Order of Man - Fail on Your Feet

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

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

00:00:10.500 You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong. This is your life. This is who

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

00:00:22.820 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler.

00:00:27.640 I'm the host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement. Welcome here today to your

00:00:32.000 Friday Field Notes. If you're new and you're just joining, this is an episode where I share some

00:00:37.760 thoughts that I've had from throughout the week, and hopefully it serves you in some meaningful and

00:00:43.280 significant way. And again, if you're new, my goal here with the podcast is to give you any information

00:00:48.820 I can to help you improve your life as a husband, a father, a leader in your community, a business

00:00:56.000 owner, an employee, a mentor, a friend, a brother, a son, however you're showing up as a man, I want

00:01:01.100 to give you what you need. And I need this as well, frankly. So we have interviews with incredible

00:01:07.780 men. We have this Friday Field Notes. Every Wednesday we do an Ask Me Anything where I field

00:01:11.980 your questions. So we've got a lot going on. And if you haven't subscribed to the podcast,

00:01:15.900 please make sure you do. Now today, I want to talk with you about failing on your feet

00:01:19.920 because I've seen a lot of guys who fail, uh, myself included. We all do. We all fall short

00:01:25.440 at times and we all mess things up some more significant mess ups than others. But I see a

00:01:32.000 lot of men crumbling when they do, and that can't happen. It cannot happen because we have to get

00:01:39.000 back up. We have to land on our feet. We have to continue to act. We have to get better. We have to

00:01:43.400 improve ourselves and we have to continue to serve the people in our lives. And that requires that we

00:01:47.920 don't crumble. Now, the reason I wanted to talk with you about this today is because I saw a video.

00:01:53.900 Now you may hear some noise in the background. I apologize. I'm on a hunt this week and I'm taking

00:01:58.460 a break. I'm at my friend's house, uh, and he's doing some work outside. So we'll have to fight

00:02:02.900 through the noise, but that's okay. This is, uh, these are real conversation. Anyways, uh, I watched a

00:02:09.200 video the other day and it was a slow motion video of a cat that was falling. And it's pretty

00:02:16.580 incredible to see how a cat, when it's falling articulates its body and adapts and adjusts and

00:02:22.960 manipulates its, its balance and all of these things in order to land on his feet, right?

00:02:28.260 Cat are well known for landing on their feet. Well, we need to as well. When things go wrong

00:02:32.880 and things go South, whether it's by our own making or external circumstances beyond our control,

00:02:37.660 we need to land on our feet so that our time down is minimal so that we can get back up,

00:02:43.900 stand back up and get back into the fight in which we're engaged. The fight for our families,

00:02:48.020 the fight for our culture. Uh, maybe it's the fight for your, your business or a promotion

00:02:53.680 and stumbling, falling, flailing around on the ground is not going to happen. It's not going to

00:02:59.800 work. It's not going to make you better. And it's not going to get you in the fight fast.

00:03:02.820 So how do we do this when we fail? And that failure can look like a lot of different things. It could be

00:03:07.480 a medical diagnosis. It could be being passed over for a promotion. It could be,

00:03:12.060 uh, getting into some sort of altercation. It could be a bankruptcy. It could be a lawsuit,

00:03:16.920 um, uh, uh, separation or a divorce. There's so many different things that, that we inevitably face

00:03:24.400 as men and we have to be able to, to deal with them and confront them. So I've got a five-part

00:03:29.520 framework that I've personally used to varying degrees and depending on how well I implement them,

00:03:35.780 that's going to help you fail on your feet. Okay. So number one is guys, when things go South and

00:03:40.940 things go wrong, just stop. Okay. You've got to stop. Don't make things worse than they have to

00:03:48.080 be. And sometimes we do because we're not paying attention to what's going on or we don't even stop

00:03:54.380 the behavior. That's why it's important. You stop because the behavior that you are engaged in

00:03:59.040 is what's getting us to the point of where we're at, which is less than favorable right now. So the first

00:04:04.580 thing that we need to do is stop that behavior. But the next thing that we need to do is stop

00:04:09.680 flailing around and thinking just because we're taking action, that it's somehow prudent because I

00:04:14.740 know if you're anything like me, when things go wrong, we tend to get emotional and it's not bad

00:04:19.820 to have emotion, but it's bad to react, not bad to respond. There's a difference between

00:04:25.080 responsiveness and reaction. It's not healthy to react based on emotion. And so what a lot of guys

00:04:33.380 will do is they'll flail around and they'll freak out and they'll let their emotions dictate and

00:04:36.580 they'll let the emotion take over and control. And, and they'll start doing wild and crazy things

00:04:41.940 that they otherwise would never normally do. And a lot of the times it ends up making the situation

00:04:47.920 worse. So for example, if you're getting passed over for a promotion and that gets you pissed off

00:04:52.680 and rightfully so you should be angry about that. What do a lot of guys do? Well, they channel their

00:04:56.520 anger towards, towards a boss or towards that other person who got the promotion. And so what might

00:05:01.420 they do? Well, maybe they quit. Well, hold on. You still have a mortgage payment. You still have

00:05:05.780 responsibilities and obligations and liabilities. And so if you're pissed off and you decide, Hey,

00:05:10.600 I'm going to throw, I'm going to, I'm going to quit, or I'm going to burn this thing down on the way out.

00:05:14.920 Metaphorically speaking, maybe literally. Okay. Well then that's a problem. You just made it worse

00:05:21.900 because you didn't stop and give yourself ample time and space to be able to think about your next

00:05:28.020 steps. So let's not rush into any dumb decisions. Sometimes just keeping ourselves out of trouble

00:05:38.520 is actually what's needed. So if you're failing, you're struggling, you're hurting, you're dealing

00:05:44.100 with something, stop, breathe, get out of the environment, get out of this situation, take a step

00:05:50.360 back. That's number one. You don't want to make things worse. Number two, now we have to orient

00:05:54.740 ourselves towards a target. So again, I go back to that cat falling. If you notice when the cat's

00:05:59.040 falling, it's looking down, right? It's, it's looking down at the ground and it keeps its eyes

00:06:03.700 and its head toward the ground. And then it begins to articulate its body based on what it needs to do

00:06:10.240 to get its feet to land on the ground, but its head and its eyes are always down, facing down,

00:06:14.260 trying to get its body oriented to the target. This is a lot like, um, uh, gosh, I can't remember the

00:06:21.800 air force Colonel right off hand, uh, Boyd, maybe the OODA loop observe, orient, decide act. So

00:06:28.480 you're orienting yourself towards what you want. So if it's that promotion, well, you want the

00:06:33.140 promotion. If it's to salvage the marriage, then that's where you need to orient yourself towards.

00:06:38.860 Uh, if it's to start a business, if it's to begin to get healthier, uh, or to deal with a lawsuit or

00:06:44.340 whatever it might be, then you need to orient yourself towards the target. And you need to, in a way,

00:06:48.400 become fixated on that target, not to the point where you let other things go that are a priority,

00:06:52.600 but you need to make sure that your time and your attention, your energy goes towards that thing.

00:06:58.920 And that leads us into point number three, which is to reprioritize, change your priorities and adapt

00:07:04.660 your behaviors. So again, stop is number one, don't make things worse. Now, number two, orient yourself

00:07:11.100 to your target that you want to achieve. Number three, now we reprioritize our lives and we adapt as

00:07:17.740 necessary. So if you're struggling in your family dynamic, okay, you probably need to scale back on

00:07:23.340 work right now. If you're struggling at work, you might need to take a little time away from the

00:07:28.220 family in order to make sure that you can still make ends meet for the family. So we reprioritize

00:07:34.360 and then we start to adjust our schedules. We learn to say no to the things that we can no longer do.

00:07:40.000 We learn to delegate where we need to delegate. So things still get taken care of that we don't have

00:07:44.400 to personally do ourselves. Cause there are things that we can't let fall through the cracks,

00:07:49.480 but we don't have to do it all, but you do need to reprioritize. If you just go with the status quo

00:07:55.980 and you think that just because you know, you're, you're, you're going to do it the way you've always

00:08:01.120 done it and expect different results. I mean, that's not going to work. So reprioritize, adapt your

00:08:06.640 schedule, adapt your behaviors, adapt whatever you need to as necessary. Number four, now we begin to

00:08:12.600 enlist the resources that we need. And you do have resources. You have friends, you have family

00:08:17.520 members, you have courses and programs and books and eBooks and things that you can purchase and,

00:08:23.600 and organizations you can be part of and friends that you can call. There are resources around you.

00:08:29.140 And all too often I see so many men going at life alone and they won't enlist any help. They won't

00:08:35.840 enlist any of their resources. And it's like, why, why would you do that? Why would you go to battle

00:08:39.980 and, and not utilize all the tools at your disposal? Or another metaphor might be playing

00:08:46.920 a football game and you have your star athlete. Let's say your star athletes, your quarterback,

00:08:50.780 and you want to win this football game. And so you go and you're like, you know,

00:08:55.260 we don't really want to use our quarterback this week. Why? That that's a resource at your disposal.

00:09:02.420 Well, because we think we can win without them. Okay. Well now that's an ego issue and an ego issue

00:09:07.440 isn't going to help you win the game, but that's what we do in life. Well, I'm not going to call

00:09:11.480 my friends because you know, I don't want them to think less of me. Now we might not vocalize that,

00:09:15.560 but that's what we think in our mind. And so you just left your, one of your best assets on the

00:09:19.920 sidelines or, you know, I'm not going to buy that course because you know, I don't want to spend the

00:09:25.120 money on it. Okay. All right. Well, good luck doing it on your own. What's the cost of not investing

00:09:31.020 in yourself? So guys enlist all of the resources at your disposal. I think about this with therapy.

00:09:37.380 A lot of guys could really benefit from therapy. And I've started to do some, some, um, some therapy

00:09:42.620 myself. And it's been extremely helpful to see things from a different perspective that I hadn't

00:09:47.600 considered before, but a lot of guys won't go because of the stigma associated with it, that

00:09:52.260 you're somehow weak. Well, yeah. I mean, in essence, maybe, you know, we can, I might not use that word

00:09:59.140 necessarily, but there is some sort of deficiency and that's why you would go to therapy so that you

00:10:04.940 can shore up that deficiency. But again, if we go back to that football analogy, if you know your

00:10:09.200 passing game's weak or your running game is weak, you don't ignore it. You acknowledge it. And then

00:10:15.400 you figure out how to improve in that thing. And therapy can be a valuable resource. It doesn't make

00:10:21.500 you weak. It means that you acknowledge your inadequacies, you acknowledge your shortcomings,

00:10:26.220 and now you're doing something about it to shore those areas up. So guys, make sure you're enlisting

00:10:31.740 the resources that you need to don't long wolf this thing. And then the next, the last point right

00:10:36.220 here is to take calculated, precise, and consistent action. You've stopped. You're not making things

00:10:44.180 worse by doing the same behaviors or letting your emotions dictate what you're doing. You've now

00:10:48.920 oriented yourself towards a target. You've reprioritized and adapted as necessary. Now you're

00:10:57.160 enlisting the resources and the friends and the people and the courses and the programs and the

00:11:00.460 investments that you need. And now you're going to take calculated, precise, and consistent action.

00:11:06.740 We all know what calculated is because the four previous points led to that. Precise is,

00:11:11.580 is specific. It's measurable. We know what we're doing. We know why we're doing it.

00:11:18.820 And then we have this consistent component guys. It has to be consistent. This is very,

00:11:23.320 very important. If you do things for a month and you think you're going to experience results

00:11:27.560 that have taken you years and decades, even to, to get you into this situation, you think by doing

00:11:34.720 something for a month that you're going to be better, that it's going to improve. You got another

00:11:39.560 thing coming. I'm talking, when I say consistent action, I mean lifelong action. So I've got a short

00:11:47.280 one for you today, but that's it guys. This is how we fail on our feet. Again, stop. Don't make

00:11:52.080 things worse. Orient yourself to a target. Reprioritize and adapt. Enlist the resources you need

00:11:58.000 and take calculated, precise, and consistent action. Let me know how that's going for you guys.

00:12:03.400 Let me know if you need help from me. If you have questions, thoughts, ideas, input, reach out to me

00:12:08.280 on the socials. I'm very active on Instagram. That's probably where I'm most active and make

00:12:13.800 sure you connect there. Also check out our free battle ready program. A lot of what we talk about

00:12:19.020 here is what we talk about in that battle ready program. You can do it order of man.com slash

00:12:22.800 battle ready. All right, guys, we'll be back next week until then go out there, take action,

00:12:28.000 fail on your feet and become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man

00:12:33.400 podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.

00:12:38.140 We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - October 28, 2022

Fail on Your Feet ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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