FFN 004： Crushing Excuses
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
205.29175
Summary
In this episode of Friday Field Notes, Ryan talks about the one thing that stands in the way of your success in life and in business, and in your personal life, is that you use excuses. In order to be a better man, you have to learn to be less of an ass.
Transcript
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You're a man. You're committed to the work required to forge your own destiny.
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You will not be defeated. You cannot be deterred.
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Nothing stands between you and the victory you seek.
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You're a rock. Steadfast, resolute, and unwavering.
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And, at the end of the day, the job will be done.
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Men, what is going on? Welcome to your Friday Field Notes.
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I am Ryan Mickler, and I am the founder of Order of Men.
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Now, if you're new to the show today, keep in mind that this is just a short version.
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This is a quick show that we do each and every Friday.
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Our full-length show is released every single Tuesday,
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and that's where I interview the strongest, the smartest, the toughest, the baddest,
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So make sure you subscribe to that show so you miss none of those.
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I promise that they'll be well worth your time.
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So if you've listened to me for any amount of time,
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you know that I'm a guy who gets right to the heart of the matter.
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We're charming you with a bunch of fluff that has no relevancy
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And with that said, I just want to jump right into the topic today, which is excuses.
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Now, this is a tough discussion for me because, frankly, excuses tick me off.
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You know, when my kids or my employees give me excuses, I get fired up.
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There is absolutely no reason to come up with any excuses in your life.
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You either did the job or you didn't do the job.
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All they care about is whether or not you got the job done.
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Now, it's easy for us to recognize when others make excuses, but do we recognize it in ourselves?
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Probably not, because the reality is that we've been coming up with excuses our entire lives.
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And because we come up with so many excuses, we don't even recognize it anymore when we're doing it.
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So when you were a kid, for example, you came up with all the reasons in the world why you didn't get your chores done.
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When you got a little older, you told a teacher why you didn't get your homework done.
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When you got into career, you told your boss why you didn't hit that deadline for the project.
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And maybe now you don't have anyone necessarily to report to.
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So instead of sharing your excuses with others, you share them with yourselves.
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You run these scripts in your head why you didn't get the promotion, why your marriage is falling apart,
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why you're out of shape, why you went bankrupt.
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The problem is the underlying threat of the excuse that each and every one of us make on a daily basis.
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When you tell others or even yourself why you didn't succeed,
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typically what happens is you end up blaming somebody else or something else.
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And that something is usually completely outside of your control.
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Because for example, if you're going through a divorce and your excuses,
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Now, on the other hand, if you said you're going through a divorce because you're an asshole.
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But that's not really what happens here, right?
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I mean, you're not going to call yourself out like that.
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The most successful people on the planet, they do just that.
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They take the blame, they take the fall, and then they learn from those failures.
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Powerful in your relationships, powerful in your career, powerful with your money, physically,
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But each time you and I make excuses based on what somebody else did or some other outside
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We all know that guy in the office who's the weenie, right?
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And what do you actually think about that person?
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The reason you think that about that person is because he makes excuses for his poor performance.
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It's not necessarily the poor performance that gets you upset.
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It's the lack of ability to own that performance.
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Number one, recognize that your excuses, they have expiration dates on them.
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You can only sulk on your misfortune for so long before it's time to put your big boy
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Now, most of you know I grew up without a permanent father figure in my home.
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I didn't have a role model and I'm not going to get into that here.
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If you want to know more about my story, you can go listen to past episodes of my podcast,
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but it would have been easy for me to turn out completely different than I did.
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And everyone would have said, oh, I feel bad for Ryan.
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I've learned some things and my life is my own excuses have expiration dates.
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Second, we need to eliminate the need to explain every single thing that we did throughout the
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See, when you feel it necessary to explain everything, you're more likely to make excuses.
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Remember, nobody cares why or how you did something.
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They just care about whether you did it or not.
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So when I went to army basic training in 2000, me and my buddies from high school got very
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used to the phrase, no excuses, drill sergeant.
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When we messed up in training, we tell our drill sergeant, no excuses.
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When the guy next to us would make his excuses, he'd get smoked, which is a term for getting
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your ass kicked through a pushups, sit-ups, pull-ups, literally until you puked.
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Now we'd catch these drill sergeants off guard because they were so used to privates giving them
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all of the reasons in the world for the failures.
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And when we would say no excuses, the drill sergeants would look at us and say, fine,
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So realize that you don't need to explain everything and get used to the phrase, no excuses.
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Last thing I want to talk with you about today is that you need to stop looking at other people.
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Why do we care so much about what other people do?
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But we need to stop looking at what other people do or don't do is a recipe, I'm telling
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First, you're going to get caught in the comparison trap.
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Or you're going to start throwing people under the bus.
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So my oldest son, he'll come rat his brother out every once in a while for something that
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Let other people worry about their stuff and you worry about yours.
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When you start getting into that blame game, nobody is going to work with you and you won't
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get done whatever it is you're trying to accomplish.
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Besides, you can't really even control what other people do.
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This is a lesson that we teach our kids, but we don't even adhere to it as adults.
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Three quick lessons on what you can do throughout your day to eliminate, to crush those excuses.
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I could go on about this all day, but I told you it'd be a short show.
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Bottom line, own everything that happens in your life.
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It may not be your fault, but it really doesn't matter.
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Focus on what you can control yourself and quit making excuses as to why something you said
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It's the only way that you guys can reclaim the power and be the man that you're working
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Now, if you want to learn more about how to do this and take control of your life, you
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We'll keep going, but also consider joining our elite mastermind, the Iron Council.
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This is a group of men, myself included, who will hold your feet to the fire.
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We ask you to identify your goals and then we help you accomplish them.
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So if you're interested in that, you can learn more about it at orderofman.com slash iron
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But until then, guys, eliminate your excuses, own every single choice that you make, accept
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Now, it's time to crush your excuses, own your choices, accept responsibility, and live manfully.
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Learn how at orderofman.com forward slash field notes.