Order of Man - June 02, 2017


FFN 058： Keeping Field Notes


Episode Stats

Length

10 minutes

Words per Minute

203.08835

Word Count

2,078

Sentence Count

136

Misogynist Sentences

1


Summary

In this episode of Friday Field Notes, Ryan talks about the importance of documenting your thoughts and why it's so important to have them in your possession. He also gives some tips and tricks on how to keep track of your thoughts.


Transcript

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 today? My name is Ryan
00:00:27.660 Mickler, and I am the host and founder of this podcast, The Order of Man. Whether you are new
00:00:32.120 to the show or you've been with us since the beginning just two short years ago, I am glad
00:00:36.760 that you're here. I'm glad that you want to be a better man, and I'm glad that you are
00:00:40.880 willing to at least invest a little energy and time into stepping more fully into your
00:00:45.960 role as a man. Each week, guys, I am interviewing amazing men. I'm extracting the lessons they've
00:00:51.100 learned the hard way, and then we share them with you so you can learn them the easy way.
00:00:54.900 I was taking a look at the numbers this week, and guys, I am astounded that this show has
00:00:59.840 been downloaded over 2.5 million times as of this recording. It is absolutely amazing
00:01:06.020 to me that a humble vision that I had just a couple of years ago has turned into a movement
00:01:12.240 that spans literally the entire planet, and it gives me hope that there are enough of us
00:01:17.460 genuine men that are serious about being better fathers and husbands, business owners, community
00:01:23.460 leaders, and just better men in general. Lord knows that we are needed more than ever.
00:01:28.720 Guys, if you don't already know this, this is our Friday Field Notes where you get to listen
00:01:32.560 to me talk for the next couple of minutes about some things that I've been thinking about throughout
00:01:36.600 the week, but we also have an interview show, which I alluded to earlier, that is released
00:01:41.740 each Tuesday. So make sure you subscribe so every single new show pops up directly in your
00:01:47.540 feed. Now, I want to get into the discussion for the sake of time today. This week, I had
00:01:52.380 to make an order. I had to order some additional field notes as I ran out. If you guys don't
00:01:56.520 know what they are, field notes are small pocket-sized notebooks that you can carry around. You can
00:02:02.540 track your notes, your thoughts, your ideas, inspirations. You can track anything, and
00:02:06.240 it occurred to me today that I never shared with you how I actually got the inspiration
00:02:10.320 for the show that you're listening to right now, Friday Field Notes. I got that inspiration
00:02:14.680 because I literally have these small notebooks lying around everywhere. I've got a couple
00:02:19.420 in my workshop. I've got some in my desk, in my nightstand. I've got them in my car.
00:02:24.140 I've got them everywhere. So I'm going to talk with you about that today, but before I get
00:02:27.740 any further, I just, I want you to know I'm not endorsed by Field Notes. They're not paying
00:02:31.800 me to tell you all this stuff. I'm just sharing a tool, a resource that has proven to be useful
00:02:37.580 for me. So whether you want to use official Field Notes like I do, or another journal, or a
00:02:42.580 notepad, or even an app on your phone, I don't care. I don't care what you use as long
00:02:46.940 as you use something to track and journal your thoughts. I'm going to talk with you
00:02:51.060 about why I think it's important that you do and share with you some insights, some
00:02:54.680 tips when journaling your ideas. So first, let's talk about why I think this is so
00:02:59.600 important. Study after study has shown us that there is something almost magical, for
00:03:06.700 lack of a better term, in documenting your thoughts. Thoughts aren't tangible. You can't
00:03:11.820 sink your teeth into them. You can't try them on for size. You can't see them. You can't
00:03:15.560 touch them. And I believe that when you begin to document your ideas, you almost in a small
00:03:20.640 way give life to your thoughts. In a way, you're turning the intangible into the tangible.
00:03:26.220 And once you do that, you start to give your thoughts traction. And I don't know all the
00:03:31.740 science behind this. I've never needed to know because it works. And I know it works through
00:03:36.500 my own process of experimentation. The ideas that are in my head stay there. But the ideas
00:03:41.880 that I get out of my head, those things gain momentum in starting to come alive. Which leads
00:03:47.780 me to the second point. If you're not documenting the ramblings in your mind, it's going to be
00:03:52.600 very, very difficult for you to ever flush out something enough to the point where it actually
00:03:58.200 comes to fruition. We've all heard of the million dollar idea. You probably have one. I've had
00:04:04.060 them. But I hate to be the bearer of bad news here, guys. But there is no million dollar
00:04:08.140 idea. If that were the case, every single one of us would be millionaires. But seeing
00:04:13.040 as how we're not all there, there is a missing element. And that missing element is the execution.
00:04:19.780 It's the execution of that idea that makes it worthwhile, that makes it worth something.
00:04:24.680 And don't get me wrong, just because you start writing things down, that doesn't mean that
00:04:28.400 your idea is going to grab hold. But what it will do is set into motion a series of small
00:04:34.100 steps that are an absolute requirement to the success that you and I desire. And I don't
00:04:40.300 care if we're talking about writing date ideas down or goals for lifting or business aspirations
00:04:46.360 or how much money you want to have in your bank account. Every bit of it, it all works
00:04:50.620 the same. And it's going to help you to turn what normally would be a jumble of thoughts and
00:04:54.660 incoherent ramblings into something that's actually workable. I've written things down before
00:04:59.640 that sounded absolutely amazing in my mind that after getting pen to paper look like horrible
00:05:05.340 ideas. And not that I've nixed them right away, but at least it gives me a foundation to work from
00:05:10.400 regardless of how weak that foundation might've been. But outside of that, documenting what is
00:05:16.640 going on in your brain keeps you from forgetting life-changing, earth-shattering ideas. How often
00:05:23.200 have you thought to yourself, I've got to write this idea down so I don't forget. I don't need to
00:05:27.600 worry about it. I'm not going to write this down. There's no way I'm going to forget this idea. It's
00:05:31.120 too big. It's too grand. It's too great. And the next morning you wake up knowing that you had an
00:05:35.940 idea, but you can't remember exactly what that idea is. It actually reminds me of the scene in
00:05:43.500 Grumpy Old Men. One of the friends turns to the other and they're swapping fishing stories.
00:05:48.380 And one says, the green hornet has caught more fish than you've lied about. I've forgotten
00:05:52.720 more ideas than most people think about in a lifetime. And I can't help but wonder what life
00:05:59.500 would look like for me if only I had written those ideas down. Would it have been much different
00:06:04.800 than it is now? I don't know. The world is never going to know because I didn't write that stuff
00:06:09.860 down. And the last reason that I think you need to be documenting everything is purely a self
00:06:15.320 preservation strategy. I think what I'm going to share with you here in a minute happens to high
00:06:21.080 achievers all the time. So let me paint this scenario for you. You're lying in bed and you're
00:06:25.140 talking with your wife and you stop her mid-sentence because something she just said
00:06:30.160 sparked an idea that will alter the trajectory of your life. But rather than stopping and writing
00:06:36.420 it down, you continue in your conversation with her or you try to go to sleep, but you cannot stop
00:06:42.920 thinking about that idea. Nothing gets done. You can't go to sleep. You can't put together any
00:06:49.140 thoughts in a conversation. You're so distracted. You can't function in other words. But if you had
00:06:54.740 a field notes on your nightstand, you'd literally do a brain dump into that journal, get all of the
00:07:00.480 information flushed out of your brain. Then you get that good night's rest and then you can attack
00:07:04.740 that thing in the morning. So writing things down has saved my mind. It saved many sleepless nights
00:07:11.020 and probably to some degree it's saved my relationship. So are you convinced yet? Are you officially sold
00:07:17.220 on this idea of documentation? I hope that you are. This has been such a powerful and a very simple
00:07:23.440 strategy in my personal life. So as we wrap up things today, I just want to give you a couple
00:07:27.740 ideas that you can use to trigger. Just trigger the types of things that I think you should be
00:07:32.320 writing down and that I write down personally. So I write down new business ideas, names of potential
00:07:38.320 podcast guests, shopping lists, parts lists for a project that I might be working on. I write down email
00:07:44.180 ideas, efficiency strategies that I'd recognize, birthday gift ideas for others, birthday gift
00:07:49.680 ideas for me, emails that I might need to write, phone calls that I need to make, important dates
00:07:55.260 that I need to remember. Maybe it's phone numbers that you need to call or confirmation numbers from
00:07:59.860 a customer service department, payment due dates. My wife will actually come downstairs in a field notes
00:08:05.540 journal with the amount and date of the bills that are coming due. I'll write down songs that I like
00:08:11.700 or YouTube videos that inspire me that I want to watch. It might be a Google search term that I'm
00:08:16.040 going to check out later or a website that I hear about. Maybe there's some social media influencers
00:08:20.520 or profiles that I want to look into and I'm at a conference and I need to write that stuff down.
00:08:25.500 Important information about people that I just meet, conferences that I actually need to go to.
00:08:30.640 There might be feedback that people are giving me positive and even negative or constructive that I
00:08:34.840 want to write down and make sure I document. It might be social media profiles and posts that I need to
00:08:39.560 make, even Friday field notes topics for the future. The list goes on and on and on. So in other words,
00:08:45.620 and maybe just to sum this up succinctly and nicely for you, just write everything down and you'll never
00:08:52.120 be at a loss for information or ideas, insights, strategies, tasks, or to-dos. The only problem I
00:08:59.600 think is going to be remembering which field notes you wrote it down in. Because like I said, I've got them
00:09:04.520 everywhere and sometimes it's difficult for me to find which one I actually put it into.
00:09:09.480 Anyways, guys, that's all I have for you today. I hope that that's been helpful. I think it'd be
00:09:12.820 cool to see how you take notes. So if you would share your note-taking strategies with me on Instagram
00:09:20.320 or Twitter or Facebook, and just make sure you tag at order of man so that I and the rest of the guys
00:09:26.940 can see what is working for you. If you want to learn more about this tool and so many other tools
00:09:33.160 that are available and you want to learn a more efficient, a more effective way of doing things,
00:09:38.340 I would invite you to join our exclusive brotherhood, the Iron Council, where we're
00:09:42.880 talking about these types of strategies and so much more. And more importantly, we're doing the
00:09:47.440 work that's required to experience the results that we're all after. So you can learn more about
00:09:52.560 that at orderofman.com slash Iron Council. But in the meantime, guys, take action. Remember to
00:09:59.520 document everything and become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to
00:10:04.880 the Order of Man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you
00:10:09.700 were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.