Ending a Toxic Relationship, Helping a Daughter with Self-Image Issues, and Creating Financial Sovereignty | ASK ME ANYTHING
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Summary
In this episode, I answer a question from our brotherhood, the Iron Council, and answer some questions from our Facebook group, The Order of Man. This episode is dedicated to all the men out there who have ever been in a situation where a partner or significant other isn't supporting and fostering your growth, or in fact, is doing the exact opposite.
Transcript
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You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly charge
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your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.
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You are not easily deterred, defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is
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who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,
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you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler. I'm the
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founder of the Order of Man podcast movement. Welcome here today and welcome back. This is
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your Ask Me Anything. I'm going to be fielding questions from our exclusive brotherhood, the
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Iron Council, and I'm also going to be fielding some questions from our Facebook group, which
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you can find at facebook.com slash groups slash Order of Man. Now, normally I have my good friend
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and co-host Kip Sorensen here with me. He's out traveling. I was on a hunt last week, so we're
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hit or miss whether we do this together or not, but we've always had good people to fill in like
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Sean and other people, and sometimes we just have to fly solo. So we adapt and we adjust, which is
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one of the principles, I believe, of masculinity, our ability to adapt to situations and circumstances
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as they arise and make the most of those circumstances. Before I get into it, guys, just
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want to mention, you can see I've got some new swag on today. I've got the brand new Order of Man
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hoodies on, and I also have our brand new Order of Man hat. You can check these both out if you want
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to support what we're doing and look good in the meantime at store.orderofman.com. This thing is
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so comfortable. I wasn't sure how comfortable it was going to be, but I've got this on starting to
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cool off a little bit here in Southern Utah. Not much, but a little, and so I figured I'd throw this
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on and show it off. We have green, black, and then the desert color like you see here. So check it out,
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store.orderofman.com. All right, guys, let me get into some questions here today, and we'll try to
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get all of these answered for you, and hopefully we give you some good insight and perspective
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into the way that we see things anyways, and hopefully it helps you improve in your life.
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This first one comes from Chase Kimball. He says, what would the conversation look like
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to let go of someone you love and had planned a life with that is not supporting and fostering your
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growth? In fact, doing the exact opposite and tearing you down with guilt, shame, and consistent
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gaslighting. Well, look, I don't know the details of your circumstance, but what I would say first
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and foremost is you bring this up in a polite and respectful way so that you can give, I'm assuming
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it's a potential significant other, you can give her the opportunity to grow with you because you
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don't want to just kick somebody to the curb, especially if you're planning on having a life with
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them, planning on a future with them, planning on growing with them. You wouldn't want to just kick
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that person to the curb. And so I would bring these types of conversations up in a polite and
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respectful way and let her know what you need from her in order to feel good and comfortable with
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you moving forward in the relationship. That's not always an easy conversation, but that's a
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conversation that needs to be had. I would do that multiple times. I would do that as often as it took
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if this is somebody I loved, but there might come a point in time and maybe you're here right now,
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Chase. I don't know. I can't make that decision for you. Only you can do that. If you don't see
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their growth or they're tearing you down with guilt and shame and constant gaslighting, that's a form of
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emotional and potentially even verbal abuse. And that isn't something that you as a man or anybody
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should tolerate from anyone else. So you begin to get a little bit more straightforward in what you
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need and how you will be treated and how you won't be treated. And when she treats you that way,
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you say, Hey, I will not allow you to talk to me like that. I will not allow you to put me down
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like that. So I'm going to disengage from this conversation. If you want to have another
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conversation where we're talking about things rationally and with respect towards one another,
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I'd love to revisit, but I'm not going to do this. So you start creating these boundaries and
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upholding these boundaries. And if it still isn't happening at that point, maybe it is time to
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cut the cord. The one thing I would say, be very careful of is not engaging in behaviors and
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activities that are going to bind you closer together. For example, having a child or commingling
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your finances. If you're thinking about leaving and have one foot out the door, don't do things that
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are going to hold you tighter together, hoping it's that a child or commingling of your money,
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that's going to help solve the problem. It's not. In fact, it's only going to exacerbate it.
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So that's important. Other than that, it might just be time to say, Hey, look, we've talked about
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this for months or years now. And I bring these issues up when they come up. I ask you specifically
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what needs to be done. I ask you not to treat me the way that you're treating me. And at this stage,
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I'm not willing to invest any more time into this relationship. So we're going to be parting ways.
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I wish there was an easy way to do this. There's not an easy way, but if you have the conversations
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up front and you're honest about what you need and what your boundaries are, then this conversation
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won't take anybody by surprise. It'll just be the inevitable outcome of the progression of your
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discussions. So I hope that serves you. Good luck with that. Please, you're in the iron council,
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rely on your brothers, work with them, talk with them. They'll have other good advice for you.
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And that is the power of brotherhood. But I hope I gave you some things to consider, Chase.
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Let us know how that turns out. Very difficult to do. In fact, it looks like here in the replies that
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another brother in the iron council is going to be connecting with you. So you guys hopefully have
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talked by now. This one comes from either Karen or Karan Gill. I'm sorry, I slaughtered your name
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there. I just wanted to make sure I got that right. He says, how do you know when you need to stand by
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your commitment in a relationship? And when you need to realize it's toxic and no longer serving
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you or them? So similar question. I feel very entangled in my relationship. When things are
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good, I love her and want to be with our shared vision for the future. And when things aren't so
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good because of past resentments, covert contracts, emotional manipulation, explicitly unstable conditions,
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et cetera, it makes me feel like I really shouldn't be in it anymore. She doesn't want to change or
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address the issues with the professional and she's okay with the pace things are at. And I'm really
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not anymore. I'm stuck on how to handle it moving forward aside from just continually working on
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myself. Well, of course, continue to work on yourself, build your skillset, engage in a hobby,
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find friends, deal with your finances, get in shape, all the things that we've talked about for
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almost nine years now. Of course, continue to do those things. Outside of that, I feel like I
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answered this. I can't tell you if there's so much that you can handle. And at this point,
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it's time for you to leave. I don't know what that is. And I don't know what you're
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willing to tolerate or deal with or put up with. I don't know what you already have invested in the
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relationship. So all I can say is continue to have these conversations, just like I mentioned with
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Chase and progress the conversation if it doesn't improve. So if you have a very mild, easy
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discussion with your significant other and nothing improves, then you escalate it, escalate it,
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escalate it, escalate it. And then at some point, yeah, it's time to pull the trigger.
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I wish I could tell you that there's a certain time, but I think you really have to look at how
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much time and investment you're putting into it, how much you're willing to commit, how much you've
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already committed. Not that I would say that some level of huge commitment is binding you and
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obligating you to stay in an unhealthy relationship forever. But if there's kids in the equation,
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again, commingling of finances, there's a lot of considerations here that I couldn't just tell
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you on this date, if she does it this many times, you're out. Just continue to progress the
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conversation forward if it's not happening and be very, very clear about what you want,
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what you need, and what you're willing to tolerate and what you won't tolerate.
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All right. I hope that helps. Daryl Hahn, he says, you guys probably don't struggle with this,
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but why is it so difficult to just pull the trigger and do quote unquote, the thing,
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whatever it is, work, workout, et cetera. Well, I struggle with it. I think I can't speak for
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Kip, but maybe I will say to a degree, I'm sure he struggles with it as well. I think this is
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something that all men deal with. We have an idea or a vision or a goal or a new behavior or a new
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activity, a new hobby, a new thought process. And when the rubber meets the road is when it's really
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hard to do it, it's actually very easy to think about doing it. It's very easy to read about doing
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it. It's easy to talk about doing it, but it's significantly harder because the risk elevates
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when you actually go do the thing. There's a fear of failure. There's a fear of what other people will
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think of you. There's you drawing on past failures and experiences that you've had and wondering if this
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is going to be similar. And then there's just the hardship of doing the work. Again, reading about
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it or thinking about it or talking about it is not hard. There's no investment in that. A little time
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maybe, but nothing outside of that. In fact, all of that is exciting. But when you do a new workout
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program, for example, you actually have to get up an hour early and go to the gym. That's harder than
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talking about it. Or that's harder than sitting on the couch while you're watching the game,
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researching what kind of workout program you should do. So the amount of effort required
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is what makes it challenging in addition to the fear that an individual might have
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of being a failure. So when you're committing to doing things, you need to fully commit or not commit
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at all. Because I think that's a big problem a lot of guys have is they just flippantly agree to
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everything and commit to whatever comes up. I had a discussion with a friend and she was
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asking if I would run the marathon next year. And I thought long and hard about that before I said
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yes. Because I knew if I said yes, then that's something that I'm committing to doing, which
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means I need to train. I need to run. I need to actually do the marathon next year. There's a lot
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of commitment that goes with that. A year or two years ago, I might've just said, sure, I'll do it
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with no real thought process as to whether or not I wanted to do it or not, or evaluating the amount
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of effort that it would take to do it. So before we start committing to doing things, let's really
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evaluate the time, the resources, the risk, the energy required to complete the objective. And if
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we're not willing to invest in that, it's okay. But we need to be honest about it. Because if we do say
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yes to a marathon, or to starting a business, or to go on a trip with a friend, or to start a business
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with them, or to commit to a new workout program, then that yes means yes. And that means you're in.
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So before you say you're in, commit fully and acknowledge what it's going to take to complete
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the objective. Also, I would say find good people. Find people around you who can help you, who can inspire
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you, who can motivate you to stay on task, because you will want to deviate. This is from Jerry Sedell.
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He says, I'm new here. So I don't know if you've already talked about this. Have you ever considered
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drinking ayahuasca, mushrooms, or other ancient medicine to improve issues in your life? No, I
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really haven't. I know a lot of people talk about that. I'm skeptical, quite honestly, I'm actually going
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to pull up a resource for you. I'm just going to Google order of men psychedelics, because I had a
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podcast not too long ago with his name is Matt Zeman. But let me tell you when it was, it looks
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like it was in July of this year. And the podcast is a beginner's guide to psychedelics. Matt has some
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really good information about psychedelics, how you can use psychedelics for your improvement,
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and what to expect, the pros and cons, side effects, all that sort of thing. So if you go back and you
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listen to that podcast, that might give you some really good resources into visiting these things.
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I'm a skeptic with ayahuasca and mushrooms. In the past, I've said, if you want to get high,
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just get high. You don't need a self-development or self-improvement reason to do so. I'm not sure
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that's entirely accurate or why people would do these things. And I'm not saying they're even
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bad or wrong. I just don't know enough about them. And it's not something that I've explored
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with any level of seriousness, other than having Matt on the podcast to talk with him about it.
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So can't really give you any information on that one. This one comes from Marcus Segura. He's one of
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our battle team leaders, one of our newest battle team leaders in the Iron Council. He says this,
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we've talked about contentment, finding fulfillment, and constantly working on quote unquote more to pursue a
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life of value and meaning. This week during our pastor sermon, he explained, expanded on this
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scripture, quote, I know what it is to be in need. And I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned
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the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether
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living in plenty or in want, I can do all of this through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4,
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12 through 13. What is your take on the context of contentment and gratitude? I've recently done
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some podcasts on the balance. In fact, I should pull these up as well. I don't normally research
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for these episodes because I want it to come across as two guys sitting together at the bar,
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at the game, just having a conversation. And so now that I have other podcasts that might
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address some of these things, I'm wondering if maybe I should spend a little time doing that.
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But there is a podcast that I did where I talk about striking the balance between
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gratitude or contentment and then ambition. And I can't remember the exact verbiage that I used.
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You guys can go back and check that out. But this is a question that gets brought up all the time.
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And usually when this question gets brought up, people are talking about ambition or gratitude,
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like they're at odds with each other. You can either be content or you can be ambitious,
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but you can't be both. But that isn't true. You can be both. You can be ambitious. You can have
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desires. You can have dreams and hopes and goals that you want to accomplish. And you can also be
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very content because you're grateful for what you have. It's just a matter of practicing those things.
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So are you practicing gratitude? For example, if I'm looking around today, I'm grateful for
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the climate, the weather that we're in. I'm grateful for the technology that I have to be
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able to present this to you. I'm grateful for the supply chain where I can create these products,
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whether it's my hat or my hoodie or shirts or battle planners so that I can put together products and
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services and resources that are going to be valuable and improve your life. I'm grateful for
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the creature comforts of modern living. And simultaneously, I want to continue to grow
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the movement. I want to help more people. I want to take all the resources that I've been blessed with
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through our maker, our creator and leverage. I almost said exploit, but that has a negative
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connotation, but it is in a way that, but leverage the gifts and blessings that I have so that I can serve
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other people more effectively. And those two thoughts, they don't contradict each other.
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In fact, they're very complimentary. If I'm grateful for what I have, then I'm more likely
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to utilize it and implement more of it in my life for the betterment of my environment,
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for my culture, for my people and everybody around me. So I think if we can find ways to be content,
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as the scripture in Philippians says, being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed
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or hungry, whether living in plenty or want, I think that's a powerful place to be, that place of
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gratitude and contentment, but that doesn't negate our desire to improve, our desire to get better,
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our desire to grow. And so let's stop holding these two themes or factors at odds with each other.
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Like they're sitting on opposite sides of a scale. They're not. They're complimentary if we choose to
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look at it that way. Aiden Carrillo, he says, how can I be financially sovereign as a student?
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I'm a full-time student and I have some money set aside for my studies, but not working during the
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semester is unsustainable for all of my four years of college. I'm in a situation where I can't get a
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job this semester, but it is possible next semester. What should I do now in order to work
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towards being financially sovereign? Yeah, this is a bit of a dilemma because there are times and
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situations, we call them seasons in life, where you can't do everything that you want to do.
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You can't make money right now because you're investing in your education. And the goal,
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the idea is that that investment in your education will pay dividends down the road. And it likely will
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because you're thinking about it that way, but it's hindering you from hitting all that you want to
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hit, which is to maybe pay off debt or not to get into any additional debt. And so how do you deal
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with that? Well, number one, you recognize that it is in fact a season that is, it isn't going to be
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this way forever. This is not your status quo. And the fact that you're uncomfortable with it
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is a good thing because it says that when you're in a position to get a job and work and do all
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these things, that that's actually what you're going to do. So I would suggest to you that you're
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in the right mindset, but I would also say that there's things that you can do with regards to your
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finances that are going to help you build healthy habits. And maybe you're not in the best
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financial position right now because you are a full-time student, but you can budget, right?
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You do have some money, whether that's a scholarship or money set aside or a grant, there is some money
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somewhere. And so you can learn to budget. You can learn to be frugal. You can learn to say no.
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Maybe there's even an opportunity to put just a little bit of money aside in the stock market or
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something like that and start to learn and research how the stock market works. In fact,
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you don't even need money to do that. You can read up on the stock market. You can learn about
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how it works. You can read great books from real estate moguls and entrepreneurs that have grown
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multi-seven-figure businesses. This is the time for learning so you can do the same thing with
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regards to your finances, even though you're not in the position right now. And all that does is that
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when you are in the position to improve your financial situation, you're going to be that much out
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further ahead than everybody else because you know, you have information, you have resources.
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Clearly you value education and you're paying for education right now. So get educated, read up,
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get smart about it so that when you're in a different position and you will be, of course,
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then you'll be able to make the good moves moving forward. Most people just wait. They won't do
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anything. I can't really deal with that right now because I'm going to school. So I'll deal with it
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later. No, deal with it now. Start to address it now and figure out ways to grow and deal with your
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money situation now so that when you're in a better spot, you'll know what to do. All right,
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guys. So those are the questions from our Brotherhood, the Iron Council. Let's jump over
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to Facebook real quick. Looks like we have five or six over here. So I'll try to get to all these as
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well. This first one comes from Joshua Trott. He says, with the nation and state of the world in
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shambles, how can we begin to make a difference? As the moral fabric is being ripped apart,
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where do we start? Well, here's what I would say is sometimes when we're talking about making a
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difference, we're wondering how we can impact the most amount of people possible, how we can make
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our dent in the universe. And that's great. It's noble. It's ambitious. It's righteous. But I would
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say to you that as a single man, one man, there's a lot that you can do with your kids, with your
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spouse, with your friends, your colleagues, your coworkers, everybody that you come in contact with,
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neighbors. If you could impact one other person, then that one other man is going to go out and do
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the same. And the person he impacts is going to go out and do the same and the same and the same and
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the same. So people look at a movement like this. They think, well, Ryan, you're helping hundreds of
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thousands of people. Yes. But it all started with me just having conversations, me trying to
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influence my children, me trying to influence my family and my neighborhood and my community and
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my employees and people that I work with. If I can do that and 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 million other people
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could do the same, that's how we make a difference. So don't underestimate the value you bring to the
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table just because you happen to be serving one person. If you're coaching your kids' basketball
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team like I'm doing with my youngest son this year, that's eight, nine, 10 kids that are going to be
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around me that are going to be impacted by the work that I do with them. There are some kids now who
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are upperclassmen in high school that I coached when they were six, seven, eight years old. And it's
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pretty cool to see how far they've come. Now, I can't take credit for everything that they've done
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over their lives. They go on spiritual missions and they're getting married and having kids and
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getting into careers and finishing up college. It's wild to see these kids graduate out of high
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school and become men. And I like to think that I had a small part to play in their development.
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So if everybody's doing this, not just me as their coach, but next year's coach and their school
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teacher and their friends and their uncles and their brothers and their dad are doing this,
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then they're going to be fed with all of this incredible, virtuous, righteous masculinity.
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And it's going to be pouring into them so much so that it's going to just manifest itself in the
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way that they show up. So get involved, get active. A lot of people will come to me and they'll say,
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Hey, Ryan, here's this issue I think is important. You should talk about it. You should talk about it.
00:21:48.720
You should talk about it. Now, granted, I probably will because of the nature of my work,
00:21:53.480
but if you see some great injustice or some problem or some issue that needs to be resolved in society,
00:21:59.960
then you should talk about it. We have amazing platforms of social media. Our reach is broader
00:22:05.420
and wider than it's ever been. And if you have an opportunity to talk about these issues with
00:22:10.080
people, then you should certainly take advantage of that. That's how we make a difference. You doing
00:22:15.420
the work with the people that are closest to you, that you have the most influence with, that's the
00:22:21.120
people in your household, and then expanding it from there and encouraging other people to do the
00:22:25.260
same. Let's go to Brandon Ballard. He says, what advice would you give for helping my daughter
00:22:31.860
who's struggling with self-image? She constantly tells me she doesn't feel like she belongs with
00:22:36.200
her friends, with our family. She also struggles to say anything kind about herself, constantly
00:22:41.140
calling herself dumb and wanting to give up when things get slightly difficult. I want to help her
00:22:46.040
build her up, but it feels like she's pulling away from me. We've brought in outside help in the form
00:22:50.640
of counseling and tutors, but I want to do more to help. Anything you can recommend for me to do.
00:22:59.400
Here's what I would suggest. I think as a father, as a man, it's our responsibility with our children
00:23:05.420
to introduce hardship in controlled environments. So if you generally look at the way that we as men
00:23:11.460
show up versus the way generally women show up, women are going to be more supportive, more empathetic,
00:23:16.820
more nurturing, just as a general rule of thumb. You can look at it in the classic example of teaching
00:23:22.480
a child to ride a bike. You get your daughter on the bike and you're holding her shoulder,
00:23:27.060
you're holding underneath the seat and you're kind of jogging her along the driveway. And one day you
00:23:30.860
decide to let go and she goes and she goes 10, 20, 30 yards by herself. And she's so proud. And she
00:23:36.340
looks over her shoulder. And when she does, she turns the handles, the handlebar and crashes.
00:23:40.900
Mom sees this. She's sitting in the doorway watching the enthusiasm and excitement. And she
00:23:49.120
sees little Susie fall and scrape her knees and her elbows. What does mom do? She runs over there,
00:23:55.320
picks her up, dusts her boo-boos off, literally kisses her wounds, tells her to come inside. Let's
00:24:03.320
rinse it off. Let's put a band-aid. And you got like a Paw Patrol band-aid on there. That's what mom does.
00:24:09.140
Is she wrong? Of course not. She's a nurturer. She's empathetic. She's being compassionate.
00:24:15.240
She's fulfilling her responsibility as the matriarch of the home. It's a beautiful thing.
00:24:20.500
Contrast that with what a man does. He sees the same thing. Little Susie looks over her shoulder,
00:24:26.100
turns the handlebars a little too fast, wipes out, scrape boo-boos, elbows, knees, et cetera,
00:24:31.340
et cetera. Dad runs over there. He says, hey, you're okay. Wipe yourself off. Get back up.
00:24:39.720
Maybe offers a hand, but certainly doesn't pick her up. Offers a hand. She gets back up and he says,
00:24:44.900
let's get you back on the bike and get going. Maybe dries away the tears. Is dad wrong? No,
00:24:51.360
of course not. He's fulfilling his duty and responsibility as the patriarch of the home.
00:24:57.280
Neither are wrong. So why do I share this with you? Well, I share it with you because Brandon,
00:25:01.380
as a man, it's your job to introduce hardship, meaningful, significant hardship. We're not talking
00:25:07.680
about just making things hard for the sake of being hard, but hardship in controlled environments
00:25:12.860
that don't put your children in danger, but there is an element of risk so that when they overcome
00:25:18.720
and they will, because you're there to help them and coach them, they're going to feel better about
00:25:24.300
themselves. In society too often, we believe that we should just feel good about ourselves simply
00:25:29.980
because we exist. And I think as I get older and I learn to afford myself some grace, there is some
00:25:38.260
value in that. Sure. That you are a son or daughter of God and that there's inherent value and worth in
00:25:44.180
who you are as a human being. But ultimately it's what we create and what we produce. And if you can go
00:25:49.780
out into the world and you can create and you can produce, then you're going to feel better about
00:25:53.100
yourself. And the same goes for your daughter. She's not going to have the same self-esteem issues if
00:25:58.560
she knows that she's been through physical hardship with martial arts and sports or working on a
00:26:03.620
particular project or, or building something or going on a camp out or, or completing a successful
00:26:08.920
hunt. The more that you can engage her in meaningful and significant ways and help her overcome and work
00:26:15.140
through the challenge, adversity and hardship of difficult things, the better she's going to feel
00:26:19.240
about herself. So the therapy, excellent. Mom's tender, loving heart and hand, excellent. And you as a
00:26:26.740
father with your own kind of love, encouraging her to do difficult things and standing beside her and
00:26:32.320
walking with her in that will help her overcome some of those self-esteem issues. I hope that helps.
00:26:37.920
Let's go to Jono Smith. He says, what book recommendations would you give for a new couple
00:26:42.340
to read together with the goal of strengthening the relationship foundation? My girlfriend and I have
00:26:47.400
been reading through relationship goals by Michael Todd and are looking to start another. Would love to hear
00:26:52.560
what you have to recommend? Thank you. Well, I think what I would probably recommend is the five love
00:27:00.380
languages. That's a great book and it'll help you understand how you communicate love to a significant
00:27:05.860
other and how you feel love. So the five love languages are physical touch, words of affirmation,
00:27:13.980
quality time, acts of service, and gift giving. And one or more of those is going to speak
00:27:20.240
more loudly as it relates to love than another. And one or more of those is going to speak more loudly
00:27:25.760
as it relates to love for your girlfriend. And if you can figure out what she is, what her love
00:27:31.480
language is, then you can realize that she's maybe not into gifts, but she's into quality time.
00:27:37.100
And so you could focus your time and attention on providing quality time with her.
00:27:41.220
If you're into gift giving personally, you like to receive gifts and that manifests itself as love.
00:27:46.320
Then you can explain that to her. If she's reading it with you, she'll know that, Hey,
00:27:49.480
Jonah likes gifts and she can, and I'm talking about big extravagant gifts. I'm talking about
00:27:54.760
little small, thoughtful gestures. It might be a note. It might be a new t-shirt that she thinks
00:28:02.100
you'd really like and appreciate. And you feel love that way. That's a powerful thing. When you
00:28:06.440
begin to speak the same language, imagine trying to have a discussion with somebody who doesn't speak
00:28:10.880
English and that's all you speak. Odds are, it's not going to be very successful. Sure. You might be
00:28:15.660
able to navigate some basic conversation and dialogue, but it's going to be pretty tough.
00:28:19.640
Same thing with relationships. If you don't understand each other's love language. So what
00:28:23.000
I would suggest is the five love languages, Gary Chapman, I believe don't quote me on that.
00:28:28.800
Let's see. This last one comes from Joey Makowski. He says studies show, show growing up in an abusive
00:28:34.100
and controlling and narcissistic mentally ill household has increased odds that you'll be like
00:28:39.100
that too. Yeah. I don't even think we need studies to, uh, to know that. I mean, anecdotally,
00:28:44.440
right. If you grew up around abusive and controlling narcissistic and mentally ill households,
00:28:48.220
odds are you're going to be like that too. I mean that, yeah, that makes sense. How can I make sure
00:28:53.320
I don't end up like that? What steps are books to take? Well, the biggest thing is that, look,
00:28:59.400
if we know that by being in proximity to mentally ill, abusive, controlling narcissistic relationships
00:29:06.460
would move us towards being like that, then the opposite can also be true. That being in loving
00:29:12.580
and supportive and empathetic and fostering, uh, sustaining type relationships are going to help
00:29:20.380
you be more like that. So the answer to the question is the question it's proximity.
00:29:27.360
If you're around negative, toxic, destructive people, you're probably going to be like that.
00:29:31.980
If you're around positive, uplifting, edifying people, you're probably going to be like that.
00:29:36.580
That's why groups like the iron council or other membership or mastermind programs that you might
00:29:41.360
belong to are important. That's why going to events with other people who are like you joining
00:29:46.240
chamber and rotary and toast masters and business network international. If you're an entrepreneur
00:29:52.300
locally would be valuable. Um, finding good friends who are doing good things, working out, training,
00:29:59.280
lifting, engaged in wholesome activities. The more that you can be around those people and the more
00:30:05.280
that you engage them, ask them thoughtful, poignant questions, share with them your feedback and
00:30:10.780
experience of life. The more likely it is that you're going to start acting like that. It's,
00:30:16.380
it's not miraculous and it's not through osmosis. Like we often say, it just is the power of
00:30:22.280
proximity. Ken Coleman wrote a great book. He's with the Ramsey team, uh, called the power of
00:30:27.640
proximity. And he talks about how important it is to be in the right place at the right time.
00:30:31.900
And that's on you. You can do that. If you invest a little time and energy, knowing that if you want
00:30:36.380
to be this kind of person, you need to be around those kinds of people. All right, guys, I think
00:30:42.100
we got through all of them on my own. Uh, Kip will be back next week. So we'll be doing this together.
00:30:47.260
It's a little bit more dynamic when Kip is here. Um, he brings an element that I don't. And I think
00:30:51.820
I bring an element that he don't, he doesn't. So, uh, together we're, we're, uh, we're pretty
00:30:56.020
dynamic. We're a dynamic duo. Uh, anyways, if you have additional questions, thoughts, considerations,
00:31:01.040
please join our Facebook group, facebook.com slash groups slash order of men. Or if you're
00:31:05.620
interested in taking this a step further and having this brotherhood of accountability,
00:31:09.360
then check out the iron council. We're going to open it up in December. So next month you can do
00:31:14.820
that at order of man.com slash iron council. And also check out the store. New hoodies are available.
00:31:21.640
New hat is available store.orderofman.com. All right, guys, we will be back on Friday for our
00:31:27.500
Friday field notes, but until then go out there, take action and become a man. You are meant to be.
00:31:32.220
Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life
00:31:36.480
and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.