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

00:00:04.920 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:00:10.260 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who

00:00:16.940 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.420 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler,

00:00:27.440 the host and the founder of the Order A Man podcast and movement. Welcome here today and

00:00:32.440 welcome back. This is my first video back in probably two to three weeks. This will be back

00:00:40.600 on YouTube and we'll start getting our videos up and running. You can see my studio is a little

00:00:44.960 different than it's been in the past. We're in the process of rebuilding the studio and improving

00:00:50.420 again the quality of the video and all of that stuff. Just bear with me. We're going to get it

00:00:56.300 up and running and we're going to keep delivering some good quality information to you. Hopefully

00:01:02.540 information that you can apply in your life. Sometimes, you know, one of the things I've

00:01:08.400 been thinking about over the past little bit is that it's easy to get the advice. It's definitely

00:01:15.640 harder to implement it. And the whole goal of this podcast is obviously to share ideas and concepts

00:01:23.140 that will help all of us, myself included, on our own path to personal progress and growth as men.

00:01:30.320 But I just want to commend those of you who are applying the information, who are using the

00:01:35.900 information, who are incorporating it in their lives, improving your lives, improving other people's

00:01:43.260 lives, which of course is one of our goals as well. I want to thank you for showing me an example,

00:01:48.220 setting an example of what that looks like. So this one today, I wanted to talk with you about

00:01:54.620 something very, very briefly. This isn't going to be a long Friday field notes like I've done in the

00:01:58.460 past. A lot of you have heard about my own personal struggles over the past six to eight months with

00:02:04.700 regards to my prior alcohol abuse and the relationship issues that have stemmed from the way that I was

00:02:12.760 behaving and showing up and the way that I was performing, which was, which was, I was going to

00:02:17.300 say not good, but it's probably worse even than that. You know, I was able to delude myself and

00:02:22.340 pull the wool over my eyes for so long. Um, and I've woken up to the reality of the way that I was showing

00:02:27.100 up. Uh, and I got thinking about how easy it is to attempt to walk the path of redemption, attempt to,

00:02:37.640 uh, fix yourself, the, the, the, the path to improvement. And what I've realized is that

00:02:45.240 so many people along the path, they don't want to see you do it. They don't, they don't want to see

00:02:53.800 you improve. They don't want to see you get better. They don't want you to heal. And I think the reason

00:03:02.500 that they don't want that is because if you can do it, then they don't have an excuse for doing it in

00:03:13.240 their own lives. And these people are toxic and these people are poisonous. And all too often we

00:03:21.500 let the baggage and the problems that other people have in their lives. And we let that consume our

00:03:28.460 lives. We dictate what we're going to do. We dictate how we want to improve and how we want

00:03:35.300 to get better based on somebody who's hurt, somebody who's scared, somebody who may have

00:03:42.520 their own skeletons in their closet and aren't willing to share those things. Somebody that's

00:03:47.640 trying to deflect in some cases. And we allow that to poison our well. We allow their animosity

00:03:57.140 and their contention and their vitriol and their hostility and their anger and frustration towards

00:04:03.420 their own lives to now not only stay there, but like droplets in a well, when you drop poison

00:04:09.960 into a water supply, you can't then go out and extract that at some future date. It taints all of

00:04:18.800 the water supply. And I see that happen, you know, and look, that happens in my own life

00:04:23.800 based on some of the current events and things that I've been sharing with you guys.

00:04:27.880 You know, there, there is things that people have said and done and that, that is, is like

00:04:33.340 poison. And I've allowed it in some instances to permeate my life, but I've done a pretty good

00:04:38.820 job at keeping that stuff at bay because I'm not interested in getting wrapped up in bull crap.

00:04:45.280 I'm not, I'm not interested in hostility and animosity towards others, towards the people

00:04:53.960 that I love, um, and, and other, other facets of my life. Now, if we're doing this on video,

00:05:00.060 if you're watching the video, I wanted to pull up something here real quick. I made this point

00:05:05.740 point. And this is what I said. I said, regarding poisoning the well, I said, if I, um, let's see,

00:05:14.960 this is a big part of the reason men don't talk about their problems. If they have issues that are

00:05:20.540 called pussies, if they don't share their issues, they're told to be quote unquote, be vulnerable.

00:05:26.020 When they're vulnerable, they're ashamed for trying to correct past mistakes. And then we let these

00:05:31.160 conversations and we let this hostility and animosity towards us spill over into our growth and our

00:05:38.560 personal journeys. And I got to tell you, it's not a great way to live. You know, as I'm going

00:05:43.120 through the, the, the relationship issues that I have, uh, and, and the divorce, you know, the pending

00:05:48.340 divorce, um, I've had people, even close people who are like, Oh man, I don't know how you do it.

00:05:52.660 Like I would be angry. I'd be upset. I, I, it would just piss me off. And look, there's days where

00:05:59.200 certainly I feel that way, but I'm not going to behave out of that, that emotional response

00:06:04.960 because I don't want to be angry. And that's something that we really need to be aware of

00:06:09.820 is that we can actually control our response. We can control the way that we show up. You

00:06:17.620 can be angry and then respond differently than what most people would assume an angry person

00:06:23.860 would do. Right? Cause what do angry people do? What do we naturally assume? Well, we assume

00:06:27.840 they would lash out that they would use words to hurt other people, that they would use

00:06:33.240 aggression, maybe even violence. You know, we see these school shooters, they're using

00:06:37.860 violence. Those are angry people. Those are hurt people. And they're using violence to prove

00:06:46.540 a point to hurt other people. So they're as hurt as they are. I'm not interested in that.

00:06:50.620 Not interested in that with, with my ex-wife. I'm not interested in that with other people who

00:06:57.580 some, I know some are anonymous accounts on Facebook. It's interesting when you, you, you bring

00:07:04.760 something to the public eye that people don't like. And you know, they're, they're, they're mocking

00:07:10.020 you and they're, and, and they're busting your balls and you look, and these are fake accounts,

00:07:15.500 literally fake accounts. That means that somebody is going into Facebook or Instagram or wherever it

00:07:22.600 happens to be. And they're taking time to create a fake account and then telling you how wrong you

00:07:30.540 are. Like, isn't that an amazing thing? So guys, we can do one of two things. We can get consumed in

00:07:36.680 this stuff or we can let it slide. I was, uh, I was driving home from, from a lunch meeting that I had

00:07:43.940 with some of our guys in the iron council the other day. And I saw a podcast come up with Dan

00:07:49.500 Crenshaw and it was Dan Crenshaw responds to, um, uh, David Goggins. And I'm like, what, what is this?

00:07:58.560 So I, I pulled it up and I probably shouldn't have, but I downloaded the episode and I started

00:08:04.320 listening to the episode and I had to listen to these guys complain about each other, you know?

00:08:10.520 And I, I look, I don't know the full story. I don't know who's right. I don't know who's wrong.

00:08:14.220 I've interviewed both Dan Crenshaw and David Goggins. I had good experiences with both of them. So I

00:08:18.540 don't know, but it, it's amazing how easily we get wrapped up and distracted in noise and nonsense.

00:08:28.080 And it's like, how does this improve your life? How does some faceless nameless account on social

00:08:35.560 media who doesn't like one thing that you may have said or something that you've done or the way that

00:08:41.380 you show up? I used to, when I had my long beard, I have, I used to have a bunch of people complain

00:08:46.040 about my beard. It's like, that's like, that's what we're going to do today. Like we're going to

00:08:51.280 complain about this beard that I, that I have, or, you know, the hat that I'm wearing, how it's,

00:08:57.400 you know, maybe it looks a little crooked or, you know, instead of wearing this earbud,

00:09:00.980 you should wear that earbud and that, that camera angle sucks. And this microphone's horrible and

00:09:06.760 you're this and you're that. And I, guys, we can't be distracted by it. And I, and I know this

00:09:11.620 is a little bit ironic because I'm focusing on it right now, but I'm focusing on it right now so

00:09:15.720 that you can begin to identify what is noise, nonsense, and clutter. And then what should you

00:09:20.420 actually be doing with your life? And I think the things that we should be doing with our lives

00:09:24.880 is focusing on our vision, focusing on the men that we want to become, focusing on the objectives

00:09:30.640 that we have, focusing on the things that we can do on a daily basis to improve ourselves and our

00:09:34.980 surroundings and just get better. And we have to ask ourselves if these little devices and if the

00:09:42.980 social media accounts, and if the substances like alcohol, for example, which is something I am

00:09:49.660 susceptible to, if, if that is, is really going to help us, like if it's that much of a better addition

00:09:57.780 to our life or if it's just tainting the water supply, if it's poisoning the well. And I think

00:10:05.780 if we can do that a little more effectively and look, I'm, I'm no expert, but I am trying to identify

00:10:11.700 what's good in my life, who is good in my life, who supports me, who cares about me, who uplifts me

00:10:17.620 and edifies me, who calls me to be something better than I currently am because they see the potential

00:10:21.860 in me and who are the naysayers, who are the haters, who are the people who just are never

00:10:27.900 going to let you succeed. What is the noise? What, what, what, what music are you listening to? What

00:10:33.260 information are you consuming? And I think we've got to be pretty careful about what that does to our

00:10:38.940 mindset. It's very cunning. It's very, it's very sneaky. It's very crafty. This poison enters

00:10:48.180 our minds in very unassuming, unrecognizable ways. And then we start operating our, our lives by this

00:10:57.820 stuff. I was watching a video tonight and I don't know how true, I don't know how accurate it is.

00:11:04.180 It was on YouTube and it looks like it was an experiment done some time ago. And he put fleas

00:11:09.680 in this little jar, like a little canning jar and he put the lid on and they left the fleas alone for

00:11:16.560 three days. And then they took the jar off the lid and the fleas were jumping, but they wouldn't jump

00:11:21.260 any higher than the lid that was on previously because they had been conditioned to behave a

00:11:26.300 certain way. And then it looked like they had taken the fleas complete, dumped it over and taken a

00:11:31.520 complete out of the jar. And you could see the fleas moving in what looks like the shape of a jar.

00:11:36.200 Even the jar is not there because they've been conditioned to behave that way. And in the video,

00:11:40.700 it also said, and again, I don't know how true this is, but in the video, it said that their offspring

00:11:45.000 will also learn to operate within those parameters based on what their parents had done

00:11:53.440 and how they had been conditioned. And so we don't even know, we don't even know why we do the things

00:12:02.100 that we do, but I'll tell you what, there's negativity that's coming into our lives. That's poisoning our

00:12:08.200 wells. And if you're angry and you're hostile and you're upset, and there's, there's vitriol in your

00:12:14.660 heart, that's coming from somewhere. You've allowed it into your life. And if you've allowed it into your

00:12:20.960 life, then you need to identify where it's coming from and shut it off immediately. Immediately.

00:12:28.020 These are accounts on social media. These are faceless nameness accounts on social media.

00:12:32.840 This is the noise and the nonsense from political pundits and celebrities who want to get you riled

00:12:39.220 up and worked up. We got to get rid of that stuff because we've got bigger things that we need to be

00:12:44.200 doing. And again, I know I'm one to talk, right? Which is probably what a lot of you guys are saying.

00:12:49.460 You're one to talk. Look what's going on in your life. I get it, but I've put a pin in that and I'm on

00:12:55.660 the path to making sure that I'm doing better things moving forward. And I hope you will too. I hope that

00:13:02.000 you see that in your life and you have a desire to do the same thing. The last thing that I'll tell

00:13:07.020 you when it comes to not poisoning the well is the difference between your emotions and

00:13:15.760 our behavior. Because a lot of the times, and I alluded to this earlier, a lot of the times we

00:13:21.700 sync them together. We think that because we're angry and we're going to yell. Well, those are two

00:13:27.300 different things. Like being angry is emotion. Yelling is an action. It's a behavior and they

00:13:37.680 might be correlated, but I think we need to create a better response time or gap, I should say,

00:13:43.900 between the emotion and the response. See, I can be angry. That's okay. And you need to know this as a

00:13:51.240 man. It's okay to be angry. And I know, I know modern culture because they're so scared of men in

00:13:57.780 this tyrannical patriarchy and toxic masculinity. You'll say, Oh no, man, no, we can't be angry.

00:14:03.960 You can't be angry. No. Well, you know what? Sometimes it's okay to be angry. You know, maybe,

00:14:10.380 maybe something happened to you that was unjust. Maybe you got taken advantage of. Maybe you felt like

00:14:15.400 somebody did you wrong. You know, there's all sorts of reasons. Maybe somebody deliberately did

00:14:19.900 something to you or people you love. Like it's okay to be angry. It's not okay to respond solely

00:14:26.140 out of the anger that we're feeling. We need to breathe and take a step back and not allow that

00:14:31.540 anger or pain or fear or sadness or sorrow taint and poison every other facet of our life.

00:14:41.380 Because if it does, it makes things worse. And I think about this again with, with my soon to be

00:14:46.900 ex-wife and it's like, you know, I, I care about her deeply. I love her. I want the best for her.

00:14:51.800 I truly do. I don't want to be, I don't want to be hostile. I don't, I don't want to have

00:14:56.180 contention and anger and frustration towards her because we have kids together and I do still care

00:15:03.500 about her. And I still do care about me and my own wellbeing and my sanity. And I care about being able

00:15:10.020 to serve you guys. So does it serve anybody for me to be angry? Does it serve anybody for me to lash

00:15:17.800 out or try to get at her or anybody else? Of course it doesn't. Of course it doesn't. But if you're

00:15:24.560 behaving that way, you're, you don't have a big enough gap between the emotion you're experiencing

00:15:32.300 and the things that you're doing about it, anger, sadness, sorrow, guilt, remorse, pain,

00:15:40.080 suffering, all the things that you've experienced, all the things that I've experienced and that I am

00:15:44.740 currently to some degree experiencing don't allow us to self-destruct. It doesn't give us a permission

00:15:51.920 slip to behave poorly. It's not a, it's not a, an opportunity to, you know, prove something to

00:16:00.080 somebody by getting them back. Think about the bigger, the bigger picture. I know it's hard in

00:16:06.100 the moment. I know it's hard when, when things are going wrong and you're dealing with something

00:16:12.040 difficult in your life, not to want to focus all your time and attention and energy on that thing

00:16:18.360 and use your anger to lash out at other people and hurt other people, or even just get consumed and

00:16:23.040 distracted with it, but it's not going to serve you in the long run. And it's not going to serve the

00:16:27.380 people that you care about. So I, I guess what I'm asking you to do today, if I can be so bold

00:16:33.800 is to ask you to do something, or maybe not even an ask. Cause I mean, really, if you do it or not,

00:16:37.780 it doesn't, it doesn't change my situation. It doesn't, it doesn't change my life necessarily,

00:16:42.060 whether you act on it or not. But what I might implore you to do is to evaluate where little

00:16:50.960 drops of poison are being, are infiltrating your life. Is it certain people? Is it certain

00:16:59.220 substances? Is it certain behaviors? Is it certain conversations? Is it certain information? Maybe

00:17:08.300 just take a step back this weekend, get a journal out and document, Hey, you know what? I'm angry.

00:17:13.160 And these are the reasons I'm angry. But when I get frustrated, this is what I'm dealing with.

00:17:17.040 Or when I lose my patience and lose my cool, it's because of X, Y, and Z. Write those things down

00:17:22.680 because the minute you identify them, at least now you have an enemy to fight against. I'm not saying

00:17:28.780 fight as in, let it poison you. I'm saying like, that's the problem. So let's address it maturely

00:17:34.960 and properly and come up with a better, more mature, more effective solution to our problems.

00:17:40.440 But shut out the noise, guys, drown out the noise. Know that there's people who don't want to see you

00:17:44.980 in. They're there. I think very few people are out to get you, but certainly they don't want to see

00:17:50.180 you in. They'll never let you forget past wrongdoings. There's another thing that I posted. I wish I could

00:17:58.140 tell you that I remember all of these wonderful things and statements that I make, but I don't.

00:18:04.660 So there's another thing that I had posted the other day. Let's see if I can find it was on Twitter.

00:18:09.740 Here's one. Some will never allow you to forget your wrongdoings and past deficiencies. And this

00:18:18.400 next part is very important. They'll scorn you for your failures while simultaneously mock you

00:18:25.160 for your improvement. Purge these people and yourself from the desire for their validation.

00:18:32.760 Above all, keep making yourself better. Let me read that second sentence again.

00:18:38.180 Again, they'll scorn you for your failures while they simultaneously mock you for your desire to

00:18:45.320 improve. Think about it, guys. Don't allow your well to be poisoned. Very easy to let have happen.

00:18:52.100 Very easy to go down this slippery slope. But you know, I think you know, it doesn't end well.

00:19:00.260 So I hope that helps you guys. If you have thoughts, comments, ideas, strategies, things, feedback,

00:19:05.900 people you want me to talk with, questions that you have for me about anything, I'm a pretty open book.

00:19:11.480 I feel like I need to be an open book. I'm going to share one other thing with you. And obviously,

00:19:16.580 I'm not going to share names as I do this. But somebody had messaged me the other day. And

00:19:23.480 it was very important. It's very important that I share this with you because I think this will help

00:19:30.900 us see. Here it is. Help us see why this work is so important. So this person says,

00:19:37.580 Ryan, I'm driving to work right now, listening to the Friday field notes. This was last week's

00:19:42.740 episode, by the way. And I had to pull over when you started talking about suicide. I feel some

00:19:47.840 random stranger just spoke directly to me and showed me that sometime or excuse me, that someone

00:19:52.500 is down in this pit with me. And this isn't the end. It opened a floodgate in me that's been blocked

00:19:59.060 for a long time. Thanks for being real, man. This is the power of what we're doing. This is the

00:20:07.280 importance of what we're doing. This is the importance of you in somebody's life, whether

00:20:13.720 that's your spouse or your children. Maybe it's children that you coach or you have some sort of

00:20:19.120 responsibility for. Maybe it's a brother or a father or a neighbor or somebody in your church

00:20:24.820 congregation. You are that to somebody else. And we can't allow ourselves anymore to be poisoned by

00:20:33.040 people, by behaviors, by substances, by things that aren't going to allow us to serve those

00:20:41.160 effectively. So that's what I've got for you today. That actually went a lot longer than I thought I

00:20:45.300 would. I tend to ramble at times. Anyways, guys, I hope that helps. I'll be back next week with another

00:20:50.800 episode, another interview and ask me thing with my good friend and co-host Kip Sorensen and of

00:20:55.360 course, Friday Field Notes. So please subscribe, leave a rating and review, talk with me, communicate

00:21:00.800 with me. I'm in a much better place than I've been in a very, very long time. I'm really interested in

00:21:06.760 getting the order man movement back on track with humility and leadership development and just

00:21:13.560 service. So I think we can do this together. All right, guys, I'll be back next week until then go

00:21:18.800 out there, take action. Do not allow your well to be poisoned and let's become a man who are meant to

00:21:24.140 be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

00:21:28.940 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Don't Poison the Well ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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