In this episode of The Order of Man, Ryan talks about the importance of a moment of truth and why you should be willing to take the first step if you have no idea whether or not it s going to work out.
00:01:32.640And you can get the details at orderaman.com slash event.
00:01:36.120But make sure you do that quick because the first 50 men who register will also receive, in addition to their registration, a copy of Steven's book, Building Your Band of Brothers.
00:01:45.740Again, that's going to be held on August 12th, 2017.
00:01:51.580Now, speaking of time and doing that quickly, today I wanted to talk with you about a moment in time, specifically the quote unquote moment of truth.
00:02:02.740We refer to the moment of truth as the moment that we actually find out if something is going to work or not.
00:02:09.960And today I want to talk with you about the faulty premise in that line of thinking.
00:02:15.360I realize it's just a phrase, but I was having a conversation with my neighbor the other day about a project that he was working on.
00:02:22.800And he didn't know if that was going to work, that project was going to work or not until he got to the very last step.
00:02:29.800I do know that sometimes there's just no way of knowing whether or not something is going to work or not until we try it.
00:02:35.880But I also know and have seen in my own life that there's a lot of things that we can and probably should know ahead of time.
00:02:42.960I mean, why would we want to invest just huge amounts of time and energy and money and other resources into something if you have no idea whether or not it's going to work out?
00:02:54.460Sometimes the potential reward is worth that risk.
00:02:57.640For example, I had no idea that the order of man was going to work, but I was willing to take that risk.
00:03:04.340But I wonder how often we just wing it or dabble in something or just throw it all on the wall and actually see what sticks.
00:03:12.540And I wonder if there's much more effective and efficient way of doing this, because if we're holding our breath for that quote unquote moment of truth, is it too late at that point?
00:03:22.100And maybe more realistically, we can just bump that moment of truth up a little sooner in the process.
00:03:28.020So what I wanted to talk with you about today is five steps or five strategies I've personally used in my life to ensure that I don't waste a bunch of time and energy and money and all those resources only to find out that something is not going to work.
00:03:40.880Now, I do have to give you a huge, huge disclaimer because none of what I'm going to share with you should ever, ever come at the expense of taking action.
00:03:51.660It's simply to ensure that you're taking the best possible action.
00:03:58.140And I say this because every single day I see and I hear from men who have taken what I'm going to share with you to an unhealthy level and use these strategies as, frankly, an excuse not to perform, not to act.
00:04:12.560And if we are men and we're trying to become the men we are meant to be, then we have to act.
00:04:17.720If anyone said it best, General George Patton said one of my favorite quotes, a good plan violently executed today is better than the perfect plan executed next week.
00:04:28.160So with that said, let me share with you some of these strategies.
00:04:31.200First, you've got to have, guys, a board of advisors.
00:04:34.560When I say board of advisors, I'm talking about people who have done what you are planning to do and know what to look for and what not to look for.
00:04:42.320If you're considering getting engaged, for example, men who have successful marriages should be on your board of advisors.
00:04:48.840If you're starting a business, others who have started successful businesses should be on your board of advisors.
00:04:53.900If you're getting back in shape, healthy men should be on your board of advisors.
00:04:58.040The goal of having this board or what you've heard me refer to as a band of brothers is to speed up the results process by letting you know any of the blind spots that may come up and also show you ways to accelerate the success of whatever journey you're on.
00:05:14.680Next, you have to be adequately planning your journey.
00:05:19.060Again, there's no way I realize that you're going to know it all, but if you enlist the help of, again, that board of advisors, you're going to have a lot more knowledge about what it will take and what it won't.
00:05:29.200And you'll also have a realistic expectation going into that thing.
00:05:34.540You do not want to be caught off guard and having some sort of plan in place will mitigate some of that risk for you.
00:05:41.700Hope and prayer, guys, is not a strategy.
00:06:13.420Yes, we want to be deliberate, but having no plan and not using this amazing mass between our ears that we call the brain leads to guaranteed failure every single time.
00:06:26.340Take an additional pause, go back to your board of advisors, review the plan that you've created, and then, and only then, do you make that final cut.
00:06:36.260And on the note of making that cut, I want you to be, and this is number four, strategic.
00:06:46.740I know that the gurus like to talk about going all in and burning the ships, but what's fascinating is that when you ask these quote-unquote gurus how they personally did it,
00:06:56.920they'll tell you that they took their time on building the business or committing to a marriage and that it was different in their circumstance.
00:07:04.640It's funny how they would tell you something other than what they've done.
00:07:07.860And so this process or this line of thinking is what I call making strategic strikes.
00:07:12.840You're going to line up your targets by priority.
00:07:14.960You're going to see if it works before making huge, huge commitments.
00:07:19.020If you're considering asking for a woman's hand in marriage, it might be a good idea to get to know her parents.
00:07:24.760It might be a good idea to have some serious conversations about major life decisions like children and where you're going to live, politics, religion, worldviews, all of that stuff.
00:07:34.040If you're going into business, you might want to come up with what has been referred to as a minimum viable product to test before throwing thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars into a project.
00:07:44.880You might even consider pre-selling an offer to see if anyone's even interested.
00:07:50.440I'll ask somebody if they like a shirt design, for example, and everybody will say yes, except for when it comes time to pull out the wallet and then all of a sudden you have crickets.
00:07:58.100Again, this is about strategic strikes so you don't lose all your assets in that first battle.
00:08:04.240And the last thing that I was going to share with you guys is make sure you're doing an after-action review.
00:08:17.800These shortcomings are not the end of the world.
00:08:21.180They're simply a learning experience for you, but you're not going to learn anything unless you have a very clear after-action review process.
00:08:29.140I'm not going to get too much into this one for the sake of time, but I do have a worksheet.
00:08:33.580If you're interested, you can download that at orderman.com slash after-action review.
00:08:38.840It's going to walk you through the five questions you should be asking yourself after every engagement, encounter, interaction, project, conversation, whatever it may be.
00:08:46.800Gentlemen, remember, if you can move that moment of truth up just a little sooner in the timeline, you will not have to wait until you've poured all your resources into a project or relationship that may or may not work out for you.
00:09:00.460Again, the steps are bring on a board of advisors, adequately plan, measure twice, cut once, engage in those strategic strikes, and complete your after-action review.
00:09:11.700If you want to learn more about these steps in depth and working alongside a board of advisors that we've created, I encourage you to join our elite brotherhood, the Iron Council.
00:09:21.700In the coming weeks, we're going to be working on our 12-week battle plans by identifying some key, key objectives in four domains of our lives, the tactics that we'll need to implement in order to reach them, and the accountability that we all need to stay on target.
00:09:35.500If you're interested in what we're doing there, you can head to orderofman.com slash ironcouncil.
00:09:40.660Gentlemen, until next week, take action, bump up that moment of truth, and become the man you are meant to be.
00:09:47.500Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.
00:09:50.460If you're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.