Order of Man - May 20, 2022


Harness the Power of Incremental Improvements ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES


Episode Stats

Length

17 minutes

Words per Minute

197.01697

Word Count

3,452

Sentence Count

247

Misogynist Sentences

1


Summary

In this Friday Field Notes episode, Ryan talks about the concept of incremental improvement and how it can be applied in your everyday life to achieve your goals and dreams. He also discusses the importance of taking action every single day to accomplish your goals.


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.
00:00:10.420 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,
00:00:22.780 you can call yourself a man. Hey guys, what's going on? This is Ryan
00:00:27.000 Mickler. I'm the host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement. I've got a very short
00:00:31.420 message for you today. If you're just joining us for the first time, this is our Friday field notes
00:00:35.820 where I share some of my thoughts, my ramblings that have been bouncing around in my brain over
00:00:42.580 the past week or so. And I got thinking about this concept of incremental improvement. It seems to me
00:00:47.760 that so many of us spend a crazy amount of time thinking about our biggest and most audacious and
00:00:55.800 noble objectives and goals. And that's fine and great. But if it's hindering us because it's so
00:01:01.920 large that we can't possibly see ourselves doing it, and it causes us to retreat or to shirk our
00:01:11.000 actions moving forward, then it's not really good for us. It's a problem. So I'm going to talk with
00:01:17.760 you about that today. And I'm shooting off the hip and off the cuff a little bit because this is
00:01:21.580 important. And I've thought a lot about this over the past couple of years. And even in my own life,
00:01:26.020 the way that I've improved in my life is not through swinging for the fences. It's if we're
00:01:32.400 using that analogy is getting on base every single day and winning these minor, seemingly minor and
00:01:39.580 small little victories. Before we get into that, just want to mention very, very quickly that we've got
00:01:45.340 our store. We've got our merchandise store, if you aren't familiar with that. So you can go to
00:01:50.360 store.orderofman.com and you can look at shirts, hats, patches, lightweight jackets, hoodies,
00:01:57.060 decals. And then of course, we've got this right here, which is our number one selling item. If you're
00:02:03.680 not following on YouTube, do that. But I'm holding up right now our 12-week battle planner. So this is a
00:02:09.920 tool that actually will help you improve in the area that I'm talking about today, incremental
00:02:16.140 improvement. So you can check that out at store.orderofman.com, including a short little
00:02:21.800 video on how to use this planner effectively. Again, store.orderofman.com. All right, enough of
00:02:26.780 that. When I think about planning, I think that most of the goal setting and planning strategies out
00:02:33.860 there miss the mark. I think they're close to the target. I think there's actually a lot of practical
00:02:39.240 wisdom and benefit to looking into some of these planners and these goal setting systems. But what
00:02:44.080 they're really missing is the reverse engineering process back into daily actions, things that you
00:02:49.360 can do on a daily basis to improve your odds of ultimate performance. So you might say, well,
00:02:56.220 I want to run a marathon. And then that's it. There's nothing else that follows. And I would
00:03:01.660 suggest to you that the reason people don't achieve their objectives is not because they don't have
00:03:06.680 them. Everybody I've talked to has goals and desires and dreams and objectives to varying degrees.
00:03:13.100 Everybody has that. What not everybody has is the ability to take action every single day to march
00:03:21.220 down that path of improvement and ultimately achieving their objectives. So when you use our
00:03:26.120 battle planning system, whether you do or not, really the key is only to come up with an objective
00:03:32.240 and a goal as a benchmark to work backwards into what needs to be done on a daily basis. So let's take
00:03:38.520 running a marathon, for example. If you want to run a marathon in the next 90 days, then good. Check.
00:03:44.600 Got it. Now, what do you need to do leading up to that? Well, you need to run. I'm not here to tell
00:03:50.320 you what your schedule should be because I'm the least qualified to talk about running a marathon
00:03:53.940 or running in general because I despise it. But you might say to yourself, well, I'm going to run
00:03:59.600 three to five miles every single morning. And on the weekends, the first weekend, I'm going to run
00:04:05.980 seven miles. And the next weekend, 10 miles. And the third weekend, I'm going to go back to two
00:04:10.020 miles. But the fourth weekend, I'm going to do a 10 miler. And then I'm going to go back. And then
00:04:13.500 the fifth weekend, I'm going to do a half marathon. And then I'm going to take a break on the next
00:04:17.400 weekend. So you come up with this strategy. Now, the hard part is that as you're running three miles
00:04:23.460 or four or five miles every single day, it doesn't really seem like you're doing anything
00:04:29.040 all that wonderful. Some of you might say, well, five miles in a day, that's pretty good.
00:04:33.320 I would say that. But you get the point. The point is, is that it's less than what you're totally
00:04:39.460 capable of. And so you feel like, oh, well, I'm just running three to five miles and I'm not seeing
00:04:44.020 any results. And this isn't really a marathon. And so I'm just going to throw in the towel. This is
00:04:48.340 unnecessary. And then you don't go today and you don't go tomorrow and you don't go the next day.
00:04:53.460 And before you know it, race time comes along and you're not ready and you drop out.
00:04:57.800 I've seen this time and time again, whether it comes to racing or losing weight or starting a
00:05:02.140 business. Starting a business is a great example. You all have ideas and goals and ambitions and
00:05:07.900 business ideas and prospects, and you want to change the world, right? You want to make your
00:05:12.680 dent in the world. Fine and great, noble. You should want to make a dent in the world. You should want to
00:05:17.840 do something that's significant and meaningful. But if it becomes deflating because it's so big,
00:05:23.460 then it doesn't really matter what it is because you're not going to do it.
00:05:27.000 Now with podcasting, I wanted to create a top 10 podcast. Now we're not quite there.
00:05:31.660 We are in certain categories, but I want to become a top 10 podcast in all categories in the world.
00:05:37.280 I want to be a number one podcast. Well, it's taken me seven years and I'm still not to that point.
00:05:42.180 So am I a loser? Do I throw in the towel? Have I not achieved what I wanted? No, because I don't
00:05:47.920 measure my success on that. What I actually measure my success on is doing three podcasts
00:05:53.580 every single week without fail, rain or shine or whatever it may be. And this is what I'm going
00:05:59.840 to put out. And I'm going to listen to feedback and I'm going to improve technology. And I'm going
00:06:04.200 to get better at this so that I can ultimately achieve my greatest desire, which is to hit
00:06:08.800 those top charts. But if I was only measuring it on hitting the top charts, I would have thrown in
00:06:16.180 the towel long ago. Now I'll give you an example. It's a Thursday afternoon. It's about three o'clock
00:06:21.740 my time as I'm recording this. This Friday field notes that you're listening to right now,
00:06:25.800 I pre-recorded this. So I'm recording this about, well, a little over a week early.
00:06:32.920 And I'm doing this because I know that I'm going to be gone next week. And the likelihood of me
00:06:38.520 being able to record a Friday field notes next week is very slim. So I'm doing it right now because
00:06:43.760 I made a commitment to put out three podcasts per week. And I haven't missed one. And I think
00:06:49.840 we're about 850 or 880 episodes into the podcast at this point. I have not missed a single podcast
00:06:56.400 in seven years, not one. I was late on a few, but I still got it out on the day I was supposed
00:07:02.360 to release it. So in those seven years, I haven't missed a single podcast. And every
00:07:07.220 time I podcast, I get a little better and a little better and a little better. And people
00:07:11.480 will say, oh, well, you know, you're so good at this, right? Because I've done thousands
00:07:15.480 and thousands of hours worth of podcasting. And if I'm not somewhat good at this by now,
00:07:21.000 that might be a red flag for me. But the power comes in incremental improvement. So don't think
00:07:26.960 that just because you can't have what you ultimately desire that you shouldn't start.
00:07:31.420 I see this quite often when it comes to people wanting to lose weight or people wanting to pay
00:07:36.180 off debt. So let's say you have $20,000 of debt and all you can afford to do is to put $100 a month
00:07:42.760 extra towards paying off that debt. You might be so overwhelmed. It might seem so insurmountable
00:07:49.620 that you think to yourself, what's this $100 going to do? Well, it's going to do a lot actually,
00:07:55.280 because it's going to compound over time. You're going to move from 100 to 150 when you get a
00:08:01.380 raise or you have some extra money come in and you've already built the habit of paying it off.
00:08:04.940 So there's the psychological win. But consider the alternative. You might think $100 is not a lot
00:08:10.320 in the grand scheme of things with paying off $20,000 of student loans or a personal loan or
00:08:14.920 a vehicle loan. But what is the alternative? Well, the alternative is to do nothing and tell
00:08:20.620 me how that's better than at least paying $100 a month toward the thing. So we really need to wrap up
00:08:26.220 our sense of worth, our identity, not in achieving the ultimate objective, but in doing the work
00:08:34.040 that's going to get us there. The ultimate objective will take care of itself. And you know,
00:08:39.320 sometimes things happen that will keep you, and these are beyond your control, that will keep you
00:08:45.080 from reaching your objective. So another example, I really have a goal within jujitsu to get my purple
00:08:51.740 belt here in the, in the not too distant future. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I had a little injury
00:08:57.340 that I've got to deal with. It might be that I'm going to have to get surgery and that's going to
00:09:01.160 put a damper on my ability to get my purple belt in a timely matter, according to my timeline.
00:09:07.940 Well, that's now an external. I could have done something different to not get hurt, but I did.
00:09:13.120 And so now it's beyond my control. Yes, I can go to therapy. Yes, I can get the surgery,
00:09:17.940 but ultimately it's a little bit more out of my reach today than it was a week and a half or two
00:09:24.380 weeks ago. But I don't wrap up my identity in that purple belt. I do wrap up my identity
00:09:29.680 in moving towards the purple belt. So last night I went and trained. Now I didn't go a hundred percent.
00:09:35.480 I went about 65 to 70%, really protected this arm, told my training partners to keep it easy on this
00:09:42.460 arm, not to attack this arm. And it went, and it went great. It went well. Other days I'm going to work
00:09:47.600 on mobility or strength training, or just stretching the thing out and trying to loosen it up and get
00:09:53.260 it working and functioning the way that it should incremental improvement that will inevitably lead
00:09:58.500 to the result that I want. I want you to consider this when it comes to your relationship, your
00:10:03.480 relationship might be straight. It might be on the rocks. Maybe you're going through a separation
00:10:07.680 or divorce, or you're just really struggling with connection and intimacy. We as men think, well,
00:10:14.200 you know, if I just change, my wife's going to see that. And tomorrow then we're going to be all
00:10:18.480 better. Well, you took 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 years potentially to get you to the point where you are
00:10:24.880 in your relationship. And it isn't going to change overnight. It's going to take small incremental
00:10:30.580 improvement with your communication, with your accepting responsibility, with your open-mindedness,
00:10:35.860 with your attention, with the way that you share information with her, or the way that you include her
00:10:41.100 in the process, or the way that you speak to her. It's going to take a lot of effort to be able to
00:10:46.340 get you to the point where you want to be. Same thing with your nutrition. Some guys are like,
00:10:51.740 Hey, I'm 30, 40, 50 pounds overweight. What do I do? Well, I mean, you can't just go get it cut off.
00:10:56.380 Actually probably could get it sucked out. I mean, that's an immediate result, but you didn't earn that,
00:11:01.900 right? Like you didn't earn that result. So it's very easy for you to slip back into old patterns
00:11:06.500 that got you that 40 or 50 pounds heavier that you are right now. So maybe instead of that,
00:11:14.200 and I'm not a medical doctor, so I'm not telling you not to get that surgery or anything like that.
00:11:17.860 But instead of that, what I would suggest to you is that why don't you just start with
00:11:21.260 cutting out processed sugars? Why don't you just try to shorten your eating window?
00:11:26.240 Why don't you just try to get rid of the snacking or change your portion sizes? These are small wins
00:11:33.180 that you can track and I use it here in this battle planner, but you can track it on a calendar
00:11:38.020 or a notepad, but you start tracking these things. And it's pretty cool to see that, Hey,
00:11:44.820 my goal is to lose 30 pounds and I'm going to cut out processed sugars for the next 90 days.
00:11:49.400 And then you just make a red X on a calendar and you should have 90 of those in a row.
00:11:55.000 That's going to happen. Now it might not happen in that timeframe that you want,
00:11:59.120 because maybe you had an unrealistic expectation of what it would take, but it's going to happen.
00:12:04.040 It's at this point, it's just a matter of time because you're doing the work required
00:12:09.300 to produce the inevitable result. And you can take pride, not in the result itself,
00:12:15.060 but in that you are disciplined, that you are the kind of man that follows through on his
00:12:20.140 commitments, that you're the kind of person who gets up and has a list of things to do and has
00:12:25.420 commitments that he's made and you do them. And then when you put your head on your pillow,
00:12:30.320 at the end of the night, you can sleep comfortably because you're tired and you can sleep peacefully
00:12:35.480 because you know that you were a man of your word. Guys, this is the power of incremental
00:12:41.320 improvement. And don't ever overlook it just because you think that you should be doing more.
00:12:46.720 Right? Again, if you're trying to lose weight, you're not going to lose 30 pounds in the next week.
00:12:52.280 Like it's just not going to happen, but you could lose three. You could lose five. And the next week,
00:12:59.100 you could lose another three. And the next week, another three. And the next week, maybe you only
00:13:03.400 lose two. The next week, maybe you put a pound on because you screw up. But the following week,
00:13:07.780 you lose three more. And over a period of 12 weeks, you're down 20, 25, maybe even 30 pounds.
00:13:17.540 Incremental improvement is where it's at. If you're trying to pay off debt, gradually,
00:13:22.500 Teddy Roosevelt said, do what you can with what you have, where you are. Not all of us are in the
00:13:29.660 position to miraculously change our lives around. In fact, I would say that the overwhelming majority
00:13:34.560 of us are not in that position. Don't be discouraged. Don't be upset. Don't be mad that you didn't hit the
00:13:42.300 home run. Get on base, however you need to do it. All right? Walk, get a hit, force an error,
00:13:49.560 get hit by the ball. So a thousand different ways, not a thousand, but there's quite a few
00:13:54.760 different ways for you to get your butt on base. And you know who the greatest baseball players of
00:13:59.500 all time are? We look at their batting average, right? We look at their on-base percentage.
00:14:05.200 Now, how often did this person, this player get himself on the field? How often for every at-bat did
00:14:13.020 he get himself in the game? And the ones who do it the best and the most frequently are always
00:14:19.940 considered the most valuable players. These are the guys that we remember. These are the guys who
00:14:24.840 make it to the Hall of Fame. And these are the guys who ultimately achieve their desires
00:14:28.920 as baseball players. That's a metaphor for life. Plant your flag, guys. If it's losing weight,
00:14:36.020 plant your flag on that. If it's salvaging your marriage, plant your flag. If it's connecting with
00:14:40.100 your kids, plant your flag. If it's starting that business or that podcast, plant your flag.
00:14:44.800 And if you do that, then you can work backwards into incremental improvements, small things,
00:14:49.940 one or two things you can do every single day that don't seem like a big deal, but you're gradually
00:14:55.300 chipping it away at the goal and the objective that you have. It's like that old adage of eating
00:15:01.040 an elephant. Well, you do it one bite at a time. One bite doesn't seem like much. Two doesn't.
00:15:06.260 10 doesn't. When we're talking about the elephant, you start with a hundred bites and then 200 and
00:15:11.820 then 500. And you start to see the dent that you're making towards your objectives. Small daily wins.
00:15:18.840 The last thing I'll leave you with is don't compare yourself to other people. You can look at what other
00:15:24.860 people are doing for inspiration or motivation, or even to show you what's possible. I do that,
00:15:29.840 but don't compare yourself to others. It's been said that comparison is the thief of joy. I believe
00:15:36.600 that's true. I believe you'll invite all sorts of negative feelings and thoughts and doubts and
00:15:43.640 scarcity into your mindset and your psyche and your wellbeing. Don't compare yourself to other people.
00:15:49.740 Look to what they're doing to be inspirational, to be aspirational and to be motivational,
00:15:53.240 but don't compare yourself to them because you know nothing about what they're dealing with.
00:15:57.560 You know nothing about their personal situation. You know nothing about how long they've been in
00:16:02.060 the game. You know nothing about opportunities that have been presented to them. You know nothing
00:16:06.700 about it. So it's ignorant at best, ignorant to start comparing your own performance to the
00:16:13.280 performance of others. You worry about yourself. You figure out what your big audacious life's goal
00:16:19.620 is. And you work backwards into things that you can do every day, day in and day out. And you just show
00:16:24.660 up day after day, after day, after day, and have faith that through that work, incremental improvement
00:16:32.000 that your life will get better. All right, guys, that's what I've got for you. This is coming out
00:16:37.680 on Friday. Don't let the weekend be an excuse to slip. All right. Some of you guys eat so well during
00:16:42.960 the week and then the weekend, it just goes to shit. Don't do that. Still work out, still communicate
00:16:48.840 with your wife, still work on your business, still get out of bed on time, still be productive.
00:16:53.420 The tempo, the pace might change during the weekend, but the objectives do not. And your push
00:17:00.700 towards those objectives do not. Just the tempo, just the pace. You guys know what I'm saying.
00:17:06.760 All right, guys, good luck. Best wishes. You can do it. I believe in you. We're here to support you.
00:17:11.500 If you want to check out the battle planner, please do so. Store.orderofman.com.
00:17:14.960 And we will be back next week. Until then, go out there, take action, and become the man you are
00:17:20.640 meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take charge of
00:17:25.320 your life and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.