullshit, but your attitude is going to 0.93

00:14:49.800 change. Like if you're satisfied and happy and fulfilled with what you have, your attitude's going 0.97

00:14:55.420 to change. You're going to pick up new clients. You're going to think of new ideas. You're going to be

00:14:59.300 more creative. You're going to offer value and add value to people's lives and you're going to be

00:15:05.520 compensated. And so if you can be grateful, you're going to have more abundance coming to your life.

00:15:09.960 To me, that's a natural principle. Not just to me, it's a principle. It applies broadly.

00:15:17.200 The more you give, the more you are, the more you'll receive, the more you'll be in return.

00:15:21.740 All right, guys, I'm going to sign out for today. I know it's a short one. Again, a little bit off the

00:15:25.700 cuff. I didn't go into the five details that you need to do in order to create more abundance in

00:15:30.140 your life. I just want you to stop and reflect and think about what you have. Not what you want.

00:15:35.320 Not what you want this weekend. There's plenty of time for that. And I've talked about that.

00:15:39.000 And that's not bad, by the way. It's not bad to think about what you want out of your life. You

00:15:43.620 should be doing that. But this weekend, I want you to think about what you have. I want you to wake

00:15:49.680 up early before the wife and the kids this weekend, Saturday, Sunday, and just start

00:15:54.180 listing out some things that you have. Grateful for my health. I'm grateful for my wife. I'm

00:15:59.460 grateful for my kids. I'm grateful for the sunrise. I'm grateful for this cup of coffee. I don't know

00:16:03.320 what it is. But just start documenting and writing these things out. And just inventory. See how that

00:16:08.920 changes your day and changes your perception. And see if new opportunities and a new perception on life

00:16:13.960 comes your way. And build this into your routine. Don't be so consumed with what you don't have

00:16:19.120 that you forget about what you do. All right, guys. Make it a great day. Make it a great weekend.

00:16:24.440 We'll be back next week for another great interview, the AMA, and another Friday Field Notes. Until then,

00:16:29.860 go out there, take action, and become the man you are meant to be.

00:16:33.900 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take charge of your life

00:16:38.320 and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Don't be So Consumed With What You Want That You Forget About What You Have ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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