Order of Man - May 25, 2018


FFN 109： How We Stop School Shootings


Episode Stats


Length

21 minutes

Words per minute

194.24693

Word count

4,198

Sentence count

297

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode of Field Notes, Ryan talks about the problem of school shootings and how we need to do more to prevent them. He also discusses the role that men can play in preventing them and how they need to become better men.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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.
00:00:10.480 You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong. This is your life. This is who
00:00:17.220 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 Michler,
00:00:28.020 and I am the host and the founder of this podcast, The Order of Man. If you are new to the show today,
00:00:33.160 I want to welcome you. This is your Friday Field Notes. You get to hear from me, talk about some
00:00:37.860 ideas and thoughts and conversations and topics that I've heard in the news and media and culture
00:00:43.540 in general. You're going to hear me talk for about 5, 10, 15 minutes, maybe 20 minutes even today,
00:00:48.040 because I've got a subject that really, really needs to be addressed. We're going to cover that
00:00:51.520 in a minute. If you don't already know, we also have an interview show, which is released each
00:00:56.760 Tuesday where I'm interviewing the world's most successful men, guys like Jocko Willink,
00:01:01.580 Andy Frisilla, Grant Cardone, Tim Kennedy, Joe DeSena, Lewis Howes. I mean, you name it.
00:01:06.920 If these guys are successful in some aspect of their life, my job is to get them on the podcast,
00:01:12.680 ask them very powerful and pointed questions, get their answers, distill those answers for you so
00:01:18.320 that you and me and everybody listening to the show can improve as men. And that's the ultimate
00:01:22.620 objective. How do we become better men, better fathers, husbands, business owners, community
00:01:28.100 leaders, neighbors, brothers, fathers, husbands, whatever it looks like for you. How do we improve
00:01:33.000 in those roles in that capacity in which we serve? So that's my job. That's what we're all about here.
00:01:38.040 Now, if you've been with us for any amount of time, I also want to welcome you back to the show.
00:01:41.520 Don't want to neglect you. We've been going strong for three years now, and we could not do this
00:01:45.620 without you today, guys. I'm not going to bore you with a bunch of details. We've got a very,
00:01:49.880 very important subject and a conversation that I want to have with you today that needs to be had.
00:01:54.840 And so I'm not going to get into the details of any announcements that may need to be brought up.
00:02:00.580 We can maybe cover that later if we have time. But today I want to talk with you again about
00:02:04.880 something that is obviously on my mind. I'm sure it's on the minds of a lot of men who are listening
00:02:10.920 to this, and that is the school shootings that we are seeing. It seems to be more and more of.
00:02:16.560 I mean, frankly, every time we turn around, it seems like there's yet another school shooting.
00:02:22.600 And from what I can see in the dialogue that's being had is we're addressing this from a very
00:02:27.260 surface level perspective. And this is not about gun control. This is not about gun regulation. And in
00:02:32.780 fact, I don't even believe it's fully a gun problem. I think that's a symptom of the problem that we're
00:02:38.640 experiencing, but I don't think it's the problem. Obviously it has to do with the young men who are
00:02:45.540 creating these situations. And I think more importantly, we ought to put the responsibility
00:02:51.920 where it truly lies, which I think is on us as men. I'm going to explain what I mean by that.
00:02:57.860 Bear with me because I think you're going to agree at the end of this conversation that we've got a
00:03:03.740 real problem with the way that we as men are showing up and the symptoms of that, the outcome
00:03:10.460 is school shootings and some of the other atrocities that frankly we see in society today.
00:03:15.760 So before I get into the details, I do want to say again, this is not about gun debate,
00:03:20.400 not about gun control. It's not that at all, but there are a couple of surface level issues that
00:03:25.040 I do want to address first and foremost, before we get deeper into this, because I don't think
00:03:29.360 this stuff's being addressed. So let's just talk about it from this standpoint. How do we physically
00:03:34.360 protect our kids when they're at school? I think there's some very simple solutions to this.
00:03:41.700 Number one, limited entry points. You know, I see some of these schools where they're open,
00:03:45.740 people can come in and out wherever there's no entry point, there's no stationary exit point.
00:03:50.860 And so if we can limit entry points on schools, then we can more easily regulate who is coming in,
00:03:57.100 who is going out, where they're going, what they're doing, what they're up to, what their business
00:04:00.700 is there. And I think having limited entry points, number one is going to solve a lot of these
00:04:05.200 problems. Uh, number two, potentially metal detectors. If you have limited entry points
00:04:10.600 and you can put metal detectors at these entry and exit points, I think you're going to catch a lot
00:04:15.420 of these problems. Now I am mixed on that quite honestly, because it's difficult for me to think
00:04:20.980 about my kids going to school and being on lockdown and having metal detectors and, and turning this
00:04:26.060 into an armed school or somewhat of a quote unquote militant school or police school. That's
00:04:32.380 difficult for me to think of, but I do believe that there's probably some validity to being able to
00:04:36.900 protect our students and our children that way. Number three, armed veterans. I mean, this is a,
00:04:42.500 this is a subject that has been brought up over and over and over again. America has spent millions
00:04:49.440 billions and billions, billions of dollars training soldiers. And we have these men and women who come
00:04:56.820 home, they've lost their purpose because they're no longer in the military. And I think having a new
00:05:03.980 mission, a new purpose and arming veterans at schools could potentially eliminate a lot of these
00:05:12.040 problems right off the bat. I mean, if you think about what a bully does, he always goes for the weak
00:05:18.040 target. And what we've done is we've allowed our schools to become the weak target. We've made them
00:05:23.600 vulnerable to attacks and we've exposed our children to potential threat, including death.
00:05:32.180 So how do you fix the problem? You stop making it an easy target. And we do that again by limited entry
00:05:38.220 points, metal detectors, armed veterans in the school system. And I would also suggest that we consider
00:05:45.160 that we strongly consider opening it up so that school teachers, qualified school teachers have
00:05:51.360 the option, not that they're forced to, but they have the option to carry firearms. Those are four
00:05:57.940 very simple solutions that I think will keep our schools from becoming an easy target. Now, like I
00:06:03.440 said, I didn't want to make this about gun debate or gun control or what guns, or should we have guns?
00:06:07.720 That's not what it's about. But I think those are four very simple solutions that we can implement
00:06:12.300 fairly quickly. That would alleviate a lot of the problems that we see. Let's drill down a little
00:06:17.180 bit. All right. I think what we're experiencing with our boys and let's look at the data. The data
00:06:23.140 is that young boys are the ones who are creating these problems. They're the ones in the school
00:06:29.740 shootings. They're the ones doing the shooting. And if you look at the way that we have begun to treat
00:06:36.400 our boys, I think it becomes very apparent that there's some real problems in the way that we
00:06:42.140 address our boys in the school system. Number one, the school system is stacked against young men.
00:06:48.640 If you look at any metric from crime and violence to their grades and their dropout rates, you see
00:06:55.440 that men and boys are falling behind. And that's because the school system is not set up. It's not
00:07:01.040 conducive to teaching boys the way that they need to be taught. Surprise, surprise. There's a difference
00:07:05.640 between the way boys and girls learn information, consume information, and get ideas about the way
00:07:13.280 this world works. If you have any doubt as to this is actually the case, go ahead and listen to my
00:07:19.180 interview a couple of weeks back with Dr. Leonard Sachs. Or you can go read his books, Boys Adrift,
00:07:24.240 Why Gender Matters. He has a couple other books as well. All great information that really highlight the
00:07:29.820 problem the way that the school system is treating our boys. And it's obvious, boys are falling behind.
00:07:35.860 Now you couple that with another problem that I see, and that is the drug epidemic with children.
00:07:41.900 And I'm not talking about illegal drugs either. I'm talking about the way that we medicate our boys.
00:07:48.000 Our boys get a little rambunctious, a little rowdy, a little upset. They fight, they compete,
00:07:53.800 they do the things that boys do, frankly. And rather than say, oh, this is healthy behavior for a boy,
00:07:59.240 I'll give you an example. We were at the park last night with my boys and my daughter. And my boy
00:08:04.580 comes up to me and he found this stick that looked like a gun. He's like, dad, look, I found this stick.
00:08:08.620 It's my gun. And he picked up all these little wood chips that were at the park and he said, these are my
00:08:12.420 bullets. And he would go around shooting his brother and sister with his gun and his bullets.
00:08:17.460 If he did that at school, he would be suspended if not expelled from school. And yet that's completely
00:08:24.020 healthy behavior. There's nothing wrong with a boy playing cowboys and Indians. All right. There's
00:08:29.980 nothing wrong with a boy who wants to pretend that he's shooting the bad guy. There's absolutely
00:08:35.320 nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with a young boy drawing a picture of a violent war scene,
00:08:42.920 for example. Why? Because that's the way that they engage. That's the way that they're creative.
00:08:49.300 That's the things that we see. And those behaviors, when they're channeled into the proper outlets,
00:08:55.340 become the skillset and the characteristics and the way that boys will eventually become men
00:09:01.040 who are protectors, providers, and presiders. We strip that away from them and pretend that there's
00:09:07.420 something wrong and that they have to be medicated. I think we're going to see some real problems.
00:09:12.360 I think we are. We are experiencing the real problems from over-medicating our young men.
00:09:22.040 It's horrific. Instead of medicating our boys, and I'm not saying that there aren't boys who need some
00:09:27.720 of that, of course, but instead of over-prescribing on ADD and ADHD and all of these types of things,
00:09:34.820 why not create a system in which boys can learn the way they learn through experiential learning?
00:09:39.540 Go out and roll around in the dirt and hike and pick up bugs and go explore rocks and do the things
00:09:47.620 that we as boys always wanted to do. We strip that away. We see the problems. All right, that's number
00:09:53.780 one and two and three and whatever number I'm on. The next issue here, guys, and this is really what I
00:09:59.940 want to address. This is going to be the meat of the conversation today is fatherless homes. As I was
00:10:05.380 preparing for the conversation that I wanted to have today, I started looking into some of the data
00:10:10.480 and some of the research and some of the statistics and numbers. It's crazy. I mean, when I read these
00:10:16.300 to you, and I will, I'll get through these in a minute here. It is absolutely crazy the result
00:10:23.260 and the ramification and the impact on our young men of not having permanent father figures in their
00:10:29.460 lives. I grew up without a permanent father figure. I get messages every day from men who listen to this
00:10:34.500 podcast and they're in our Facebook group who also grew up without father figures. This statistic
00:10:39.540 is becoming worse. It's getting worse. More and more boys are being born out of wedlock. Dad is
00:10:48.020 physically, mentally, emotionally out of the picture. And so we have these boys who have this raw masculinity
00:10:55.060 coursing through their veins, and yet they have no example of how to harness that masculinity into
00:11:00.160 something that's called manliness that will actually help the world. I look at my boys and by design and
00:11:06.080 by nature, they're destructive. They go outside and they destroy stuff. It's my job as a father to
00:11:11.660 harness that and teach them how to use that in a constructive manner. Rather than be destructive,
00:11:18.320 help them to be constructive. Help them to build things. Help them to lift other people up. Help them to use
00:11:25.740 that creativity and that imagination in a way that's going to benefit their lives and the lives of the
00:11:30.340 people that eventually they'll have a responsibility for. They don't have it when a father is not in the
00:11:35.240 picture. So let's talk about these statistics. Number one, poverty is significantly increased when
00:11:40.980 fathers aren't in the home. Behavioral problems, prison, crime rates go up. Rates with abuse and neglect go up.
00:11:49.440 Drug abuse, alcohol abuse goes up. Two times the rate for dropouts. Suicide is up to as much as five
00:11:57.240 times that of young men when there's not a father in the home. Runaways go up. I mean, that's seven,
00:12:03.860 eight, nine different things that I just listed off right there. Poverty, behavior problems, prison,
00:12:08.860 crime, abuse, drug abuse, neglect, two times the dropout rate, suicide, and runaways. If that doesn't
00:12:16.580 show you how important it is for fathers to be in the home, I don't know what else I could tell you.
00:12:23.100 And there's people that will argue with me about that. There's people that think that I'm attacking
00:12:26.880 single mothers because I say that, which is absolutely ridiculous. I was raised by a single 1.00
00:12:31.640 mother. She did everything that she could. She worked multiple jobs. She did everything that she 1.00
00:12:36.800 could. And yet when I have conversations with her today, she will readily admit that she wasn't able
00:12:44.060 to provide me on her own, everything that I needed to be able to turn this idea of being a boy, an
00:12:49.520 adolescent boy into a man. Fortunately, she recognized that early and got me involved in
00:12:55.100 competitive sports. And I learned a lot about what it meant to be a man on the football field and the
00:12:59.500 baseball field through my coaches. In fact, I just had one of my high school coaches on the show a
00:13:04.360 couple of weeks ago. Guys, this is not a gun problem. We can talk about that. Sure. But it's not a gun
00:13:10.340 problem. It's not even a young man problem. It's a fatherhood problem. Plain and simple. It is a
00:13:19.160 fatherhood problem. So guys, how do we address this? Well, number one, and let's be real about
00:13:26.240 this. This episode is going to piss people off. All right. They're going to hear this. They're going
00:13:30.300 to come to their own conclusions. They're going to think I'm wrong. They're going to want to fight
00:13:33.760 and argue about that. That's fine. I'm okay with that. But there's one thing I want to say right here
00:13:38.160 as far as how do we take care of this stuff that I know is going to rub people the wrong
00:13:41.760 way. And I can't believe it will, but I know it will. And that is don't have children. If
00:13:46.320 you aren't in the space, the mental, physical, emotional, financial space to have kids, like
00:13:53.500 why in the world would you bring a child into this world that you cannot possibly take care
00:14:00.080 of? Now, we didn't say ready because you can't fully be ready to bring a child into this
00:14:05.040 world, but at least to some degree, you have to be capable of providing for this child.
00:14:11.220 And if you're not, please do not bring a child into this world. It's not fair to you. It's not
00:14:17.140 fair to that child. It's not fair to society. Be responsible when you are in the position physically,
00:14:24.240 mentally, emotionally, financially, spiritually, whatever that looks like for you, where you think,
00:14:29.160 okay, I can take care of a child. I might not be ready, but I can take care of a child.
00:14:32.880 Then bring a child into this world. That's number one. Number two, gentlemen, we've got to be present
00:14:41.020 for our kids. It's not enough to provide financially for our children. It's not enough to
00:14:48.620 put money in the bank account. That's an important component, no doubt, but it's not enough. It's not
00:14:54.460 the full deal. It's not the full definition of provision. When I'm talking about provision and
00:15:01.200 providing, I'm talking about physically. So yeah, certainly some of that could be financially,
00:15:05.860 but I'm also talking about being physically present. You know, I see my boys, I've got three
00:15:11.420 boys and a little girl. I see my boys, specifically my oldest, he's 10, struggling with how to behave,
00:15:19.660 how to become a man, how a man acts, how a man interacts, how a father shows up, how a husband shows
00:15:25.900 up, how a guy shows up in his community. I see that in my son. Now he's 10 years old.
00:15:30.680 If I'm not physically present, providing an example for him, where does he learn that stuff?
00:15:36.240 Well, he learns it from athletes. He learns it on the news. He learns it from people on social media.
00:15:41.280 He learns it from his friends who don't have fathers. That's where he gets his ideas of masculinity
00:15:46.920 and manliness. And guess what? It's not healthy. The healthy way to provide an example for a child
00:15:54.320 is to be the example for your child. Be there physically, be there mentally, get your own house
00:16:01.760 in order, get your own stuff situated so that when your boy comes to you with some challenges,
00:16:06.540 or maybe he doesn't come at all, but you recognize it. You can see that something's off with your son,
00:16:12.480 that mentally you have the capacity to do something about it. If you can't get yourself right,
00:16:18.260 because you're, you're fat and you're overweight and you're out of shape and you have abuse issues
00:16:22.620 going on in your life and your financial situation is in order and you're not right with yourself and
00:16:28.040 you're depressed and you're not doing the things that you know you should be doing. How in the world
00:16:31.260 are you ever going to provide what that young man needs in his life? How are you going to be the
00:16:36.220 beacon of an example that he needs? How are you going to have the capacity to sit down shoulder to
00:16:42.500 shoulder with your son and say, you know what? I recognize something's not right, bud.
00:16:46.380 How can I help you? Here's what I did. Here's what I've experienced. Here's what I went through.
00:16:52.040 Here's how I dealt with the things when I was wrong or when I was off or when I was going through
00:16:56.420 what you are going through right now. You can't do that if you haven't fixed yourself first.
00:17:02.460 Get yourself right guys. Emotionally as well. And that's the last component I want to talk about
00:17:07.100 here. Be, be available emotionally. All right. Yeah. We've got this macho idea and this quote unquote
00:17:12.160 alpha idea, which I don't even like that term, but it's okay to express your emotions. It's okay
00:17:17.180 to be happy. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to cry. It's okay to be an emotional person. You are
00:17:23.100 a human being. We don't need to hide our emotions. We don't always need to express them either.
00:17:28.500 There needs to be a healthy balance between the way that we use our emotions to serve us and those
00:17:33.580 that we have an obligation to serve. So when you recognize in your son that he's dealing with a
00:17:39.080 difficult time, maybe he got rejected. Maybe he failed the test. Maybe he got cut from the team.
00:17:44.360 Maybe he went to a party. Maybe he's been exposed to pornography. Maybe, I don't know, alcohol,
00:17:50.200 drugs, pick something, pick something that you went through as a child. When you recognize that in him,
00:17:55.620 you can emotionally be present. You can be empathetic to what he's going through and you can be there the
00:18:01.480 way that he needs you to be there so that he takes these experiences, positive and negative,
00:18:06.100 and uses every single one of them to be a contributing member of this society. So guys,
00:18:13.080 be there, be present as a father. Last thing I want to talk about is father other boys in the
00:18:20.500 community. You have a responsibility for that. As do I, I see a lot of guys who are great with their
00:18:27.500 kids. And yet when you ask them to volunteer, to coach a sports team or to step up and sort of
00:18:32.840 leadership capacity or serve in some sort of young men's type organization, they won't do it
00:18:39.640 or they can't do it. That's a problem. You are not just the father in your home. You are a father
00:18:46.620 in your home, but you are also a father figure in the community. You have an obligation to your
00:18:53.120 community. You have a responsibility for your community. It's not enough to father your home.
00:18:58.100 You've got to father the community. That's our job. That's our responsibility. So if there's an
00:19:02.680 opportunity for you to coach your son's team, well, great. That's an opportunity to forge a new bond
00:19:07.320 with him, but it's also an opportunity to forge a new bond with 20 other kids who need your help
00:19:11.140 because they're not growing up without fathers because their dads aren't listening to this podcast
00:19:15.000 because their dads aren't around. They're too busy working because their dad, they don't even know who
00:19:18.880 their dad is. Good. That's a good opportunity for you to step up the way a man steps up for his
00:19:24.180 community. We've been doing it for thousands of years, operating in packs and tribes and serving
00:19:29.300 each other and helping each other where we can, lifting each other up when we fall. And yet I look
00:19:34.880 around in society and I see so many people who are absolutely consumed with themselves that they have
00:19:41.720 no capacity to serve other people. It's easy to do. I get it. You're busy. I'm busy. I got stuff to do.
00:19:49.720 I got my own stuff to take care of. And yet if we can't find a way to serve in the communities in
00:19:54.480 which we live, I think we're going to continue to see more and more horrific school shootings,
00:20:00.800 violence, crime, drug abuse, neglect, all of the things I talked about earlier. Guys,
00:20:07.200 I don't have all the solutions for this stuff. I certainly don't. I'm figuring this stuff out just
00:20:11.260 like you. I'm a young father, 37 years old with four kids that man, I'm learning just as much as
00:20:17.420 you are. But I can tell you that I look around in society and I see some very, very serious issues.
00:20:24.460 And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt with every fiber of my being, that if we can learn to be the
00:20:30.080 type of men that we are called to be, that we're supposed to be, that we learn how to be fathers in
00:20:34.680 our own homes and in the community, that I don't know that these problems will go away, but I guarantee
00:20:40.100 that we'll make a dent, that we'll make an impact, that we'll see improvement. And we compound those
00:20:44.480 improvements over time, over and over and over again, generationally. And we start to see the
00:20:50.820 change that Lord knows we need. Anyways, guys, that's all I've got for you today. As you can see,
00:20:55.500 I get a little excited about this stuff. And I don't know if excited is the right word, but
00:20:58.980 passionate. I get passionate about this. This is my life's work. I've dedicated my life to this.
00:21:04.240 I will continue to do this work until I see more of a step up the way that frankly, we need to step up
00:21:09.580 as. So guys, take action, get out in their community, serve your families, be present,
00:21:14.580 be available, be a father to your kids, be a father to boys in the community. And let's see what we can
00:21:20.320 do. Let's start making an impact in some of these problems. Until next week, guys, take action and
00:21:24.840 become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. You're ready
00:21:29.880 to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the
00:21:34.660 order at orderofman.com.