Order of Man - Emotional Intelligence 101 ｜ 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

00:00:04.960 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:00:10.340 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who

00:00:17.080 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.600 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler.

00:00:27.720 I'm the host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement. Welcome here today.

00:00:32.960 Welcome back if you've been with us for any amount of time. And if you're new, what I want you to know,

00:00:37.420 this is a show dedicated to giving you conversations, resources, equipment, tools,

00:00:43.540 whatever you might need to help you become a better man. And today we're talking about something that

00:00:47.980 a lot of men have some real misunderstandings about, and that is our emotions. We're led to

00:00:56.700 believe that we're not supposed to be emotional, that if we're guided by or instructed by our

00:01:02.500 emotions at all, that we're being less manly. There's even misconceptions about the concept of

00:01:07.400 stoicism. I had a conversation with somebody on Instagram the other day about this concept of

00:01:12.380 stoicism, that it's the suppression of emotion. And that's not what stoicism is. If you read the

00:01:19.660 stoics, these are individuals who were keenly aware of their emotions and they understood how to keep

00:01:28.400 them in check. So they were not ruled by them, not governed by them, but certainly capable of using

00:01:34.380 their emotional responses for a factor in their decision-making process. Not the only factor by any

00:01:43.760 means, but a factor, because we all know guys who take it to different ends of the extreme. On one

00:01:52.420 hand, you have the guy who stymies emotions, who shows no emotion whatsoever, who locks everything

00:01:59.760 in, locks everything up. And that person is one strange circumstance away from an emotional outburst

00:02:07.280 and inappropriate and oftentimes violent behavior. And on the other end of the spectrum, you have

00:02:15.120 people who are overly emotional. They, they, they crumble emotionally at the slightest sign of

00:02:21.880 adversity. They tend to love drama and they make everything a bigger deal than it needs to be. And

00:02:27.160 they're just all over the place as it relates to their own sanity and wellbeing and their ability to

00:02:32.900 lead. So as a man, it's our job to be able to find where that happy medium is the happy medium of

00:02:39.780 understanding that all of our emotions are there to serve us in some way. We wouldn't have the, the, the,

00:02:45.780 the benefit of emotions if they weren't there to serve us, even the so-called negative emotions

00:02:50.900 and balance that with the fact that we don't need to be governed and ruled by our emotions. We don't need

00:03:00.660 to be overly emotional, if you will, or make all of our decisions based on how we feel in any given

00:03:07.300 moment, because we can, we know that that changes quite frequently. So we're going to address that

00:03:12.980 today. Um, I, I, I just think it's so important that we understand a different context as men for

00:03:19.420 looking at emotions. And, and one context that, that I've considered and that has helped me is that

00:03:26.300 if we begin to look at our emotions, like the dashboard to our vehicle, the dashboard to your

00:03:33.060 vehicle will tell you if the engine's getting hot, it'll tell you if you're speeding, it'll tell you if

00:03:37.540 you're running out of gas. Uh, the other day I was driving down the road and I had a little indicator

00:03:42.740 come on that said the engine is overheating. So I pulled over at the nearest gas station and I looked at

00:03:50.840 the engine coolant levels and it was critically low. So I, I went into Napa, I got some engine

00:03:57.060 coolant, build it back up, back on the road. Everything's fine. I'm not mad at the emotion.

00:04:04.080 Uh, I'm not going to go crazy. And because the check engine light comes on, drive my truck off the

00:04:11.060 side of the road and ram it into the next telephone pole that I see, which is what so many people do

00:04:15.880 when it comes to their emotions. They do dumb things. They, they, they have outbursts,

00:04:21.600 they punch walls. I'm not guilty of that as a younger man, but this is not how men handle or

00:04:27.500 conduct themselves. But what we do is we look and say, Hey, something's wrong. Something's going on

00:04:32.980 here. What is it? So we evaluate it. And this is a very stoic approach. We evaluate what we're

00:04:39.000 experiencing and what we're feeling. We use it as a metric or a consideration in our decision-making

00:04:44.160 process, not the only, we don't give it more weight than it deserves. And then we make better

00:04:49.000 decisions and we get back on the road of life and we improve our circumstances because we used emotion,

00:04:55.920 not hit it. And if you're hiding it guys, it's not that you're going to be indifferent to your

00:05:02.560 emotions. I had somebody tell me that, you know, they're indifferent to their emotions. Well, no human

00:05:06.800 is indifferent to what they feel. Absolutely not possible. You're always going to have feelings

00:05:14.060 and thoughts. And if you're pretending to be indifferent, you're actually an emotional

00:05:18.540 danger. You're a danger to other people around you. You're a danger to yourself because I promise

00:05:25.560 you, trust me, those emotions will manifest themselves. You need to do it in a controlled

00:05:31.840 way. You can't do it in a controlled way. It's going to be uncontrolled and it's going to be dangerous

00:05:38.380 to yourself and people around you. So let's not pretend that men should be indifferent to what

00:05:44.020 we're feeling. That's ridiculous. It's nonsense. It's not possible. The guys who are quote unquote

00:05:50.640 indifferent to their emotions are probably the most emotional people out there because they place too

00:05:55.920 much weight and emphasis on stymie and stifling their emotions rather than understanding them.

00:06:00.840 So let's talk about it. Number one, don't, don't stifle your emotions, right? If you're feeling sad or

00:06:07.040 glad or mad or happy or angry or jealous or any of these other range of emotions that we experience

00:06:12.880 and feel on a daily basis, you don't need to pen that stuff up. Why are we doing that?

00:06:17.960 Now you don't need to be running around like an idiot. You don't need to be sobbing uncontrollably

00:06:22.940 when you have a job to do. There's a, there's an appropriate time and a place, but let's not pretend

00:06:28.520 that we're above feeling glad or we're above being angry. It's okay. It's perfectly acceptable. But

00:06:37.340 once you wrap your mind around the idea that we just can't lock them up and secure them up and hope

00:06:45.140 that they'll stay there, we're on the path to not only emotional intelligence, but emotional freedom,

00:06:51.240 emotional sovereignty. Isn't that what we're after? Isn't that the mark of a mature man? Somebody who has

00:06:57.020 control over his emotions, not that he doesn't experience them, but that he can control

00:07:03.780 his behavior based on how he's feeling. I'll get to that in a minute. But number one, get over the

00:07:10.060 thing that you have to hide your emotions, that you can't be sad, that you can't be glad, that you can't

00:07:14.660 be happy, that you can't be mad, you can't be angry. You can. And in fact, you should. Things that we

00:07:21.200 would generally connotate with negativity with regards to emotion are anger, jealousy, shame,

00:07:30.840 guilt, remorse, sorrow, sadness. Well, you shouldn't feel that way. That's a negative emotion.

00:07:37.520 No, actually there's times in your life where you should feel guilty or you should feel shame or you

00:07:43.680 should feel sorrow or you should feel sadness or you should be angry. You have a lot of Christians

00:07:49.320 that talk about always being happy and turning the other cheek and no hate and no anger. Really?

00:07:55.860 There was things that even Jesus hated. Things that he was angry about. Things that he was upset with.

00:08:04.400 Things that he wouldn't tolerate. So it's not just about being good. It's not just about experiencing

00:08:12.220 some sort of euphoric bliss. It's about taking the so-called negative emotions and trying to

00:08:18.580 understand what they're trying to tell you. And they are trying to tell you something. We'll get

00:08:21.700 to that in a minute. Number two, this is important. You can begin to understand your emotions through

00:08:30.180 externalizing them. So what a lot of men will do is we'll internalize our emotions. I'm mad.

00:08:35.880 And then we get mad because we're mad or I'm guilty and I shouldn't. So I'm ashamed and I'm

00:08:40.120 embarrassed that I feel guilty. So you're feeling another emotion because you're trying to hide the

00:08:45.180 first emotion. And what I would suggest to you is that we can begin to understand what our emotions

00:08:50.740 are telling us by externalizing them, not turning them inwards and locking them up, but externalizing

00:08:56.380 them. How do we do that? One great way is to journal. If you're feeling mad about something or

00:09:02.720 upset about something or sorry about something or you're down or whatever it might be, it might be a

00:09:07.660 really good idea to get that out of your brain, out of your mind, out of your soul, and actually get

00:09:12.800 that onto paper and start writing that down. Why are you feeling the way you're feeling?

00:09:17.720 What triggered this response in you? How do you want to respond? How should you respond? How will

00:09:23.580 you respond? What should you be learning? Is this appropriate? This emotional feeling that you're

00:09:29.660 having right now, is it appropriate based on what you're going through? These are all great prompts to

00:09:35.940 write down in a journal and document what you're feeling and what you're experiencing in any given moment.

00:09:42.620 So you don't give it more weight by just wallowing up inside of you. Another great way is through

00:09:49.080 talking with people. That could be a therapist, somebody who's trained and professionally licensed

00:09:55.440 and has the ability to help you process and work through what you're experiencing,

00:09:59.160 or it could be a friend, a spouse. Now there's a way to do this. We're going to talk about that,

00:10:05.180 but telling people you're angry, if it's the right person, somebody who's credible,

00:10:10.600 somebody who cares about you, somebody who's going to help you work through that, that's not a bad

00:10:15.240 thing. A lot of men don't do it because we do the lone wolf mentality. I'm supposed to be stoic is

00:10:20.840 what they say. Misunderstanding of stoicism again, but I'm supposed to be stoic and I'm not supposed

00:10:25.220 to be sad. Well, you know what? Welcome to the club. Sometimes you are just like I am, just like

00:10:31.080 every other man out there. And if you can tell a guy who's in your corner, who's credible, who has

00:10:35.740 your back and say, Hey, you know, just feeling really down today. I'm feeling down because you

00:10:40.280 know, things aren't going well with my relationship. Okay. That's a man who can call you into proper

00:10:45.460 action. Oh, really? It's not going well in your relationship. Tell me about that. You tell him

00:10:49.020 about it. He gives you some pointers or, Hey, I'm feeling really ashamed about myself because I've

00:10:53.780 let my, my health get out of check. And you know, I'm more, I'm heavier than I want to be.

00:10:58.660 And I feel sluggish and lazy. And another man in your corner who cares about you and is credible

00:11:04.020 and isn't in a brother to you is going to say, Hey man, look, I get it. Why don't we go work out

00:11:08.880 in the morning together? Or why don't I introduce you to my trainer? Or why don't I give you a couple

00:11:13.980 of things you can do? Or why don't I call you this afternoon and check in on you and see how your food's

00:11:18.180 doing for the day? But you can't get to that point. If you're not willing to discuss what's going

00:11:23.720 on in your mind, what you're dealing with, what you're working through, what you're trying to

00:11:27.980 overcome, what barriers have presented themselves for you, what emotional mental barriers have

00:11:33.500 presented themselves for you. Guys, we can open up. We can talk about this stuff. Now, again,

00:11:38.860 why you do it is important. We're not going to wallow in our own self-pity. We're not doing it so

00:11:42.460 we can get some sort of victim points from, from, from people. We're doing it so that we can come up

00:11:47.800 with solutions. And then what we can do is we can, and this is point number three, begin to express

00:11:53.040 ourselves in healthy ways. So you can actually have a conversation. Imagine this, actually having

00:11:58.420 a conversation with your wife about how you're feeling about the marriage or how you're feeling

00:12:04.580 about what's going on at work. Again, you're not dumping all of her, your baggage onto her. You're

00:12:09.660 telling her, you're expressing it. And then you're going to tell her what the plan is to change

00:12:17.420 the behavior, which will lead to feeling differently about yourself and the circumstance.

00:12:23.040 But we can express ourselves in healthy ways. We can have outlets that are positive and

00:12:30.680 productive. For me, journaling, that's an expression of my emotions. Another one is working

00:12:36.680 out. You know, when I'm in my head and, and things don't seem to be going as well as they

00:12:41.860 could, and I'm emotional and I'm struggling, I can go to the gym and I can begin to work some

00:12:46.520 of that out, work through that. And you know what? Sometimes at the end of a particularly

00:12:51.200 heavy training session, I actually feel more emotional. And I'll tell you why that

00:12:56.280 is. This is my guess. Anyways, this is my theory is that when you physically exhaust

00:13:02.020 yourself, you no longer have the mental stamina to hide and suppress your emotions.

00:13:09.260 And so for me, I become almost more emotional after a workout because I don't have the ability

00:13:16.280 to suppress that. Like I've been doing in the past because I exerted all of my energy

00:13:20.140 towards my training session. And then when you're feeling that, allow yourself to feel

00:13:25.400 it. If you have to get in your car and, and scream or cry, you know, heaven forbid that

00:13:32.360 a man cry, but if you have to actually do that, do that when it's appropriate in your car

00:13:37.500 by yourself, I would say is an appropriate time to do that and release it from your body.

00:13:43.280 Get rid of it, flush it, process it. You know, it's like our body takes in food, right? It

00:13:49.960 takes in food, it processes and breaks down the food in a specific order. It takes what

00:13:55.320 it needs. It sends it to different parts of our body. And then we build muscles and it

00:13:59.700 helps with recovery. Those are the nutrients. And then it expels going to the bathroom,

00:14:07.080 the things that it doesn't need. Our emotions are the same way. You're feeling something,

00:14:11.700 you're experiencing something, take what you can from that, experience it, learn from it,

00:14:16.480 grow, and then purge it from the rest from your system. Cry it out. If you need to, again,

00:14:22.420 appropriately, you don't need to be crying and babbling on your wife's shoulder all the time.

00:14:26.640 And that's probably not an appropriate way to might undermine the, uh, the trust and credibility

00:14:31.460 that you have with her. That's not what I'm saying, but if you can get rid of that in a healthy

00:14:36.320 way, then you free up and have more capacity to do different things, to be healthier. So again,

00:14:44.520 number three, express those in healthy ways. Number four, allow your emotions to serve you.

00:14:50.240 Make the decision that your emotions aren't there to hinder you. They're not there to hurt you.

00:14:54.380 They're not there to sabotage you. Now you might let them, if you're angry about something and you

00:14:59.840 decide to get road rage because somebody cuts you off on the road, that's an emotional response.

00:15:05.320 And now it's actually hurting you. Being overly emotional is hurting you because you decide to

00:15:11.520 have road rage and you get somebody or yourself hurt or killed. When instead you can allow it to

00:15:19.080 guide you. Why are you upset? I'll tell you, I get upset on the road. Usually when I'm impatient,

00:15:23.560 you know, somebody cuts me off or they're driving in front of me too slow. And I'm really impatient

00:15:28.460 because I have somewhere to be and how can they be so inconsiderate? And really the problem is not

00:15:33.200 the other person. The problem is my mismanagement of time. That's usually when I get road rage.

00:15:37.960 I've mismanaged my time. I'm running late for an appointment. I've got a thousand other things to do,

00:15:42.620 but I got to go do this errand real quick. And so I got to be hustling so I can get back and do this

00:15:46.120 other thing that I need to do. That's a mismanagement of time. That's not another person's problem.

00:15:50.320 That's my problem. So what we do is we allow our emotions to guide us in making good decisions.

00:15:55.900 So if I'm angry about the car that's driving two miles under the speed limit in front of me,

00:16:00.720 I can't control the other car. It's not even about the other car, but now I can say, okay,

00:16:06.320 I'm angry. Why am I angry? Because I don't have as much time as I'd need. Oh, maybe I shouldn't stack

00:16:11.460 my schedule like that. Maybe I should manage my time a little bit more effectively. And if I do that

00:16:16.640 tomorrow and the next day and the next day, the next day, I'll notice that I no longer have road

00:16:20.560 rage because I allowed the anger to guide me. I didn't stifle it. I didn't hunker it down. It

00:16:29.020 didn't not be emotional. I just allowed it to guide me. I'm upset. Why am I upset? Where does it lead me?

00:16:34.540 And it helps me make better choices. That's why you have emotions, guys. And that leads to point

00:16:39.360 number five is ask how your emotions are serving you. And they are. Anger is serving you. Shame.

00:16:47.920 If you jump on the scale and you look and you're 20 pounds heavier than you'd like to be,

00:16:51.520 and you feel shame or guilt about that or embarrassment about that, that's okay.

00:16:57.140 Like, let's stop saying I shouldn't feel guilty. You know, that's a whole kind of a modern concept is,

00:17:03.640 you know, this body positive movement. Just be happy. Just be happy with where you are. Just,

00:17:08.780 just, just be okay with it. Well, you know, you're not okay with it.

00:17:13.780 No matter how hard you try, you cannot convince yourself that a subpar performance is acceptable.

00:17:21.420 You can try, but you know, deep down inside, it's not acceptable to show up the way that we are

00:17:27.160 showing up at times. And so that guilt, that sorrow or remorse or that shame can what? It can lead us

00:17:34.200 and it serves us in making better choices. So this is the five-part framework that I use.

00:17:42.840 And I'll tell you what, I'm a lot more fulfilled. I'm a lot happier. I'm a lot more pleasant to be

00:17:47.120 around. And I actually make better choices because I'm aware of what's going on. I know it's really

00:17:53.500 cool on podcasts and Instagram and Twitter to see like, don't be emotional. Don't be.

00:17:59.060 No, that's not what it is. Even the guys that you think are saying that are not actually saying

00:18:05.860 that. Jocko, for example, he'll talk about detaching from your emotions. What he's actually

00:18:11.180 saying is what I'm saying here is that, Hey, we're not going to give them more weight than they

00:18:16.160 deserve. We're just going to step back from a minute. We're going to use it and say, okay,

00:18:19.880 we're angry. Why am I angry? All right. I'm upset. Let me detach from this. Let me make a better

00:18:24.620 choice moving forward. We're saying the same thing here, but everybody interprets it to be this

00:18:29.020 hard A thing that men do. Like we're not emotional. Well, you are, whether you like it or not,

00:18:35.480 whether you think you should be or not, you're emotional, you have emotions and they're there

00:18:39.960 for a reason. And I don't care if you believe that God created us or you believe in some, some

00:18:44.500 concept of evolution or a combination of the both. We have emotions. They're there. We know they're

00:18:51.000 there. We know they're present. So now that we know that, what are we going to do about it? And

00:18:55.320 the answer is you're not going to let them govern your life. You're not going to relinquish

00:19:02.720 control over your life to your emotions. You're not going to let it be the only factor for your

00:19:08.780 decision-making process. You're going to take your emotions into consideration. You're going to

00:19:14.920 objectify them. You're going to externalize them. Like I talked about here, you're going to learn to

00:19:19.460 express these things in healthy ways. You're going to allow them to guide you to make good

00:19:23.700 decisions by asking yourself, how are these things serving me? This is the key to emotional

00:19:30.260 intelligence. You know, you can, you can do hard things and do challenging things and push your body

00:19:36.280 and push your mind. And that's good for mental development. And it's good to expose yourself to

00:19:41.060 a range of emotions that you may not be comfortable with experiencing, but at the end of the day,

00:19:46.180 you've got to process them correctly. Just like your digestive tract processes food correctly and

00:19:52.180 gets into the body parts of the nutrients that it needs and gets rid of the rest. You have to do the

00:19:56.780 same thing with emotions. And when you learn to do that, you're going to be a better man.

00:20:00.960 You know, I think about my kids, my six-year-old in particular, he's not a man. He doesn't have

00:20:05.520 emotional intelligence. You know, we, we had a party last night and we were all playing and we're

00:20:10.640 playing pranks on each other. And, uh, his older brother ended up getting a plate of whipped cream

00:20:15.840 and tricked him and, you know, whacked it in his face. And he got upset and angry and he thought

00:20:22.300 everybody was laughing at him. We were laughing, but you know, like we're all having fun. My older

00:20:26.300 son, I got him in the face. Like we're all having a good time, but he got really emotional about it.

00:20:30.360 He was very upset about it. And because of that, it ruined his night. We expect that from kids.

00:20:35.840 We don't expect that from adults. We don't expect that from grown men. And yet many grown men get

00:20:42.460 road rage. Many grown men cry online about nothing. Many grown men punched walls and other

00:20:49.580 people for no reason. That's not emotional intelligence. That's not manly behavior. What

00:20:55.320 is, is recognizing what your emotions are telling you that you're experiencing something, what it's

00:21:00.060 telling you, processing it correctly, and then letting them guide you towards an effective and healthy

00:21:05.360 outcome. All right, guys, let me know if that helps. Let me know how it's serving you. Let me

00:21:09.260 know how you process your emotions. If it's any different and let's serve each other and help

00:21:12.880 each other out. That's what this movement is all about. Uh, just a quick heads up. We're opening up

00:21:17.020 the iron council mid-March. So if you head to order of man.com slash iron council, where there's a lot

00:21:22.200 of accountability and camaraderie and brotherhood built in, and we're talking about concepts like

00:21:26.940 emotional intelligence, again, head to order of man.com slash iron council. All right, guys,

00:21:33.380 we'll be back next week until then go out there, take action, develop and build your emotional

00:21:38.200 resilience and intelligence, become a man. You are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the

00:21:43.680 order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant

00:21:48.700 to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - March 10, 2023

Emotional Intelligence 101 ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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