Order of Man - FFN 046： Adjust Fire

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.

00:00:10.460 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,

00:00:22.800 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on? My name is Ryan

00:00:27.100 Nickler, and I am the host and founder of this podcast, The Order of Man. Really quickly

00:00:31.320 today, this is a show, guys, about being a better man. So if you're a man and you want

00:00:35.440 to be a better one, stay tuned because we are attempting to show you how. And we do that

00:00:40.200 through two shows per week. This one, the one you're listening to right now, our Friday field

00:00:44.140 notes, and also our interview show, which is released each and every Tuesday. We are interviewing

00:00:49.520 the world's most successful men. We've got Navy SEALs, professional athletes, scholars, New

00:00:55.200 York Times bestselling authors, entrepreneurs. Basically, we're always on the lookout for

00:00:58.320 men who have a message to share. And then as a bonus, guys, you get to listen to me on

00:01:02.520 Friday for our Friday field notes for some ideas that are bouncing around in my head throughout

00:01:07.060 the week. So what do you do with that information? You subscribe. Subscribe to this show. Subscribe

00:01:12.780 to this podcast so you never miss a single episode. All right, let's talk about this topic

00:01:17.740 of today, which is adjust fire. I'm actually bringing you back to my military days with this

00:01:22.060 one. But what do I mean by adjust fire? I mean that you're not always going to hit your

00:01:26.580 mark. You're not always going to get it right. I know that I mess up every single day and

00:01:31.300 without the ability for me to adjust along the way, the world, my worldview would look

00:01:36.760 a lot different than what it actually does. I get a lot of messages from men who have gone

00:01:41.080 through some serious struggles and you might fall into one of these camps, whether that's

00:01:45.580 a divorce or job loss, illness or disease, bankruptcy. But I also get a lot of messages

00:01:51.180 from men who may not have gone through anything extremely difficult, but they feel like maybe

00:01:56.840 they're in a rut and they can't get out of that rut. Either way, and wherever you fall

00:02:01.460 on that spectrum of severity in your daily struggles, I think the answer to all of it

00:02:07.780 is to adjust fire. I was an artillery man with the Utah Army National Guard, a red leg for 0.96

00:02:14.300 those of you who are familiar, and then later in the army during my deployment to Iraq. But

00:02:18.300 one of the principles that we learned early on when it came to engaging targets was this

00:02:23.640 principle of adjusting fire. So I need to give you a little background on how an artillery

00:02:28.260 unit fights in a battle. I'm not going to share anything sensitive with you and everything

00:02:32.640 that I'm going to tell you is common in public knowledge. I just got to throw that disclaimer

00:02:35.980 out there. But when I was in the military, I was in a unit, a section called fire direction

00:02:40.680 control, which basically meant that I was the liaison between what the forward observers were

00:02:46.100 seeing on the battlefield and the guns, in our case, howitzers, who were actually engaging

00:02:50.600 those targets. The way that this would work is that the forward observer team would call

00:02:54.780 in coordinates of an enemy position or a convoy, whatever it was, to us in fire direction

00:03:00.320 control. We would then take that information, we'd analyze it, make some calculations, and then

00:03:05.340 we'd send the pertinent information to the guns who would fire on that target. From

00:03:08.940 there, those forward observers who initially called in the target would do their thing,

00:03:13.660 they'd observe, and they'd let us know how we did. If we did it right, the target or the

00:03:18.380 threat was neutralized, and then we'd go on about our business. If not, if we missed or

00:03:23.080 only partially hit, that forward observer would then call for an adjust fire, which, if you

00:03:28.760 haven't already figured this out, would allow us to quantify how far off we were from the

00:03:34.580 target, and then we'd re-engage. Obviously, there's a bit more to it, but you get the idea.

00:03:39.000 How does this translate to civilian life? How does this translate to you? We are now into March

00:03:45.840 of 2017 as of this recording. We're a couple of months into this thing, and if you're anything

00:03:50.580 like me, you have created some goals. I call them objectives, and you did this at the beginning

00:03:55.440 of the year, the end of last year, but seeing as how this is life, and I don't know about for you,

00:04:00.120 but nothing in my life has ever gone 100% according to plan, you're probably off track

00:04:05.500 a little bit. You're not exactly hitting those objectives that you have for yourself.

00:04:10.240 So now you've got a decision to make. Do you quit, which is what most men do, or do you adjust fire 0.78

00:04:16.800 and re-engage, which is what you should do? So people will ask me, they'll say things like,

00:04:21.780 Ryan, when do I know when to quit, or when do I throw in the towel? My knee-jerk reaction to that

00:04:26.800 question is if you're asking that question of me, you already have, but outside of that, I don't think

00:04:33.380 a man ever needs to quit. I choose to reframe this quitting conversation as an adjust fire.

00:04:39.080 Your priorities, maybe they've changed. Maybe your target's changed. Maybe you've learned a few

00:04:44.560 new things. Maybe there's new information that causes you to think differently about any given

00:04:49.720 scenario, but none of that means you're quitting. You're simply adjusting fire. So let's break this

00:04:54.580 down today into four very simple parts. Step one, identify the objective. What's the target?

00:05:00.640 What are you aiming at? What are you hoping to accomplish? I'm going to assume that for the

00:05:05.660 sake of argument and time that you've already done this. You know what you want when it comes to your

00:05:11.800 relationships and your fitness and your health and your financials and your business yourself.

00:05:17.420 You know all of that stuff. If not, we'll cover that on a different show. But step two,

00:05:22.520 you've got to do some computing. You have to figure out a way to get what it is you want

00:05:27.280 from identifying those things in step one. No, I did not say the best way. I did not say

00:05:34.500 the perfect way. I said a way. Chances are you're not going to get this right. Chances are you're

00:05:41.480 going to be off a bit. But knowing that gives you the power to take action, even though the stars in

00:05:47.780 the heavens may not have aligned perfectly. George Patton said, this is one of my favorite quotes,

00:05:52.840 a good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. And this is

00:06:00.320 exactly what I'm talking about. Understand that you're not going to get the calculation just right.

00:06:05.640 That actually gives you the permission to move on to step three. Teddy Roosevelt said,

00:06:11.060 do what you can with what you have, where you are. I'm full of quotes today. Do the best calculations

00:06:17.540 that you can. Enlist the help of other people. Anticipate even obstacles that might come up.

00:06:24.280 And at the end of the day, make your best educated guess. And then that third step is to execute.

00:06:30.560 Fire. Destroy the target. Do everything you can to make your mark. Leave an impact. Let there be no 0.99

00:06:36.440 question as to whether or not you accomplished the task. If there's one topic I've talked about at length

00:06:42.220 in the past two years with regards to order a man, it is the ability to execute, the ability to take

00:06:48.040 action, the ability to do the work, whatever that work is. Throw all of your resources into making

00:06:54.340 those calculations from step two work in your favor. And after all is said and done, there's only one

00:07:00.840 reason for you to look up from the work that you're doing right now. And that's step number four.

00:07:06.500 This is where a lot of men get it wrong. They're so busy grinding away at the task at hand that they

00:07:12.400 forget to actually look up and see if it works. They forget to adjust fire. And if they do happen

00:07:18.680 to stop and look up for a minute and see that it isn't working, they give up way too quickly and

00:07:23.800 abandon the target altogether. I get a lot of questions about my biggest takeaways from my time

00:07:29.580 in the military. There's a lot, but one of the lessons I cling to is that the decisions that we made

00:07:35.300 as soldiers and our action or even lack thereof could literally spell the difference between life

00:07:41.860 or death for us or another soldier. If any one of us made the wrong decision or worse, decided to quit,

00:07:48.620 that meant another man might not make it home to his family. He might not make it to watch his son

00:07:53.360 play baseball or his daughter dance in her first dance recital. It might mean that he doesn't get to

00:07:59.260 connect with his wife again or that all his mom gets back is a flag and a casket. That is some

00:08:05.240 serious, serious responsibility and one that a lot of men don't ever experience. But when you live

00:08:11.700 life like that, not just the battlefield, but life, you are never again going to question when is the

00:08:18.740 best time to quit. If you look up and you see you haven't made the impact you intended, you simply

00:08:24.460 adjust fire, you tweak, you adapt, you change, and then you re-engage because that's what's required.

00:08:30.980 That's what it takes. This is how you build a successful life. Whether you're trying to reconnect

00:08:36.940 with your wife or engage with your kids or launch that business or grow your bank account or get a

00:08:42.280 promotion, lose that spare tire, life is a series of executions and adjustments. And if anybody ever

00:08:50.220 tells you otherwise, they're lying or selling you something or both. Why is any man successful?

00:08:56.220 Because at some point he had the balls to execute, lift himself out of the dust when he failed and he

00:09:04.620 tried again. It's identification, it's calculation, it's execution, and then adjust fire. Do that enough. 0.99

00:09:12.060 Do that over and over and over again and you will never be defeated. So if you're interested in learning

00:09:18.200 more about this strategy and gain access to the tools that are going to help you incorporate this type

00:09:25.060 of thing into your life, join us in our exclusive mastermind, the Iron Council. You're going to get

00:09:29.760 the tools, the guidance, the resources, strategy to better identify what you want, come up with more

00:09:36.340 efficient calculations for getting it because you're going to be tapping into 250 men who are also on

00:09:41.880 their own journey. You're going to get the kick in the pants that you might need to get you going

00:09:45.760 and have the accountability also that you need to keep going when maybe you don't quite feel like it.

00:09:51.700 So you can learn more about the Iron Council and claim your spot at orderofman.com

00:09:56.440 slash ironcouncil. I hope to see you there, but until next week guys, take action and become the

00:10:01.520 man you were meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take

00:10:07.120 charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order

00:10:11.760 orderofman.com.

Order of Man - March 10, 2017

FFN 046： Adjust Fire

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