FFN 046： Adjust Fire
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Words per Minute
195.09094
Summary
When life knocks you down, you are not easily deterred or defeated. You get back up one more time, resilient, and strong. This is your life, this is who you are, and who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all, and done, you can call yourself a man.
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? My name is Ryan
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Nickler, and I am the host and founder of this podcast, The Order of Man. Really quickly
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today, this is a show, guys, about being a better man. So if you're a man and you want
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to be a better one, stay tuned because we are attempting to show you how. And we do that
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through two shows per week. This one, the one you're listening to right now, our Friday field
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notes, and also our interview show, which is released each and every Tuesday. We are interviewing
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the world's most successful men. We've got Navy SEALs, professional athletes, scholars, New
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York Times bestselling authors, entrepreneurs. Basically, we're always on the lookout for
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men who have a message to share. And then as a bonus, guys, you get to listen to me on
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Friday for our Friday field notes for some ideas that are bouncing around in my head throughout
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the week. So what do you do with that information? You subscribe. Subscribe to this show. Subscribe
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to this podcast so you never miss a single episode. All right, let's talk about this topic
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of today, which is adjust fire. I'm actually bringing you back to my military days with this
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one. But what do I mean by adjust fire? I mean that you're not always going to hit your
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mark. You're not always going to get it right. I know that I mess up every single day and
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without the ability for me to adjust along the way, the world, my worldview would look
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a lot different than what it actually does. I get a lot of messages from men who have gone
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through some serious struggles and you might fall into one of these camps, whether that's
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a divorce or job loss, illness or disease, bankruptcy. But I also get a lot of messages
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from men who may not have gone through anything extremely difficult, but they feel like maybe
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they're in a rut and they can't get out of that rut. Either way, and wherever you fall
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on that spectrum of severity in your daily struggles, I think the answer to all of it
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is to adjust fire. I was an artillery man with the Utah Army National Guard, a red leg for
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those of you who are familiar, and then later in the army during my deployment to Iraq. But
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one of the principles that we learned early on when it came to engaging targets was this
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principle of adjusting fire. So I need to give you a little background on how an artillery
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unit fights in a battle. I'm not going to share anything sensitive with you and everything
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that I'm going to tell you is common in public knowledge. I just got to throw that disclaimer
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out there. But when I was in the military, I was in a unit, a section called fire direction
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control, which basically meant that I was the liaison between what the forward observers were
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seeing on the battlefield and the guns, in our case, howitzers, who were actually engaging
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those targets. The way that this would work is that the forward observer team would call
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in coordinates of an enemy position or a convoy, whatever it was, to us in fire direction
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control. We would then take that information, we'd analyze it, make some calculations, and then
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we'd send the pertinent information to the guns who would fire on that target. From
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there, those forward observers who initially called in the target would do their thing,
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they'd observe, and they'd let us know how we did. If we did it right, the target or the
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threat was neutralized, and then we'd go on about our business. If not, if we missed or
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only partially hit, that forward observer would then call for an adjust fire, which, if you
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haven't already figured this out, would allow us to quantify how far off we were from the
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target, and then we'd re-engage. Obviously, there's a bit more to it, but you get the idea.
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How does this translate to civilian life? How does this translate to you? We are now into March
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of 2017 as of this recording. We're a couple of months into this thing, and if you're anything
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like me, you have created some goals. I call them objectives, and you did this at the beginning
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of the year, the end of last year, but seeing as how this is life, and I don't know about for you,
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but nothing in my life has ever gone 100% according to plan, you're probably off track
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a little bit. You're not exactly hitting those objectives that you have for yourself.
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So now you've got a decision to make. Do you quit, which is what most men do, or do you adjust fire
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and re-engage, which is what you should do? So people will ask me, they'll say things like,
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Ryan, when do I know when to quit, or when do I throw in the towel? My knee-jerk reaction to that
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question is if you're asking that question of me, you already have, but outside of that, I don't think
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a man ever needs to quit. I choose to reframe this quitting conversation as an adjust fire.
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Your priorities, maybe they've changed. Maybe your target's changed. Maybe you've learned a few
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new things. Maybe there's new information that causes you to think differently about any given
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scenario, but none of that means you're quitting. You're simply adjusting fire. So let's break this
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down today into four very simple parts. Step one, identify the objective. What's the target?
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What are you aiming at? What are you hoping to accomplish? I'm going to assume that for the
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sake of argument and time that you've already done this. You know what you want when it comes to your
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relationships and your fitness and your health and your financials and your business yourself.
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You know all of that stuff. If not, we'll cover that on a different show. But step two,
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you've got to do some computing. You have to figure out a way to get what it is you want
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from identifying those things in step one. No, I did not say the best way. I did not say
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the perfect way. I said a way. Chances are you're not going to get this right. Chances are you're
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going to be off a bit. But knowing that gives you the power to take action, even though the stars in
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the heavens may not have aligned perfectly. George Patton said, this is one of my favorite quotes,
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a good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. And this is
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exactly what I'm talking about. Understand that you're not going to get the calculation just right.
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That actually gives you the permission to move on to step three. Teddy Roosevelt said,
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do what you can with what you have, where you are. I'm full of quotes today. Do the best calculations
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that you can. Enlist the help of other people. Anticipate even obstacles that might come up.
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And at the end of the day, make your best educated guess. And then that third step is to execute.
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Fire. Destroy the target. Do everything you can to make your mark. Leave an impact. Let there be no
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question as to whether or not you accomplished the task. If there's one topic I've talked about at length
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in the past two years with regards to order a man, it is the ability to execute, the ability to take
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action, the ability to do the work, whatever that work is. Throw all of your resources into making
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those calculations from step two work in your favor. And after all is said and done, there's only one
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reason for you to look up from the work that you're doing right now. And that's step number four.
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This is where a lot of men get it wrong. They're so busy grinding away at the task at hand that they
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forget to actually look up and see if it works. They forget to adjust fire. And if they do happen
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to stop and look up for a minute and see that it isn't working, they give up way too quickly and
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abandon the target altogether. I get a lot of questions about my biggest takeaways from my time
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in the military. There's a lot, but one of the lessons I cling to is that the decisions that we made
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as soldiers and our action or even lack thereof could literally spell the difference between life
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or death for us or another soldier. If any one of us made the wrong decision or worse, decided to quit,
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that meant another man might not make it home to his family. He might not make it to watch his son
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play baseball or his daughter dance in her first dance recital. It might mean that he doesn't get to
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connect with his wife again or that all his mom gets back is a flag and a casket. That is some
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serious, serious responsibility and one that a lot of men don't ever experience. But when you live
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life like that, not just the battlefield, but life, you are never again going to question when is the
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best time to quit. If you look up and you see you haven't made the impact you intended, you simply
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adjust fire, you tweak, you adapt, you change, and then you re-engage because that's what's required.
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That's what it takes. This is how you build a successful life. Whether you're trying to reconnect
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with your wife or engage with your kids or launch that business or grow your bank account or get a
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promotion, lose that spare tire, life is a series of executions and adjustments. And if anybody ever
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tells you otherwise, they're lying or selling you something or both. Why is any man successful?
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Because at some point he had the balls to execute, lift himself out of the dust when he failed and he
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tried again. It's identification, it's calculation, it's execution, and then adjust fire. Do that enough.
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Do that over and over and over again and you will never be defeated. So if you're interested in learning
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more about this strategy and gain access to the tools that are going to help you incorporate this type
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of thing into your life, join us in our exclusive mastermind, the Iron Council. You're going to get
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the tools, the guidance, the resources, strategy to better identify what you want, come up with more
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efficient calculations for getting it because you're going to be tapping into 250 men who are also on
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their own journey. You're going to get the kick in the pants that you might need to get you going
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and have the accountability also that you need to keep going when maybe you don't quite feel like it.
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So you can learn more about the Iron Council and claim your spot at orderofman.com
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slash ironcouncil. I hope to see you there, but until next week guys, take action and become the
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man you were meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take
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charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order