Order of Man - FFN 112： The Systematic Softening of Society

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,

00:00:22.840 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on? My name is Ryan

00:00:27.560 Mickler, and I am the host and the founder of this podcast and this movement, The Order

00:00:32.320 of Man. Whether you're new or you've been listening for a little over three years now, I want to

00:00:37.560 welcome you to what I consider to be the best resource when it comes to becoming a better

00:00:44.060 man. My job is to equip you with the tools, the guidance, the direction, the skills, the

00:00:48.040 resources, and through this podcast, the conversations that are going to help you and me and everybody

00:00:53.140 else step up as better fathers, husbands, community leaders, business owners, wherever

00:00:58.800 it is that we show up, that's what this podcast is all about. And guys, I've got to tell you

00:01:03.260 before we get into the show today, I just want to thank you. I could not do this show without

00:01:07.460 you. We could not have this movement without you. The way that we are growing is, it's a

00:01:13.380 testament, a testament to how much this movement and how much this message is needed in society.

00:01:20.420 And again, that's one of restoring and reclaiming what it means to be a man in a society that

00:01:26.940 seems to push that away a little bit or a lot bit, and at a minimum just seems to dismiss

00:01:32.980 masculinity altogether. We're actually going to be talking about that today. This one's

00:01:36.760 titled The Systematic Softening of Society, and we're going to be covering that. Now, before

00:01:42.340 I get into the meat of the discussion, I do want to share with you a really quick resource.

00:01:48.020 This is one a little different than I've done in the past. It is through my sponsors,

00:01:51.940 Origin Maine. And I know a lot of you guys have heard about them, looked into their geese

00:01:56.080 and rash guards and training gear and nutritional supplement line. But one thing I haven't talked

00:02:00.200 about is their immersion camp in August, August 26th through September 2nd. They've got their

00:02:06.460 week-long Brazilian jujitsu immersion class. I'm going to be out there all week. We've got another

00:02:11.820 half dozen and probably a dozen by the time all is said and done, guys from Order of Man who

00:02:16.320 are going to go out, spend some days out there learning more about jujitsu and of course their

00:02:22.100 story. Jocko is going to be out there. Pete Roberts, the founder, and Brian with Origin

00:02:26.760 are going to be there. It's going to be a great week. You can do a week long or you can split

00:02:30.720 it up. You can do the first half or the second half. And one thing that's really, really cool

00:02:35.260 is we are going to be doing a custom rash guard. And that's going to be an Order of Man rash

00:02:41.780 guard for anybody who shows up and signs up. That's part of this movement. So if you

00:02:47.640 head to orderofman.com slash immersion, again, that's orderofman.com slash immersion. You

00:02:54.600 can get signed up there again for the first half or second half or all week, which is what

00:02:57.980 I'm going to be doing. And we'll get you a rash guard and we'll roll and we'll get to

00:03:03.280 know each other and learn how to be better men. It's going to be a great event. So I hope

00:03:07.460 to see you out there. All right, guys, with that said, let me just jump into this. Again,

00:03:11.660 this is titled the systematic softening of society. And it's critical. I mean, critical

00:03:17.000 that we talk about this. Everywhere I look, I see that society is becoming softer. Society

00:03:23.340 is becoming weaker. And I think this notion is perpetuated by much of society. That's the school

00:03:30.780 system. That's through the media. That's through entertainment and Hollywood. And I think

00:03:36.480 that we are doing ourselves a huge, huge disservice when we overlook the importance of being strong

00:03:44.920 and tough and gritty and resilient and all of those things that we would traditionally think

00:03:51.700 of when we think of how a man shows up. Now, I will say this. I'm not suggesting by any means

00:03:57.460 that a man can't be loving and supportive and open and vulnerable. Of course, he can be those

00:04:04.140 things. And I believe that there's a time and a place. But to say that that's always the case,

00:04:09.120 to say that we need to do that more at the expense of these other virtues is again, doing ourselves and

00:04:15.560 society in general, whether that's our families or our employees, our businesses, our neighbors,

00:04:21.320 it's doing all of us a disservice because there will come a point in time where those quote unquote

00:04:27.960 traditional masculine virtues are to be used in order to produce productive outcomes. Typically,

00:04:35.220 we see this in some sort of negative situation, whether that's something in the family, like a

00:04:41.020 divorce or the loss of a loved one or being laid off from a job. But it also goes up to natural

00:04:48.460 disasters and emergencies. I think of Hurricane Harvey in Texas was a big deal. Last year, also the fires

00:04:55.300 in California, we saw countless men step up and do what it is that men do best. And we also see why

00:05:02.940 this is important in the global arena as well when it comes to conflict in the Middle East or wherever

00:05:08.920 it may be and why it's so important that we learn to harness the power of being tough, resilient, gritty,

00:05:15.460 et cetera. All right. So we're going to talk about that today. I want to talk with you about some of

00:05:19.940 the consequences and symptoms, I guess you'd say, of this softening of society. I'm going to address

00:05:25.400 that. And I also want to talk about why this is, why I believe that this is the case. And I'm not a

00:05:31.060 conspiracy theorist or anything like that, but I do think there's some factors at work here that are

00:05:36.120 promoting this idea of clinging to these softer virtues at the expense of the harder virtues.

00:05:44.340 And of course, last, we're going to talk about how we can become tougher, how we can be more resilient

00:05:51.300 and more strong. Because the last thing I want to do is have this to be a podcast where I'm just

00:05:55.880 complaining or whining or nagging about a certain topic and not really provide any solutions. So

00:06:01.120 we'll get into that as well. But let's talk about the symptoms first. The first thing that I see

00:06:05.080 is this idea of participation trophies. All right. We've talked about this before. We've had

00:06:11.380 conversations about this before. So anybody who's hearing this podcast and hearing me right now

00:06:15.840 knows what I mean. When I say participation trophies, it literally is participation trophies

00:06:21.540 for our children. When they show up, we reward them. We pat them on their head. We tell them they

00:06:26.300 do a good job just simply for showing up as if that's become the new standard of excellence. And

00:06:32.560 every time we reward a child or an employee or a family member or whoever it may be for simply showing

00:06:40.460 up, we actually undermine the standard. We need to be elevating the standard. It's not enough to show

00:06:47.960 up. It's not enough to do the bare minimum. It's not enough just to get by. We need to elevate the

00:06:53.820 standard. So I don't congratulate people like my employees when they show up on time. That sounds

00:06:59.300 absurd. Congratulations. You did your job. That is absolutely ridiculous. I'm not saying we can't

00:07:04.880 acknowledge the behavior, but we certainly don't want to celebrate the behavior because that becomes

00:07:10.380 the new standard. So guys, let's stop giving away participation trophies. Let's stop giving our

00:07:16.060 children gold stars and what little pizza parties and all the stuff that they want when they do

00:07:22.140 something that they just should be doing by default. Let's instead celebrate real victory. Let's instead

00:07:30.020 celebrate real effort so that other people can look at that and say, I want to be recognized. I want to be

00:07:36.620 noticed. Therefore, I'm going to work harder to achieve that because right now you can get the

00:07:42.260 recognition. You can get the praise. You can get the accolades. You can get the positive benefits that

00:07:47.800 come from excelling by doing nothing, simply doing nothing. That's a huge problem. And along those same

00:07:55.400 lines, and this is point number two, I wanted to make, there are no consequences for our decisions

00:08:00.840 anymore. We have absolutely stripped away any consequence of any behavior. And therefore there

00:08:08.680 is no real problem with just showing up. There's no real problem with just being mediocre. There's no

00:08:15.720 real problem with just being average. I don't want to be average because I know that I'm meant for

00:08:21.580 something more, but there's millions and millions of people out there who are just getting by because

00:08:26.640 they can simply because they can. And then when they're presented with a real problem, a real

00:08:32.700 challenge, they don't have the fortitude. They don't have the physical and mental resilience and

00:08:39.000 fortitude to be able to address that real problem. This is a real disservice that we're doing for people

00:08:44.320 here. There has to be consequences for our decisions. It happens at the level of our children.

00:08:51.120 Certainly we see that parents who have no level of structure and guidance and the discipline that

00:08:58.380 goes with raising children, but we also see it as adults. We see it in colleges who don't want to

00:09:05.040 hand out grades. Instead, they just hand out passes. We see that when it comes to maybe somebody being

00:09:12.000 laid off instead of being financially destitute, what happens? We give them unemployment benefits

00:09:17.780 as if they don't have to go out and earn their own way. Now I realize there's a place and a time for

00:09:23.180 this thing, but again, if there's no consequence for what you're doing, how sad, how sad that we

00:09:29.160 have robbed people of the instant and immediate feedback that is required in order to succeed next

00:09:36.720 time. If there's no consequence to your poor decisions and your poor behavior, can you really say

00:09:43.580 that you'll ever learn the lesson? No, of course you'll never learn that lesson. You'll keep

00:09:49.440 repeating the same mistakes over and over and over again, simply because you can. So that's point

00:09:56.360 number two, no consequences. Point number three is this, this attack, and it is becoming more apparent

00:10:02.620 that masculinity is under attack. And if not, and I've said this before at a minimum, it's, it's being

00:10:08.000 dismissed. It's looked down upon, it's frowned upon, it's mocked, it's belittled, it's ridiculed,

00:10:14.600 but nobody does it when men are needed. It's only when times are good. I'm going to talk about that

00:10:19.140 here in a minute, but I want you to look for example, at the court system. The court system is

00:10:25.440 absolutely stacked against fathers in a situation of divorce and separation. And sure, there might be

00:10:33.540 some reasons for that. And there might be some men who need some of that and women who need to

00:10:38.400 protect their children, of course. But if you look at how stacked the system is against fathers, you

00:10:44.380 begin to see part of the problem. But then we also have this thing called toxic masculinity, as if

00:10:50.880 somehow masculinity or men, just because they are, are inherently bad or wrong or evil or whatever it

00:10:59.080 may be. Now I realize that there have been some horrendous, horrendous atrocities in our history on

00:11:07.400 this planet. And without having the specific data in front of me, I would say and be willing to bet that

00:11:13.800 the majority of these atrocities are perpetuated by men. I get that. I understand that. I am not dismissing

00:11:20.780 that. But what I am saying is that just because a man is a man does not mean he's inherently bad, evil,

00:11:27.120 wrong, or whatever the term is that's popular to use. There is an attack. There is a dismissal.

00:11:34.140 There is a belittling and a putting down of masculinity. My job is to raise myself up to raise

00:11:40.140 good, strong, noble, virtuous boys so they can step into what it means to be a man. And of course,

00:11:46.420 equip you again with the tools and resources that you need to do that for yourself and your family

00:11:51.680 and your neighborhood. So again, let me recap those real quick and then we'll get into

00:11:55.300 why I think this is the case. Number one, participation trophies. Number two, the lack

00:12:00.380 of consequences for our choices. And number three, this attack and dismissal of masculinity

00:12:04.720 altogether. So let's talk about the reasons for this. Again, I'm not a conspiracy theorist kind of

00:12:13.400 guy, but very simply, I believe that we are being led to believe and lead these lives of mediocrity.

00:12:22.620 And I think part of the reason is, is because we are so weak and pathetic that we refuse to allow

00:12:28.920 anybody to feel bad. That is a problem. So we can't let anybody fail. And in order to keep people

00:12:36.800 from failing, we then cannot let anybody succeed. We have to make sure that everybody is at the same

00:12:45.340 level because if everybody's at the same level, then there'll be no losers. But guess what?

00:12:49.420 I've got news for you. If you don't already know this, if there's no losers, there's no winners.

00:12:54.720 And if there's no winners, then we are living life significantly less than we are capable of

00:12:58.940 as a society. It's a shame. I hate to see that people will fall behind. I hate to see people in

00:13:04.280 poverty. I hate to see people who have lived with horrible medical conditions. I hate to see people

00:13:11.280 have bad things happen to them. But a lot of that is because of their own choices. And a lot of that is

00:13:16.920 because going back to what I said earlier, we have robbed them of the consequences of their decisions.

00:13:21.380 So they keep making the dumb mistakes over and over and over again. And rather than let them learn

00:13:27.480 a lesson, what have we as a society tried to do? Save them. We've tried to play the superhero. We've

00:13:33.700 tried to come in and rescue people. The problem is, is you can't rescue anybody who doesn't want to be

00:13:39.900 rescued. And when you do rescue people, you rob them of the experience that they need in order to

00:13:47.420 develop the skills to be stronger and tougher and more resilient next time. I'll give you an example.

00:13:54.480 I was at the pool this weekend with my children and I took my seven-year-old son who is learning to

00:14:01.100 swim. He can swim, but he's not strong yet. And I took him and I literally threw him in the deep end.

00:14:06.740 Now, most people will hear that and think, Oh my gosh, how could you as a parent do that? Well,

00:14:10.720 number one, I'm not going to let the kid drown. Number two, he can swim. He knows to swim to the

00:14:15.340 side. Number three, I'm right there. So I threw him out into the deep end and I saw him doggy paddling

00:14:20.300 and kicking and fighting and paddling his little legs and his little arms as hard as he could. And he

00:14:24.520 went under the water and he came back up and he took a breath. I mean, he was really struggling

00:14:28.320 and I almost went over and swam to him to rescue him. But I said, you know what? He's okay. He can do

00:14:34.900 this. And he was, he swam over to the side. He struggled. It was hard for him. He swam over to

00:14:40.160 the side and guess what? Now he's stronger. All right. He's stronger. He's more equipped. He's

00:14:44.900 more capable of doing it next time. Very small example, but I think it illustrates perfectly

00:14:50.720 what we've done in society today. When we rob the people of their consequences and we allow them to

00:14:56.720 be weak, we allow them to be mediocre and we allow them to continue to make the same mistakes

00:15:02.560 over and over again. Now, the second element of this, you guys, is that weak people are easier

00:15:08.040 to control. Think about this. Weak people are easier to control. Why? Because they're more

00:15:15.100 dependent, more dependent on their employers, more dependent on their family, more dependent on

00:15:22.100 society and government subsidies and handouts. And so weak people are more easily controlled.

00:15:29.460 They are the cog in the wheel. Men represent the last line of defense against any possible threat

00:15:36.780 to ourselves, to our families, our businesses, our communities, and our nations. If we are weak,

00:15:42.460 we are more easily controlled. We are more easily manipulated and we are more easily put into position

00:15:49.220 to allow the higher ups or the powers that be to do what it is they want to do. Again, I'm not

00:15:56.020 suggesting there's some grand conspiracy here, but what I am suggesting is that there are some powerful

00:16:02.500 people who wish to remain so powerful that they will do and say whatever they can in order to keep

00:16:09.180 everything the same, to maintain the status quo. And part of that is ensuring that the people who are

00:16:15.900 serving them are weak. Again, men represent, or they should at least represent the last line of defense.

00:16:23.040 This requires us to be independent. It requires us to think for ourselves. It requires us to be physically

00:16:31.340 and mentally tough and capable and strong. And it requires us to break away from the dependence that

00:16:39.500 so many of us have been living on for so long. All right. With that said, now I've spent the last 20 minutes

00:16:46.960 or so telling you about the problem. We've talked about the symptoms. We've talked about why I

00:16:52.100 believe this is the case. And if you agree with me, great. I'd love to have a discussion about that.

00:16:56.080 If you disagree, great. I'd love to have a discussion about that. Let's really figure this

00:17:00.040 out so we can create some solutions moving forward. And I've proposed a four here that I've got that I

00:17:05.660 want to share with you here today. All right. Number one, I believe it is a man's responsibility to

00:17:10.440 become physically fit. Obviously building muscle, building strength, stamina, all of those things

00:17:17.340 is going to help you become physically stronger, but all of what's required in order to become

00:17:21.980 physically stronger, discipline, commitment, sacrifice, all of that is the same thing that's

00:17:28.220 required to build up your mental fortitude. You cannot make decisions in a vacuum. If you improve

00:17:33.020 in one area of your life, in this case, physical fitness, then you will naturally and inevitably

00:17:37.360 produce and be better in other areas of your life. If you are physically strong, you will also be

00:17:43.180 mentally stronger. And that will then come into other areas of your life, like your fitness,

00:17:48.380 your relationships, your business, every area of life. Number one, become physically strong. If you

00:17:54.880 are weak, if you are out of shape, if you are overweight, you are more dependent on factors that you

00:18:02.640 cannot control, whether that's medication, whether that's the doctors that you have to go visit,

00:18:08.460 whether that's worrying about, does your insurance pay for X, Y, and Z. But guess what? If you're

00:18:13.740 healthy and you're strong, you don't have to worry about that stuff as much. And you can focus your time

00:18:20.200 and your resources and your attention on things that should be more pressing as opposed to your

00:18:25.180 physical health. Number one, become physically fit. Number two, do things that scare you every single

00:18:31.620 day. Every single day, you should be doing something that pushes you outside of your comfort zone,

00:18:37.760 that makes you feel uncomfortable, that makes you feel out of place, that pushes you, that tests you.

00:18:44.580 The more that you can do that, the stronger that you're going to be. I'll give you a couple of

00:18:48.360 examples. About four weeks ago, I started taking jujitsu. Never done it before. Walked into the gym,

00:18:54.340 felt completely out of place, awkward, uncomfortable, and I dove right in. Why?

00:19:00.900 Because I know that if I try these new experiences and I do the things that scare me mentally,

00:19:05.860 emotionally, physically, then I will be stronger than I was before. And that's important for me.

00:19:12.360 Also, just last week, I committed to doing a marathon. I hate running. I despise running.

00:19:19.120 I've probably never ran more than five or six miles at any given time in my entire life. And I

00:19:24.940 committed to running 26 plus miles. Why? Because I don't want to. Because it scares me. Because it's

00:19:31.300 going to push me outside of my current comfort zone. It's going to be painful. It's going to be

00:19:36.780 uncomfortable. I probably won't enjoy a lot of it, but I know that I'm going to come out of it a

00:19:41.840 stronger man than I was before. So as I go through these solutions for you, I want you to think about

00:19:47.200 what you can do in your life to produce similar results. So with step number one, where I said to

00:19:52.620 become physically fit, I want you to write down the things that you can do to be physically fit.

00:19:56.920 Is it working out three times a week? Is it getting up and drinking more water? Is it getting more sleep?

00:20:01.280 Is it going for more runs? Is it getting a coach? What does that look like? Number two,

00:20:05.480 do things that scare you. Get a piece of paper out. Write down the things that you know will push you

00:20:11.180 outside of your comfort zone. Public speaking, going into a new gym, participating in a new hobby,

00:20:16.640 asking that woman you've had your eye on out on a date. Make a list of all the things that scare you

00:20:22.740 and literally start checking those off. All right. So number one, become physically fit. Number two,

00:20:27.460 do things that scare you every single day. Number three, spend time around masculine men.

00:20:33.720 All right. If you're hanging out with women and you're hanging out with boys and you're hanging out with

00:20:38.680 immature men, you are never going to build up your strength. If on the other hand,

00:20:44.340 you spend time around guys who are physically strong, mentally tough, the guys that are doing

00:20:49.840 the things that we traditionally think of when we think of manly and you do more of that,

00:20:54.960 you will inevitably have a desire to be more like that. It's always been said, and I hate using the

00:21:00.160 adage, but it's an adage because it's true that you are the average of the five people you spend the

00:21:04.280 most time with. So if the people you spend time with are weak and cowardly and soft and pathetic,

00:21:10.180 it's likely that you'll start to exhibit more and more of those characteristics. If on the other

00:21:15.840 hand, the men that you hang out with and the people that you spend time with are tough and gritty and

00:21:20.960 resolute and strong, you are more likely to exhibit those traits because you will see what they're doing.

00:21:27.500 You'll see how they're behaving. You'll see the way that they interact and that will be attractive to you.

00:21:33.360 You will want to be more like that. You will do the things that they do in order to achieve those

00:21:38.160 type of results. And number four, and this can be so comprehensive. I can talk about this

00:21:43.020 by its own podcast and maybe I will down the road, but number four is become independent.

00:21:49.660 In February of this year, I wrote a book and finished the book called Sovereignty,

00:21:53.640 the battle for the hearts and minds of men. That's what this book is all about. It's becoming

00:21:59.080 sovereign. It's about living by your own rules. It's about being fully capable of taking care of

00:22:06.240 yourself. It's about not being subject to anything or anyone and becoming completely independent,

00:22:14.200 wrestling back the control that you've been giving to your spouse and your boss and your friends and

00:22:20.840 your parents and the government and this and that. And you do that when you make excuses

00:22:26.760 and you make little lies and you fabricate stories in your own head to justify your softness

00:22:34.040 and your mediocrity. We've got to strip away those lies. We've got to reclaim our sovereignty.

00:22:41.580 We've got to be, again, physically strong so we're not beholden to an insurance company or a doctor's

00:22:47.460 office or a medication in order to live the lives that we want to live. We've got to get our financial

00:22:53.040 house in order. If you're in debt up to your eyeballs, you have subjected yourself to the

00:22:58.680 financial institutions that would love to keep you enslaved. Get your financial house in order,

00:23:05.000 develop a new skill, make some more money, pay off your debt, stash a little money under your

00:23:10.240 mattress, put it in a savings account, invest your money, be wise and be financially free.

00:23:16.280 Sovereignty also comes into play at your work, whether you're an employee or whether you're a boss or

00:23:21.960 an entrepreneur, a business owner, you need to maintain your sovereignty. How do you do this?

00:23:28.320 By making yourself indispensable, learning new skills, developing new skills, making your boss

00:23:34.560 look good, spending more time, getting there early, leaving late, skipping the lunch break,

00:23:40.020 excelling, doing the things that nobody else wants to do, signing up for new projects, getting new degrees

00:23:44.940 and designations so that you can learn to make more money. You can learn to be more valuable to your

00:23:50.560 co-workers and your boss. And that way you put yourself in the position of authority rather than

00:23:56.180 giving the authority that you should maintain for yourself to somebody else. Step number four, guys,

00:24:02.240 become a sovereign man. Do not live beholden to anyone. These are the ways that we develop our strength.

00:24:09.980 This is the way that we wrestle back the strength and the fortitude and the grit and the resiliency

00:24:17.080 and the resolve that we need to display. I'll tell you what, on a final note here, it's easy for

00:24:24.580 people to mock and ridicule and belittle and put down these masculine virtues in times of relative

00:24:33.900 peace. And we do. If you think about economically, if you think about from a safety standpoint,

00:24:39.380 we are pretty secure, which is why people can complain about masculinity. But I'll tell you

00:24:45.520 what, there's going to come a point in our lives, each and every one of our lives, whether it's a

00:24:51.000 divorce, a bankruptcy, a job loss, a disability, a death of a loved one, a lawsuit, a natural disaster,

00:25:00.300 an emergency, a car wreck, a potential military conflict where we as men will be called upon again.

00:25:08.460 And those people who are complaining about masculinity and belittling what it means to be

00:25:16.180 a man are the ones who at that point are going to call on you to do what you were born to do.

00:25:22.860 The question is, will we be ready to do it? Guys, we live in an era where being soft and being weak

00:25:30.940 and being pathetic is accepted. And not only accepted, it's encouraged. We can do that because

00:25:39.440 again, we live in a time of relative prosperity, but there will come a time where you will be called

00:25:45.620 to be the man you're capable of being. And that's going to require you to be strong and tough and

00:25:51.260 resilient. I hope that I am adequately prepared for that day. And the best way to do this again,

00:25:56.740 as a recap is to become physically fit is to do the things that scare you every single day

00:26:03.540 is to spend time around other strong and masculine men. And it's to become independent,

00:26:09.860 to become that sovereign man. So guys, I hope that helps. I would love to hear what you think.

00:26:14.400 If you believe in what I believe, if you don't believe in what I believe, I would love to have

00:26:18.780 a conversation with you. You can do that on any of our social media profiles. You can go to

00:26:24.040 Instagram at Ryan Mickler. The other one I'm very active in is Facebook. So go to facebook.com

00:26:31.000 slash groups slash order of man, where we will continue this discussion until next week, gentlemen,

00:26:36.940 take action, become strong, become tough, become resilient, become the man you are meant to be.

00:26:43.560 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

00:26:48.140 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

00:26:54.040 Thank you.

Order of Man - June 15, 2018

FFN 112： The Systematic Softening of Society

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