Evolve or Die | FRIDAY FIELD NOTES
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Summary
In this episode of Friday Field Notes, Ryan talks about the importance of growing, adapting, growing, expanding, and generally getting better as a man. He talks about his journey to becoming a better version of himself, and why it's important to be a man of action.
Transcript
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You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart
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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 or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who
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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,
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and I am the host and the founder of this podcast and this movement. I want to welcome you here
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to the best show in podcasting for men. It is my goal to give you the tools and conversations
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and resources, guidance, direction, insight, everything that you might need to become a
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more capable man. And that's exactly what we're going to be talking about on this Friday Field
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Notes. We're going to be talking about adapting, evolving, growing, expanding, improving, and
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generally getting better. So we've got this show, your Friday Field Notes. We've also got
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our interview show, which is me having conversations with some of the most successful men on the
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planet. These are New York Times bestselling authors, scholars, athletes, warriors, entrepreneurs,
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any man who's had a successful story and has some insight to share with us. And then of course,
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we've got our Wednesday show, which is our ask me anything where we're fielding questions.
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My co-host Kip Sorensen and I from questions from in the, uh, the iron council, which is our
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exclusive brotherhood. And then also our Facebook group, which I think we're just about to crack 60,000
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men over there. So needless to say, this is a great resource. And again, I'm honored that you're
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here. Uh, I don't really have a whole lot of announcements as of the release of this podcast.
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We're in the middle of our first order of man main event. Uh, it's going to be an incredible
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weekend. We've got, I think 65, somewhere right in there, 65 guys coming out to spend the weekend
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with camaraderie and competition and, and focusing on what we want to accomplish over the next 90 days.
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It's going to be again, a very, very exciting weekend. Please stay tuned as we're going to have
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dates for some spring events available here pretty quickly as well. Uh, outside of that,
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make sure you check out my friends and show sponsors origin main. They do Brazilian jujitsu
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geese and rash guards and lifestyle apparel. But one of the things that I really, really like,
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uh, is their new, uh, energy and cognitive enhancer. It's called discipline go it's in a can
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and I like the flavors. It helps me build some clarity and focus as I want to do some of these
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tasks and podcasting and the event and everything else that I've got going on, but they've got other
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what else? The super krill, the joint warfare, they've got it all. So check it out.
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Origin, Maine as in the state, Maine origin, Maine.com. And then use the code order at checkout
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or DER at checkout. All right, guys, enough of the announcements, enough of the lead up.
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This one's going to be maybe a little shorter than it has in the past, but it's a very important
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message. Uh, and it's one that I think, well, I know personally that I really didn't utilize in my
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life, uh, for a very long time. In fact, I've probably only been thinking heavily about evolving
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and growing and expanding, uh, over the past 10 years. Cause leading up to that point,
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I really wasn't evolving. I wasn't growing. I wasn't getting better. I wasn't improving. And,
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and the reason I titled this evolve or die is I don't quite literally mean you're going to die.
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What I mean is that you might suffer some sort of emotional or intellectual or mental, uh,
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or spiritual death. And I can tell you, I talk with men every single day who are walking around
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like lifeless zombies, wandering from task to task to task. Uh, they don't have any clarity,
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any purpose, any direction in their life. And frankly, for all intents and purposes,
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they might as well be dead because they're walking around like, like the living dead.
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And you might find yourself in that situation. You may be in that situation right now. And that's
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the last thing I want for you because society needs men who aren't wandering around with no direction.
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What we need is highly motivated, ambitious, dedicated, noble, capable men who are growing
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and evolving and expanding and getting better and developing some sort of mastery towards a skill
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that's going to serve them and their families and their businesses and their communities in all ways.
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Now it's difficult because I think as human beings, we find the path of least resistance.
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And often in the path of least resistance is us just doing the status quo, doing enough just to
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get by at work, doing just enough to get by in a relationship and not go through a separation or
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divorce, uh, doing just enough in the gym, maybe to not get too fat. And in a lot of ways, we're
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playing the game of life in a way that, that isn't about success. It's playing not to lose
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and we're taking it easy and we're coasting. And even if we've had some measure of success,
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we're resting on our laurels, assuming that that's enough. And if it is enough, I can't help but think
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why you're still kicking, why you're still existing. It's never enough for me. I want to continue to grow
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and expand in all ways. And in order to do that, I'm going to have to adopt the mantra, evolve or
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die, get better. Part of the hard part with this though, is that as you do start to walk down your
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course and your path of self-development, getting better physically, getting stronger, eating the
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right foods, uh, reading new books, listening to new podcasts, listening to this information,
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joining the iron council, doing everything that you can to get better. Uh, you're going to have some
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pushback. You're going to have some pushback from people who are close to you. People who have even
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said that they want you to win people that have either literally said they want you to win or have
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voluntarily signed on the dotted line and said, I will support you in your growth and your progress
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along the way. IE your spouse, uh, close friends, employers, et cetera, et cetera. Coworkers.
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These are people who should have you have your back. But unfortunately, as you begin to grow
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and you begin to acquire new information and develop new skillsets, you're going to have
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people that are going to push back on you. And I want you to understand this because I think it's
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very, very easy for us to get bitter and be resentful and hold animosity towards these individuals
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who seem like they're stunting our growth. I think for the most part that, that 90, 95, 99% of these
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people, it isn't that they have ill will or, or don't want you to succeed. I don't think it has
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anything to do with you at all. In fact, I think most people, including ourselves are pretty selfish
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and think very little about other people. When you start to walk this path, the reason that people
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push back on that is because your growth and your evolution and you improving and getting better
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represents a threat to their own existence, right? We find people who are like us. So if we're
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relatively successful in business, guess who we hang out with other people who are relatively
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successful in business. If we're fat and out of shape and overweight and, and, and aren't exerting
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ourselves physically, odds are that you're surrounded by people who are fat and overweight and out of
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shape and aren't exerting themselves physically, that's comfortable to us. We kind of swim in the
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same school, right? We, we, we find those people who make us comfortable with our own existence.
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But if you want to grow and you want to evolve, then you're going to have to push yourself outside
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of your comfort zone. You're going to have to look around, not only in your inner circle,
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because you might be complacent there. You're going to have to expand that circle. You're going to have
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to broaden your perspective. You're going to have to look to other individuals who you are inspired by,
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who are doing things in a, in a more efficient, more effective, productive way than you currently
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are. And if, if the shoe were on the other foot, meaning that, that you are the one that is watching
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other people evolve, that's not comfortable, right? It's not comfortable to see that somebody else is
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progressing faster than you. You have two choices. You can either ignore that. I guess you have three
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choices. You can ignore that individual altogether. You can attempt to pull them down like the old
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crab in the bucket mentality, or you can race to catch up. And that's what you're asking people
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to do who are in your inner circle. As you start to develop and expand and grow, you're asking them
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to catch up. And maybe these people don't want to catch up. And here's what you need to know about
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this. You have no obligation to stop. You have no obligation or responsibility to slow down. Now,
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I do think you have a responsibility and obligation in some cases to explain yourself.
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For example, your wife, you may want to explain what you're doing and why. One of the things I hear
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quite often with guys who join our brotherhood, the iron council is their wives initially,
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not that they talk bad about it, but that they don't quite and fully understand it. And it represents
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again, a threat to the status quo, which makes them concerned. And so they say things like,
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Oh, your little man club, your little man organization. But what's really fascinating
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is as these guys grow and develop, and we're holding each other accountable and we're doing
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challenges and we're doing assignments. And these men who come into our brotherhood start to improve
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their lives. Guess who sees that? Their wife. And as soon as their wife sees that it's a result of
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them banding with other men who are motivated and ambitious and trying new things and growing,
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and she begins to connect the dots between you being part of the quote unquote, little man group
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or little man club and your improvement, you being a more capable husband and father and leader and a
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patriarch of your home, she starts to connect those dots. And then she sees, Oh, okay, this makes sense.
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This makes sense. And this becomes what my friend, Zach Evanish has talked quite a bit about the new
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normal, the new normal. You have a normal right now. You have a baseline right now. So what I'd like
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you to do is inventory your life in four key areas, yourself, personally, mentally, spiritually getting
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right with yourself. How do you feel about who you are? How do you feel about what you've done?
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Are there some inadequacies? Are there some confidence issues, some self doubt, some internal
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dialogue that's destructive to who you are as a man? And if it is, that's all right. We need to
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identify it because these are areas for growth and evolution in our lives. So that's number one.
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I call it calibration, getting right with yourself, getting right with your mind, getting right with
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your soul and really knowing that you do have purpose. And there is a reason that you're here
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on this planet. There's a reason that you're alive. We want to help you connect to what that
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is. So you have to continue to grow and develop because you can see so clearly that there's
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something else meant for you. And we want to help you bridge that gap. So that's number one.
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Number two, connections. I want you to look around and inventory your relationships and how do you
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evolve? How do you expand? How do you grow? How do you position yourself into relationships that are
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more advantageous for other individuals that are more advantageous for you? How do you evolve
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current relationships by leveling those people up, by leading positively and effectively in their
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lives? How do you get your kids to be more influenced by your positive behavior? How do you get your wife
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to voluntarily follow you because you're somebody worth following? But also, also, how do you find other
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people who are further down the path than you? Note, I didn't say better. And I didn't say that
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deliberately. They're not better than you. They may just be further down the path than you. So you don't
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need to be intimidated by these individuals thinking that they're better than you or they're
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worth more than you. No, just realize that these are individuals that are further down the path, that
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they have identified a skill set, that they have mastered that skill set, and it's improved and enhanced
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their life to the degree that you want to improve and enhance your life. Don't be intimidated by that.
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Be inspired by that. Then ask yourself, how do I surround myself with those individuals? What value do
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I have to offer these other people? How can I make myself a man who these types of individuals want me in
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their circle? So that's number two, connections. Number three, condition. If you're the same guy that you
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were in high school or worse, then you're not evolving. You're not growing. You're not expanding.
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You're withering away and you're dying. From the minute that you're born, it's a process of death.
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But is it a downhill, a steady downhill decline and demise of who you are physically? Or is it a growth?
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Is it an expansion? I'm in the best shape I've been in my entire life right now at 38 years old.
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I thought my prime was at 18 years old. And here I am two decades later, stronger, bigger, faster,
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leaner, more capable, not only when it comes to strength, but also skills like martial arts
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and just understanding how to utilize my body and harness it as two things, a tool and a weapon
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should I need it? Because I have a growth mindset as Carol Dweck talks about in her book.
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I think it's called mindset, the new psychology of success. So if you haven't read that book,
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make sure you check it out. So that's the third component is condition. How are you improving
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physically? Are you getting the sleep, the nutrition, the exercise? Are you gaining more
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mobility and more strength and conditioning and all of these things that go into being a more fit
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and healthy human being? And then the last component of this that I want you to inventory
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is contribution. Contribution is the way that you give back and the way that you add value to all of
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your interactions, the way that you add value to your family, your business, your community,
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inside the walls of your home, inside the walls of your business. If you're coaching, if you're
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mentoring, if you're guiding, it doesn't matter what you're doing. How are you ensuring that the
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place, the environment in which you find yourself is better off because you were there. This is a
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legacy. Also, I want the world to be better than when I got here. I want my kids to be better off
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because I was their father. I want my wife to win more because I was her husband. I want my clients
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to win in my financial planning practice because I was their advisor. I want the men who are inside
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of this, you who are listening right now, and also in order of man and iron council to be more
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capable men because of the tools and the systems and the processes that we have created. So I'm
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constantly looking for ways to make myself more valuable. One of the biggest issues that men run
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across is their, their lack of confidence in themselves. And I've talked about it a million
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times. Guys will say, well, I, you know, I, I'm just not confident. I don't know how to gain confidence
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in myself and, and really just be happy with who I am. And my response is what makes you think you
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should be happy with who you are. More often than not, these men can't come up with an answer to
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that. And that's the problem. That's the problem. You don't get to just have confidence because you
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feel like you deserve it or you want it, or it's been in doubt or, or it's a gift that you've been
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born with. That's not confidence. It might be arrogance. It might be cockiness, but confidence is
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genuinely earned and it's earned by facing battles that are meaningful and significant to you. And then
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overcoming those battles and doing something that you didn't previously think
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yourself capable of. That is how you develop confidence. That is how you set your path,
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you on the path to evolving and growing and expanding and becoming better guys. These are
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the things that I want for you. These are the things that I want for myself. We live in a time where
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people continually dismiss and mock masculinity. There's a, a huge, huge problem, especially when we
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begin to look at the, uh, what seems to me the increasing rates of mass murders and violent
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encounters that are destructive and harmful, not productive and helpful. This comes from a society
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because we have bred these individuals, a society that has completely dismissed what it means to be a
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man. That instead of positioning men where they should be a leader in their family, their businesses,
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their communities, their homes, and every environment in which they show, they'd rather pull those people
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down off that mantle of masculinity. And it's our job to dismiss that idea, to represent the antithesis
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of this weak, cowardly, pathetic male that society would have us be. And we do this by evolving. We do
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this by expanding. I can't tell you how often I hear from guys who will say things like, well, what do
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you expect? That's just what, what society wants from us. And there's nothing we can do about it. And
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our hands are tied. And some guy said the other day, 50% of people won't really grow from this. It's
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like, I don't care about any of that. I don't care about any of that. What I care about is
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immediately me fixing myself, making myself more capable, improving, getting better, and then
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expanding that starting within the walls of my home, into my neighborhood, into my community,
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into my state, and even into the country and internationally through this movement.
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But it starts at the lowest common denominator, which is myself. And guess what? Good news. You can
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entirely control yourself. So when somebody says to me, well, society, blah, blah, blah, fill in the blank
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with their excuse of choice, says something like that, I can dismiss that because I'm not too
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concerned about what other people are doing. I know I have the greatest impact and influence when
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I decide to evolve, when I decide to grow, when I decide to make myself more capable.
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So don't rely on the excuses. Don't feed yourself the BS and tell yourself how society wants you to
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behave and then acquiesce to that weak request. Instead, reject it. Dismiss it. Share the message,
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the movement of reclaiming and restoring masculinity. Be this in yourselves. Grow, evolve, expand.
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If you're the same guy that you were yesterday as you are today, you're doing something wrong.
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And although you may not be in any sort of physical threat of death, you are certainly dying
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mentally, emotionally, spiritually, relationally, potentially even physically. I don't want that
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for you. I want growth and I want life and I want vitality and energy and then ultimately productivity
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for the things that are important to you, your family, your business, your community,
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your career, the people in your circle. We do that by getting better, by improving, by expanding.
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We focus on those four key areas. Again, they're calibration, connection, condition, and contribution.
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When you inventory those spaces and you ask yourself and you commit to being ruthlessly
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honest and truthful about where you fall on those things, you establish the foundation for
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growth and expansion moving forward. Be honest with yourself, guys. Don't BS yourself. You can pay
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yourself lip service, but deep down inside, you know when you're lying to yourself. And if you're
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lying to yourself and you're not telling yourself the truth about how you show up and who you are and
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how you're behaving and the potential that you're leaving on the table, you're doing yourself a
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disservice. Don't sell yourself short. Be real about things so that you can improve, that you can
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grow, that you can expand. And then as I part today, I want to tell you that I appreciate how
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you guys show up. I get messages every day on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and emails and
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texts and everything else from you guys who are saying what you've been able to accomplish in your
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life in a very, very short period of time. And that's the beauty of implementing not only what I'm
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talking about today, but what we talk about and have been talking about for the past four and a
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half years, what we talk about and the actions that we take and the accountability that we have
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in our brotherhood, the iron council. When you implement these simple, not easy, but simple
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strategies that I share with you process or I should say progress starts to happen instantaneously
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and it will happen for you. So make sure you band with us like you have. Make sure you subscribe
00:20:51.380
to the show. Connect with me on Instagram at Ryan Mickler. Share this episode, share this
00:20:58.480
podcast, share the movement. My goal is to mobilize millions and millions of men across the planet
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who believe like we believe, who believe that they are the patriarch of their home and their
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businesses and their communities who lead effectively with clarity and kindness and compassion and even
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love, but do it in a way that's effective, that produces and drives results for themselves
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and the people that inevitably we are called to serve as men. All right, guys, that's all I've got
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for you. Again, we've got a crazy weekend here at the order of men headquarters with our first event
00:21:37.280
here in Maine. The main event is what we'd called it. So I'm going to get to that. I'll let you guys get
00:21:43.860
to your weekend. I'm glad that you're here. I'm glad that you're tuning in. I'm glad that you're
00:21:48.240
banded with us. We need more men in this fight. And it's my mission and has been my mission for the
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past almost five years now to reclaim and restore masculinity. And we are making our dent and we will
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continue to make a dent and we will continue to enlist and equip and mobilize the type of men that this
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world needs. All right, guys, get out there, take action, become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for
00:22:09.980
listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you
00:22:15.260
were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.