Order of Man - Hazing for Men, Why Systems are Crucial, and Building Financial Sovereignty ｜ ASK ME ANYTHING

00:00:00.000 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart

00:00:04.980 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

00:00:17.200 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. Steve, what's up, man? Thanks for joining me on the Ask Anything

00:00:27.560 podcast. This is your first go at it. How are you feeling? It is. I'm feeling pretty good, Ryan.

00:00:35.560 It is an absolute honor, of course, to be on, not only to serve in the Iron Council and lead men to

00:00:44.320 sovereignty, but to be on here as well, which is really the kickstart of thousands of men changing

00:00:50.900 their lives. I appreciate the offer, my friend. Yeah. No, I've been looking forward to it. We've

00:00:55.800 had a lot of good conversations over the past several months, even more specifically, but

00:00:59.800 man, every time I talk with you, I walk away with new information, new ideas. You're very

00:01:04.900 structured and organized in a way that I'm not. I really appreciate that about you. And you're also

00:01:09.140 a veteran podcaster too. So I knew this wouldn't be like completely foreign to you. So I'm sure that

00:01:15.780 you can hold your own and then some. Veteran might be a little bit of a stretch, but I've been doing

00:01:21.720 it for a little bit. Well, brother, I'm looking forward to jumping into questions. Some guys may

00:01:27.640 not know. They might just be finding us for the first time, but we're going to get into

00:01:30.760 questions. I think these ones specifically are going to be coming from our Iron Council members,

00:01:36.860 which is our exclusive brotherhood. If you guys don't know what that is, we're going to be opening

00:01:40.480 up in a little less than a month now for enrollment, for our spring enrollment. And you can find out more

00:01:46.800 at order of man.com slash iron council. There's a quick video you can watch to see what we're about.

00:01:52.340 And then also you'll be able to drop your email in and be notified the day we open up. So I expect

00:02:00.120 it to be a big class. I'm excited. We've got all the infrastructure and support and systems and

00:02:04.420 frameworks for men to succeed. And so all guys have to do at this point is plug in and do the work.

00:02:10.720 Yeah. And that's amazing too, Ryan. You know, I talked to a lot of men outside of the Iron Council

00:02:15.760 and there are so many men who, you know, I see as very, very successful, but you get them on this

00:02:22.540 conversation, right? With, you know, just about anything and quickly you can see that they need

00:02:30.880 more structure, that they could use the systems that we provide in the Iron Council. It's, you don't

00:02:37.780 have to talk very long before there's a part of their life that they're just not happy with. So

00:02:42.680 I encourage everybody to join. It has been a godsend for me and I've seen a ton of other men,

00:02:51.000 you know, level up in their lives as, as fathers, as husbands, uh, the whole nine yards. So

00:02:57.280 appreciate this platform that you've given us, Ryan.

00:03:00.660 Well, yeah, well, we've done it together. You know, we build this thing together, but, um,

00:03:05.260 the systems things is always a funny conversation because I think there's a lot of guys out there who

00:03:09.780 know they need a system, but they won't do the work required. And I think it could be laziness,

00:03:15.040 procrastination, fear, ego. There's only one of a handful of things that it could be. And I'm not

00:03:21.980 saying that you wouldn't join the Iron Council because one of those five things I'm saying,

00:03:25.760 you're not tapping into systems. For example, you know that you need to track your calories or

00:03:32.620 track your workouts. If you want to get in shape, you know that you need to actually pull up your bank

00:03:37.020 account statements and your credit card statements before you actually start whittling down the debt

00:03:42.520 or building wealth. Like, you know that. And so many guys have a hard time with it. Do you,

00:03:48.300 do you feel like that's the case? And if so, why do you think that is?

00:03:52.620 I think a lot of it really has to do with, um, you know, men isolate themselves, right?

00:03:59.260 A lot of these guys that I talk to, uh, they're so busy with their families, with their jobs,

00:04:05.080 and they just go into this isolation. And so they don't realize even that they're having

00:04:11.460 these thoughts or feelings until they start seeing someone else. And, uh, and they really

00:04:16.880 look at them and go, what's different about that guy. Right. So I think that's a component of it as

00:04:22.880 well. Yeah. And I think it's also, I, I do this personally where you'll tap into a system that works

00:04:29.060 like your diet, for example, and it works and you do it for two weeks, three, four weeks,

00:04:33.800 whatever it might be. And you're like, damn, I look good. You start looking in the mirror. You're 0.98

00:04:36.600 like, yeah, losing weight. I can see some muscle definition. I can see I'm getting a little bigger

00:04:42.000 and then you deviate, you know, it's like, or you even see this in, in professional sports.

00:04:49.060 You have a team that does so well leading up to the playoffs and, and they perform at the highest

00:04:54.740 level. They have their offense or they have their defense or whatever it is. And they get to the

00:04:58.840 playoffs and it's like, they lose their mind and start deviating from what got them there in the

00:05:02.080 first place. I don't know what it is about us as men, but again, laziness, procrastination,

00:05:08.160 ego, whatever. But it is so amazing to me. And I'm not saying I don't do this. I do where we have a

00:05:14.540 system that works and they're like, yeah, I'm good. I got it. And then we check out of the system

00:05:18.060 and then we fall, right? We falter. And then we get back into the system and it becomes this

00:05:24.160 accordion effect where it's just improvement, stagnation, fall improvement, stagnation fall

00:05:32.680 just over and over and over again. When I'm working at least in my own life to build that

00:05:38.780 consistent daily practice so that every single day, it's like that Kaizen method of 1% better

00:05:45.880 every single day without fail. I can't say that I'm a hundred percent on it, but that's my mindset at

00:05:52.640 least. Right. I think you also hit on something else, right? It takes a long period of time to

00:05:59.740 start seeing those results, right? I mean, does it go up? Like if you're, if you're so far behind,

00:06:06.480 like I don't, I don't know that there's, it takes a long time. Look, there's the law of diminishing

00:06:12.180 returns, right? Where if you're, if you're already at the peak of your game, small incremental

00:06:16.920 improvements are, are only going to elevate you, you know, this much more over a sustained period

00:06:22.920 of time. But if you're 80 pounds overweight, a guy could go to the gym and eat right for two weeks

00:06:30.180 and lose what, 10, 15 pounds like that. I mean, I think you can see those results pretty quickly,

00:06:37.520 but what do you think? Yeah, I, I agree with you in that part. Right. But, um, the point that I was

00:06:45.780 going to make is, you know, those, those boxes donuts, right? I lived a life in maintenance for

00:06:50.800 a long time and every vendor brought in donuts. If I was to eat a donut and see a donut pop out my

00:06:58.640 belly, I'd stop eating donuts. Right. But it takes a long time to put that fat on. And you're right.

00:07:05.120 In the first couple of weeks, you can drop a lot of fat, but to really get to where you want to go,

00:07:11.220 I think it takes longer than that. Right. The 10 pounds is nice. It can put a little bit of

00:07:15.680 fuel on the fire, but to really get where you want, you have to work at it for a sustained period of

00:07:22.780 time. I think what you said about if a donut pops up, you know, the shape of a donut pops up on your

00:07:28.100 gut, you're not going to eat it. But man, what do we say when we see the donut? Oh, this one won't

00:07:33.340 hurt. It's just one. Right. Or, or I'm going to sleep in today. You know? Yeah. Like just the

00:07:39.600 one workout's not going to hurt. You're right. It's not. The problem is you're setting a precedent

00:07:44.540 for what you're going to do tomorrow and the next day and the next day and do those, do that 14 times

00:07:50.620 in a row. All right. You're going to start seeing the donut stack up around your midsection for sure.

00:07:56.300 They don't look like the shape of a donut though. Well, I guess they do kind of,

00:08:00.340 kind of a large disgusting donut around our midsection. All right. Well, let's get to it.

00:08:05.660 We've got some good questions. I want to make sure we address those today. All right. The first and

00:08:10.560 foremost, we have the architect Reese Carter from battle team Foxtrot. And he asks how important is

00:08:18.680 hazing and when has it gone too far? Yeah, I, I saw this question. I saw some of them. I didn't see all

00:08:24.740 of them. This is a, this is a really good question. Obviously the term hazing has a negative

00:08:29.560 connotation because of the things with the media. And you see some of these college teams doing

00:08:35.040 things to each other that are just horrific and horrible. And I think we all know what the line is

00:08:39.980 when you're permanently injuring yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, or somebody else.

00:08:45.960 That's, that's a line for sure. But if you're, if you're doing something, let's say it's, um,

00:08:54.000 tradition, it's a tradition and maybe it's a little embarrassing, uh, or, you know, maybe it's,

00:09:00.260 it hurts physically and it's not permanently mentally, emotionally, or physically damaging.

00:09:06.380 I think the concept of hazing builds camaraderie. And so maybe the word hazing isn't the right word

00:09:13.700 we use because of the negative connotation. But if we strip that word out of it, what is hazing

00:09:18.080 in, in, in, in the form, I think it's intended. Yes. It can go too far, but the form it's intended

00:09:22.900 is to build camaraderie. It's to go through something that nobody else goes through. Like

00:09:28.320 this is our thing, right? You even think about it again, this is a negative connotation, but you

00:09:32.580 think about it in a gang, you have to get jumped into a gang, right? That's hazing. Nobody else goes

00:09:38.040 through that. It's physically hard. It's challenging. It's confrontational. And once you're, you go through

00:09:43.860 that and you hold your own, cause you have to hold your own. Cause if you don't, you're not in.

00:09:47.620 These are tests. These are ways to build camaraderie. What I get frustrated with is you have outsiders

00:09:54.160 looking at situations saying, Oh, they shouldn't do that. Like you have an outsider looking at guys

00:09:59.000 in the military who are quote unquote hazing or introducing themselves to the unit, to the

00:10:04.960 organization. And you have other people who don't understand a damn thing about the way men operate

00:10:10.580 in the military saying that's bad. Well, hold up a second. Is it bad? Like let's really evaluate 0.82

00:10:16.040 whether or not it's bad and what the actual intent is of it. And does the benefit outweigh

00:10:23.020 the, the, the negative side of it or the optics of it. So I'm a fan of hazing. Again, if it's not

00:10:29.000 taken to the extreme, it builds camaraderie, it builds brotherhood. It tests a potential member of

00:10:36.720 the tribe as to whether or not they're going to be there or not. And it's something that

00:10:40.800 bands those people together. That's, that's what I think. So that's, that's the way I know.

00:10:48.180 I agree. There's definitely a line to it, right? So these kids in college, we hear these awful

00:10:54.980 stories about, you know, someone hooking up a funnel in a wrong place and, you know, take an alcohol in

00:11:00.700 that way. Right. I go back to this, I go back to the story that Drago's Aaron told me on one of my

00:11:07.280 shows and he was talking about the exact same thing as what you mentioned, Ryan, you know,

00:11:13.500 that you have these politicians who are driving these no hazing metrics and, you know, talking

00:11:19.040 about it all the time and they have absolutely no clue. And then he talked, he talked about getting

00:11:24.440 duct tape to this rack and lift it up while he watched all the other seals have a party. Right.

00:11:32.220 And he just had to watch it from aerospace. Right. And he's like, that was awesome. Because when I

00:11:38.000 came down, I was part of the club. Exactly. I was, I was one of the guys. We had all went through the

00:11:44.980 same shit and we had something to talk about. It was our first conversation. Right. So totally agree 0.99

00:11:53.800 with you on the hazing topic. I think it is definitely necessary, especially for men, 1.00

00:11:59.000 but other people who don't know anything about it should probably know or ask the people who are

00:12:04.360 involved in it. Right. Yeah, no, I agree. I even see to a, maybe a lesser extent, a lot of people

00:12:12.080 out there who will say, well, you know, men just need to talk more. You know, if they sat down and they

00:12:18.260 talked more about their problems and, you know, they were more empathetic and kind. I'm like, that's,

00:12:23.300 sure. Great for women. It's not wrong. But for men, generally speaking, we need something different.

00:12:31.940 Like, I don't want to sit around Steve with you, no offense, and talk about your problems and my

00:12:37.460 problems. And we just have a cuddle and cry session together. Not interested in that. But what I am

00:12:43.140 interested in is us going on a hunt or a camp out or a Ragnar relay race or something challenging. And

00:12:53.120 in the meantime, we can talk about how things are going with your wife or what's going on with my

00:12:58.780 business or why I'm struggling with X, Y, and Z. And we can infuse those conversations while we're

00:13:05.860 doing something challenging, physically demanding, and requires a lot of our, you know, energy,

00:13:10.840 our mental and physical energy. That's generally how men work better. And the problem with men's 1.00

00:13:17.140 mental health in this society is not that we're not doing it because I'd be willing to bet that

00:13:24.360 we as men, as a group of people are having more conversations, more therapy, more of these sessions

00:13:33.980 than any other time in history. And yet we're more depressed, more suicidal than any other time

00:13:40.660 in history. So it doesn't seem to be working too well. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't be

00:13:46.920 involved in therapy. I think there's a time and place. In fact, I've had therapy in my own life,

00:13:51.180 but also I think we ought to start behaving like men with each other by getting together and doing hard

00:14:00.000 things, doing service. I think about the Amish and doing barn raisings, right? That's a community now

00:14:06.060 and everybody's vested in that home. Don't you think they're going to protect that home and the

00:14:10.280 people inside of it because they have a vested interest in the building of that home. We don't

00:14:15.380 do that in our communities anymore. And guys, to your point, feel isolated. Then they're told to go

00:14:21.120 talk it out with somebody and they walk away more confused, more isolated, more frustrated,

00:14:27.080 and still alone. A hundred percent, a hundred percent ready for the next question. I don't

00:14:32.320 have anything to add to that one. Let's do it. All right. Rob Andrews from fire. He's from fire

00:14:39.860 team relentless. He's one of our fire team leaders says, how do you make a habit or a newfound discipline

00:14:46.600 that you've been struggling with being consistent on both exciting and engaging? Well, I mean, you hear

00:14:53.840 the adage of starting with why. So I think that is important. I don't want to beat a dead horse on

00:14:59.800 that, but you have to really ask yourself, why is it that you're implementing the new thing?

00:15:04.640 If you're like me, you know, I spent a lot of time on social media just with the business

00:15:09.280 things that I have to do on a daily basis. And what I see a lot is a lot of cool ideas that sound

00:15:18.760 good in theory. And there are things that I should quote unquote implement in my life.

00:15:24.480 But the problem is I can't get up at three 30 every morning, do 15 minutes of meditation,

00:15:31.060 do 20 minutes of grounding work, do another 20 minutes of breath work. Uh, then, then, you know,

00:15:37.020 do my journaling for the day, then my visualization, then go to the gym, then, you know, create this

00:15:42.160 special concoction that this one person told me I'm supposed to have with all the right ingredients

00:15:47.100 in that because it's going to help me improve throughout the day. And then I'm going to spend

00:15:50.580 time with my family. And then like, I can't do all of that. I have to pick what's going to work

00:15:56.040 best for me. And so I can't do jujitsu and hunting and all the other things and like,

00:16:03.880 and the demands, I can't do everything. So you have to choose what's going to work for you.

00:16:08.860 Now, other people can give you ideas and introduce you to things. And I think you should explore those,

00:16:13.200 but you need to find something that's going to work for you. So an example of that might be that,

00:16:19.460 look, I have people in my life who don't like jujitsu. They just don't like it. I know blasphemy.

00:16:26.520 They just don't like it. Then don't do it. That's fine. Like, I don't think you have to do

00:16:32.800 something just because I enjoy it. I don't think a man has to do something that we often talk about

00:16:38.620 here in order to quote unquote, call himself a man. Do that. That's the thing. Think about what

00:16:45.180 you want. So you start with that. Why? And then to the question now do it in a way that resonates

00:16:51.240 with you. If you're grinding through something and you hear this all the time, grind through a

00:16:56.920 workout, grind through jujitsu, grind through work, grind through this. I don't want to do that.

00:17:01.980 I'm not interested in that. I can do that. I will do that if the situation calls for it,

00:17:06.760 but I'm not interested in living a life of grinding. I'll work hard. I'll put forth a lot

00:17:12.560 of effort, but I want to be excited about something. I want to feel passionate about

00:17:16.920 something. I want to be engaged in that thing. And that's not to say that just because I'm those

00:17:21.240 things, it's going to be easy, but it's certainly easier than grinding through it. So if you find

00:17:26.320 yourself doing something that is habitually miserable, stop it. Figure out a different way to do it.

00:17:34.200 Maybe you need to hire somebody because you're doing it something at work you don't like.

00:17:38.500 So you need to bring somebody in. Maybe instead of doing that one kind of workout that you

00:17:43.200 continually do, you do something different. My, my, uh, fitness coach, Johnny Loretty actually

00:17:49.120 texted me today and he's like, Hey, I've been thinking about changing up some of your programming.

00:17:52.440 Would you like to do that? I'm like, yes, please. Not because I don't enjoy working out. I do enjoy

00:17:58.520 training, but I need something different. And, and guys will say, well, you know, you should do this

00:18:04.520 for however long in order to produce the maximum result. Look, if it's miserable to me, you might

00:18:10.980 be right, but if it's miserable to me and I don't do it because it's miserable, then you're like 120

00:18:16.580 day protocol on the same workout. Isn't going to work anyways. Cause I'm just not going to do it.

00:18:22.340 So I think you need to grease the grooves. James Clear talks a lot about this in his book,

00:18:26.040 atomic habits, grease the grooves on the things that you want to do, make them easy, make them

00:18:30.320 enjoyable, make it convenient to do, and then place friction between the things that you don't

00:18:35.560 want to do like drink or excessive spending or, uh, looking at pornography, these things that you

00:18:41.960 don't want to engage in create friction. So those are harder to do. That's what I think.

00:18:47.300 Yeah. I like that. Uh, you know, if you don't like it, stop doing it. However, you're really making me,

00:18:53.000 uh, think about my choice with jujitsu, but I want to turn that a little bit, right? I don't like

00:18:59.700 doing it while I'm doing it. Really? I don't know if you're different, but I'm different.

00:19:04.740 What I really like is I like how, when I think about it afterwards, right? How I was able to keep

00:19:12.780 my calm in a situation. I like to be able to coach my kids out on the mat. I like all those kinds of

00:19:18.560 things. So I'm going to take this a little bit different place. I would say, stop looking for

00:19:24.460 excitement and engagement, right? Just stop looking at that in the activity and start making sure that

00:19:32.280 it marries up with your overall vision. That should be what's exciting to you. And just to bring it back

00:19:38.480 to a story, right? Before we met, I was 3'10", 3'20", kind of wavered back and forth. I weigh 240 now,

00:19:46.260 6'3", right? I did not enjoy losing that weight. It was horrible. You know, went on keto, carnivore,

00:19:54.260 you name it. I kept on switching it up to keep re-engaged in it. But I knew what I wanted to do

00:20:01.320 on that other side. I wanted to be there for when my kids graduated, not be in a wheelchair, 0.69

00:20:06.400 right? I wanted to be able to go out and play games with them and do all that stuff. And that's

00:20:13.020 what excited me about it. It wasn't the activity that excited me. It was the end point. And I would

00:20:19.700 think that if you could attach yourself to that end point better, that you'll be a lot more excited

00:20:24.420 about it. Yeah, I agree. There's another thing I was thinking about as you were talking, and I think

00:20:29.940 there's a really important factor when it comes to engaging in these new activities you know are

00:20:36.620 going to serve you well, and that is being fully present in those things. So yesterday, my girlfriend

00:20:43.340 and I took her daughter and two of my children on a hike. And, you know, my kids did fairly well,

00:20:51.560 but they got tired and they started complaining. And then they started thinking about, can we get

00:20:55.820 ice cream after? And can we do this after? And what's going on later? And I said, hey, guys,

00:21:01.760 let's focus on like now. Let's not worry about whatever we're doing later. Like we have other

00:21:06.740 stuff, but we'll get to that later. Let's focus on now. And we do that as adults. We get so distracted

00:21:14.000 with the latest and the greatest and the next and the newest and everything else that we forget to be

00:21:19.220 present in the moment. You know, for example, if I'm thinking about other conversations I need to have,

00:21:24.000 if I'm on my phone, if I'm, you know, working on a to-do list during this conversation, how am I going

00:21:30.520 to enjoy this conversation? There's no way I can do that. I think about this also with my fitness

00:21:38.420 stuff specifically as it relates to nutrition, my fitness stuff. I can do that. I have no problem

00:21:42.960 with that. It's the nutrition. I'm an overeater. So if it's in front of me, I'll eat it. It doesn't

00:21:48.080 matter what it is. I'm like a garbage disposal. I will eat it and I'll eat all of it. And it's hard at 0.94

00:21:53.440 times to scale back. I need to eat the right foods and I need to eat less. That's, that's what I need

00:21:59.160 to do. And I know that about myself. It's hard at times, but you know, when it's not hard is when I

00:22:05.260 make it a game. So today, for example, a friend of mine and I actually, he's, he's doing some

00:22:12.280 consulting with me on the business stuff. Him and I are going to lunch today. Well, I could go to lunch

00:22:17.420 and I could eat like that garbage disposal, or I could be a little bit more creative. So instead

00:22:23.600 of getting the burger and fries, maybe I get the burger patty without the bun and I go to sweet

00:22:29.700 potato fries or mixed vegetables instead of French fries, same amount of food, still going to be

00:22:35.640 delicious, smart little choices. And that creativity helps me. Um, also when I track it, okay, how much

00:22:43.160 did I eat today? I got home and I had two eggs today. I'm tracking my water intake. When I track

00:22:48.500 it, it turns into a game for me and it makes it exciting. But I think that comes back to what I

00:22:53.320 was saying is that it's being present, fully vested in whatever you're doing. If you're doing it and

00:22:58.660 you're thinking about other things, other activities, other hobbies, what's next, what's

00:23:02.080 newest, what's greatest, then of course, of course, whatever you're doing currently is going to be less

00:23:07.200 interesting. Focus on what you have now. That even applies to relationships. How many guys do we 0.62

00:23:12.380 know who are like, Oh yeah, you know, my wife and I, we've been together for 10, 15, 20 years,

00:23:16.540 you know, but man, this, my secretary, you know, she's pretty attractive or, you know, they see 0.96

00:23:21.520 these women at the gym and they get these, get, they get flirting and then it goes down a wrong path. 1.00

00:23:26.540 It's like, stop focusing on that. You've got a woman at home who loves you, who cares about you.

00:23:32.160 You can grow and build and, and love on her and lift her up and she can lift you up and you can

00:23:38.020 challenge each other in healthy ways. Like make that the interest instead of everything

00:23:42.320 else that's going on around you. 100%, man. The tracking point too, right? It takes

00:23:49.260 that overall and brings it down to the day, right? If you can't be long-term, that tracking brings it

00:23:55.800 down into reality and it can be just small wins every day, right? And when you win the day,

00:24:01.360 you get excited for the next one. Yeah. Agreed. Yeah. So great points there, Ryan. Got to be present

00:24:09.700 in the moment as well as look out there in the future, right? Yeah, for sure. I'm going to skip

00:24:15.640 around a little bit. Uh, Dan DiLero posed a similar question. He says, when you've taken on a lot of

00:24:22.560 responsibilities and are truly interested in everything you do, and then he used a four syllable

00:24:27.540 word, which I'm totally against. Yeah. He says to use our vernacular, it serves you, but you know,

00:24:34.880 you're stretched too thin. What process do you go through to determine what to keep and what to

00:24:40.460 discard? Yeah. I'm pretty intuitive when it comes to that. So I don't know if I have like a specific

00:24:45.200 process for it. I tend to be more of an intuitive on, on issues like that. Uh, but there is a hierarchy

00:24:51.900 of activity for me. And, and I think if you understand what that hierarchy is, we will have less of a

00:24:58.140 problem wondering what we should and shouldn't be doing. So for example, my, my greatest responsibility

00:25:04.320 is my children. They are at the top. So everything else is less of a priority than that. And that's

00:25:14.160 the thing. People say, Oh, I have 17 priorities. No, you have zero. If you have 17, you have zero,

00:25:19.360 you know, but I've got, uh, I've got my children. I've got my relationship with my girlfriend. I've got

00:25:25.180 her daughter. I've got this business. I've got my relationship with God and my spirituality.

00:25:30.140 And then I have me, then I have, you know, training every day. Um, I have other activities,

00:25:36.720 hunts that I want to go on. Uh, you know, this, this is just part of the deal. I had an opportunity

00:25:42.980 a couple of weeks ago to go to an event. And instead of going to that event, I decided to stay home

00:25:49.440 because my oldest son had his very first lacrosse games. So I went to his, his lacrosse games. That

00:25:56.720 was important to me. So I made the sacrifice to go to his games instead of going to that event for

00:26:01.060 three or four days. There was another opportunity we had last weekend for me to go up to a hunt expo

00:26:06.980 in salt Lake. I take, uh, my boys to that. We do a boy's trip out of that every single year. And so,

00:26:13.400 but my son, my oldest son had lacrosse games. I decided to sacrifice that to get my other two

00:26:19.740 boys to the hunt expo because they were a priority. And my other son got priority last week. So they're

00:26:26.220 going to get priority this week. So I think if you understand what the hierarchy is, you can put those

00:26:31.480 in the proper order. Um, and you know, really use that as a litmus test for what you should and

00:26:37.560 shouldn't be doing. Another example, cause I don't want to sacrifice everything that I'm doing a

00:26:41.820 workout. For example, a lot of guys will hide behind their families. Well, you know, I'd love

00:26:47.380 to work out, but my kids need me to be there. Well, yeah, that's a false dichotomy. Your, your

00:26:53.780 children do need you to be there and you can also work out. And how can you do that? By getting up an

00:26:59.500 hour earlier before they're even up and going to the gym. Oh, but my children are little. Okay. Like

00:27:04.960 how little, if they're toddlers, that's one thing, but if they're six, seven, eight years old,

00:27:09.640 and maybe there's another 14, 15, 16 year old in the house, I think you'll be okay for 45 minutes

00:27:14.240 to an hour. Or if you're not get up and go out to your gym, buy some weights, do some body workouts.

00:27:21.220 Like this should not be an excuse. You just have to figure out a way to make all of your priorities

00:27:25.660 work together. Another example, really wanted to spend some time with, with my girlfriend over

00:27:31.520 the weekend. We decided to go on a hike. Well, guess what? My kids come with me and we all do it

00:27:36.320 together. So you can combine these things in a way that allow you to get what you want

00:27:40.600 and meet both of your responsibilities and desires, but you have to be a little creative

00:27:45.940 in order to do it. So just a question to follow up on your hierarchy. You've been very open

00:27:51.000 with everybody on this podcast about, uh, you know, the changes that have come in your life

00:27:56.000 over the last couple of years. So how often do you look at your hierarchy and make sure everything's

00:28:03.540 still in alignment? Like make sure my actions are in alignment with my priorities. Is that what

00:28:09.400 you're asking? Well, to be blunt, right? You went through a divorce and now you have a girlfriend,

00:28:16.360 right? That, that changes your priority structure a little bit. Sure. So, so how do you reassess to

00:28:24.300 make sure that they're all still where they need to be as far as priority? Again, I, I don't have a

00:28:29.640 process for that as much as it's intuitive, but I look at the relationships and ask myself,

00:28:34.220 are these going well, you know, and there's moments of friction, isolated moments of friction

00:28:38.920 that we can address in the moment. Um, and then there's also trends, you know, I've seen that with

00:28:43.280 my children there, there, everything's good now. Like we, we have those little moments of friction and

00:28:48.020 we address those like a father should with his children. Um, but then you can look at trends and

00:28:52.440 I've had trends with my kids or other people in the past where it's not going well. And I can see

00:28:57.960 that because I'm aware of it, you know, and it's part of the process of after action reviews. It's

00:29:04.040 part of the battle planning process. It's my connection quadrant. Who do I need to be connected

00:29:08.000 with? Why, why do I need to be connected with them? How can I best connect with them in a meaningful

00:29:12.140 way for them? But these are things that I'm reviewing not only on a daily basis, but at least

00:29:18.200 once per quarter and asking myself what relationship really needs the most emphasis and what can I do to

00:29:23.200 show up in a powerful way? It is hard. You know, I'm not going to say it's easy, but it's hard

00:29:27.840 to balance everything that a man has going on. You know, he's got his wife and significant other.

00:29:32.480 He's got his children. He's got his friends. He's got hunting buddies. He's got extended family.

00:29:38.200 He's got colleagues and coworkers, maybe employees. It's a challenge. And so the way that I look at it,

00:29:45.340 and I've talked about this in the past is that life requires balance. And, and you hear this often,

00:29:52.380 the work life balance. And a lot of guys on Instagram will say, no, there's no such thing.

00:29:56.780 That's dumb. That's a recipe for disaster. I mean, if you want to do something and be, 1.00

00:30:02.900 you know, alone and miserable, but you really want to do that thing, by all means, I'm not telling you

00:30:07.560 you're wrong. That's not a decision I want to make. I want to have it all. So balance isn't some

00:30:13.440 state that I'm trying to reach. It's an active thing I'm doing. It's a, it's a, it's a verb I'm

00:30:20.680 balancing. So the analogy that I've used is that if you're on a surfboard or skis or a snowboard

00:30:26.780 and you're going down, let's say skis, cause I've recently taken up skiing, you're going down on

00:30:31.460 your skis. Like you're not just perpendicular to your skis, stiff as a board balanced because

00:30:37.940 there's factors at play that you need to take into consideration, right? There's, there's the snow,

00:30:44.340 there's grooves in the snow, there's slopes and hills and things that are actively working on you

00:30:50.340 that you need to respond to. So sometimes you're going to lean forward. Sometimes you're going to

00:30:54.520 lean back. Sometimes you're going to shift your weight to the left, to the right, but you're making

00:30:58.400 thousands and thousands of these shifts as you're going down in order to accomplish the goal, which

00:31:04.640 is a successful run. Life is the same way. Relationships are the same way. I have four children.

00:31:10.260 And sometimes my oldest needs more of my attention. Sometimes my youngest needs more of my attention

00:31:15.920 and I have to be able to balance it and recognize, Oh, you know what? That little guy needs some time

00:31:21.820 right now. So everything else has to be on the back burner. Cause I need to give him some time,

00:31:26.440 but that's just active doing that on a daily basis and being aware of what your people need from you.

00:31:32.660 Are there any blooper reels of this, uh, start and scan? No, I don't film any of that stuff. Not yet.

00:31:38.800 Anyways, there, there are some bloopers, but there's no reels of it currently, but, uh, it's pretty

00:31:45.820 hilarious. Actually.

00:31:48.580 My little brother, when, uh, first time we went skiing as a family, I don't know, I was probably

00:31:54.260 10 or so. He was, you know, seven, he was barreling down that hill. Hadn't listened to any of the

00:32:02.940 instructions. Didn't know how to stop, but he knew there was cars at the bottom of that hill. Right.

00:32:08.320 So he bent over and he just ramrodded this lady in the hind end. Just totally took her out. 1.00

00:32:20.260 So getting back on track, this hierarchy, I really see what you say is a filter, right? I mean,

00:32:27.940 it's really what you filter all your decisions through, which I'm really going to have to take

00:32:32.180 a look at that in my life, but getting back to this question, you know, I know Dan, I know that

00:32:38.540 he's a engineer by trade. So I'm going to talk about a slide rule, right? I don't know if you

00:32:45.240 know what that is, right? Or this is just old guy talk. This is like, this is old guy talk. This is

00:32:51.380 engineering jargon. I mean, I, I know what it is, but yeah, I wouldn't have gone there personally,

00:32:56.600 but go for it. So I'm going to explain it, right? There's a, there's a ruler. There's a little

00:33:02.680 viewing template that goes back and forth on the slide rule. That's all that, all that it is,

00:33:08.700 right? So how I look at this is that there's a certain amount of capacity that we have.

00:33:15.420 And that entire ruler is filled up with things that serve us with value added activities,

00:33:21.700 but there's only so much of a window we can look in at any point in time. So as we progress down that

00:33:28.260 rule, really it's as simple as we need to cut off the things that don't serve us as much for things

00:33:36.420 that serve us at a higher level, you know, for those connections with our families, with, you know,

00:33:43.740 our workouts or whatever, right? We sacrifice one for another. So we need to look at them from a value

00:33:49.520 perspective in my opinion. I agree. I'm taking some notes here. You know, the, I, I totally agree.

00:33:54.980 The only caveat to that, and I don't, I don't think you're saying anything to the contrary, by the way,

00:33:58.500 is that it's not always just service about to ourselves either. I think there's a lot of that

00:34:04.640 in society where it's like, well, what am I getting out of this? Is this good for me? Like,

00:34:08.360 how am I getting mine? And you should, you should be selfish at points in your life, but also

00:34:13.300 people rely on us. Like you have a significant other, you have kids, you have coworkers, you have

00:34:19.960 employees, you have people who are relying upon you. And so you have to do this right. And we don't

00:34:25.480 always get it right, but you have to attempt to get it right because those people are counting on

00:34:30.280 you. And I want to be a man who's counted on. And isn't that the interesting thing, even in service to

00:34:35.380 others, it is a bit selfish, right? When I serve other people, there's also something in it for me.

00:34:42.000 There's a sense of pride. There's a sense of satisfaction. There's a sense of me fulfilling

00:34:46.740 my duties and responsibilities. So in a lot of ways we can get what we want by serving other people.

00:34:52.860 I think that's something that, that men would really benefit is learning that you can get,

00:34:59.080 Zig Ziglar said this in the context of sales, you can get everything that you want.

00:35:04.160 If you're willing to help enough people get what they want. And I've, that quote has just stuck

00:35:09.320 with me for, well, since I heard it. Oh, a hundred percent. So in business,

00:35:14.500 this is just a small example of what he just said, but in business, I'm constantly teaching people

00:35:20.920 things, you know, how to, how to do Excel or, you know, just different principles of leadership or

00:35:27.380 whatever. And I get asked all the time, why do you do that? It takes out of your day.

00:35:31.000 Well, whenever I learn or teach something, I learn more, right? It just drives that principle or task

00:35:40.420 or whatever. I learn more about it as I'm doing it. Same reason why I like being a mentor in the

00:35:46.740 iron council, you know, as I'm talking with these men, they're giving me as much value as I'm giving

00:35:53.060 them. So I a hundred percent agree with that. Well, and the interesting thing about service is I think

00:35:58.960 it's important to do it for the right reason, which is simply just, it's intrinsically valuable.

00:36:04.220 I believe it's the moral thing to do. And that's derived from God that we're here to serve other

00:36:10.500 people. So there's that, but you're it's karma. You're always going to get out of that. I've had

00:36:16.360 people say the same thing. Like I'll help guys. If a guy calls me up and Hey, I'm starting something

00:36:20.080 similar. Do you have any advice? I help those people. Now, some might say, well, that's competition.

00:36:24.940 You shouldn't do that. It's, I mean, maybe, maybe it's competition. First of all, there's what?

00:36:31.240 8 billion people on the planet. So I think I'm okay, but you never know what's going to come of

00:36:36.160 those relationships. Maybe that guy, that guy's business doesn't do as well as he'd like. And

00:36:40.740 because you are the only person to help him now, he's advocating for you. Cause he's closing down

00:36:46.060 his doors and his business. And he's like, Hey, this guy is doing the same thing. I trust this guy.

00:36:50.540 You know, I I've got a friend of mine, his name's Greg black. We started doing financial planning

00:36:56.480 together. Uh, this was in 2008, 2009, and we worked together in a lot of ways. And, and sometimes we,

00:37:04.860 we were in a formal partnership and other times it was informal and we would just help each other out,

00:37:09.400 but we always had this really good professional relationship and personal relationship. Well,

00:37:13.900 I wanted to sell the business because I was doing order of man. Well, guess who I called?

00:37:19.380 Called Greg, Greg, thinking about selling my business. You interested? Yep. And he ended up

00:37:25.100 buying my book of business from me, serve me cause I want it out. And I needed to sell the business

00:37:29.360 for some, obviously, so I could focus on what I wanted to do. He wanted to buy a great revenue

00:37:34.000 opportunity for him. And it worked out because of the relationship that we had. He was willing to help

00:37:40.000 me. I was willing to help him. And when I was out, he was the first person I called. We would have

00:37:44.180 never been able to predict that, but that opportunity arose precisely because we're willing

00:37:50.520 to serve each other. And you're doing well. And I'm sure he is as well. Yeah, he's doing great.

00:37:56.080 Marcus Segura from, uh, autonomy. He's our battle team leader there. He said, I recently had a

00:38:03.600 leadership turnover in my community for context. He's an executive director of a senior living

00:38:09.080 retirement community. He said, what are the critical questions you ask yourself when

00:38:15.500 evaluating your leadership, your hiring process, and the ability to build a successful team?

00:38:23.820 I mean, there's so many metrics. If you just want to look at the best, I wouldn't say the best,

00:38:28.800 but the easiest metric to look at is just look at your performance. And then, you know,

00:38:35.620 that's a direct result of your leadership, who you hired, how you communicate, how you cast vision,

00:38:41.840 what systems and structures you implement. And if you're not producing the desired result,

00:38:46.600 then you're not leading well. And now it's just a matter of time or a matter of figuring out

00:38:51.220 where are you falling short? Do you have the wrong people in place? And then if that's the case,

00:38:57.200 then we go even further. Is it that I have the wrong people or is it that they have improper

00:39:02.680 training? Cause it's way easier to train somebody than it is to fire and then hire somebody else.

00:39:07.540 Cause you're gonna have to train that person too. So maybe you identify, okay, we're not hitting our

00:39:13.500 number, our sales numbers. So we need to bring it, or we need to improve our sales team. Okay. Now

00:39:21.280 look at everybody you have, let's say you've got five salespeople. Now look at their numbers.

00:39:26.080 That person's doing it. That person's doing it. That person's doing it. And that person's not.

00:39:29.820 Okay. What's going on with this person? Well, maybe they just started. Okay. Understandable.

00:39:37.160 They're getting their feet under them. Everybody else who's performing, what are they doing right?

00:39:41.300 Now you can go to your high performers and say, Hey, I'd like you to take, you know, Steve under

00:39:45.060 your wing and, uh, and, and train him over the next 30 days on these elements. And then you see if

00:39:51.800 he does better. Right. And if he does, then you know, you're in the right place. If not,

00:39:55.500 maybe it is time to let him go and bring somebody else on. But I think you reverse engineer the

00:40:00.400 process and you look at what you're ultimately producing. Another metric, uh, that could

00:40:05.740 potentially impact the bottom line is morale. You know, if everybody's coming into work and

00:40:12.600 they're all bent out of shape and they're miserable and they're wanting to get out of

00:40:15.640 there and they're calling shifts in and they're just, they're just not happy people.

00:40:19.080 You have to ask yourself, are these unhappy people? If all of them are unhappy, that's

00:40:24.120 probably not the case. If one of them is unhappy, then maybe it's just an isolated thing. And maybe

00:40:29.260 that's the wrong person. But if everybody's unhappy, then there's something going on with

00:40:33.720 morale. And at that point is time to figure out what do we need to do to boost morale and

00:40:38.360 how can we incentivize people in a way that's meaningful for them? Uh, how can I communicate

00:40:43.720 my vision? Maybe I'm not giving them the tools and they're frustrated and that's creating

00:40:47.540 some morale issues, but I think you reverse engineer the process is the point that I'm

00:40:51.600 making here. What, what would you add to that, Steve?

00:40:54.200 I'm going to break this down into the different levels. The first one is the leadership aspect,

00:40:58.980 right? So saying about the same thing that Ryan just said, you know, first and foremost

00:41:06.000 is have I communicated where I want to take this team? Right? Cause if you haven't communicated

00:41:12.480 that well, they're already lost. They're not going to meet your expectations if they don't

00:41:17.000 understand them. Right? Second thing is, is do they believe in where you want to take

00:41:22.460 them? You know, do they believe that they have enough resources? Do they believe in themselves

00:41:27.580 enough to be able to get there? Are they coming to ask me questions about it? Right? That's

00:41:32.620 a good indication that they're at least engaged in it. And then if all those things are happening,

00:41:38.860 then I know I'm on the right track. As far as the hiring practices, don't tell HR people

00:41:44.440 this, right? Because they want you to hire the people with the best education or what

00:41:48.380 have you. But I look for the right fit every time, you know, I bring them in, I let them

00:41:53.360 meet all the people and just really make sure that they're the right fit. We all have seen

00:41:58.720 those athletes, right? Who go, they're the best athlete in the world at what they do.

00:42:03.660 They go into a team and the whole team shatters because of this one person, because of their

00:42:08.940 ego and all that kind of fun stuff. Yeah, they got great metrics, but they're not right

00:42:14.220 fit for that team. And then building a successful team, that really just simply takes time, right?

00:42:21.940 No high school football team out there, you know, comes in with all freshmen and are able

00:42:27.920 to play the varsity games. It takes time. It takes people working together, working through

00:42:33.460 things, going back to the hazing thing, right? Having common experiences in between all of

00:42:40.520 them that they can bond over. So that's how I'd answer that one. From a business perspective,

00:42:45.860 you know, really, you just got to get in there and sell the mission, right? Sell what you're

00:42:51.720 trying to do, get everybody to believe in it, get them in a good team and rock and roll.

00:42:56.780 Yep. Agreed.

00:42:58.100 Well, that was easy.

00:42:58.760 You're right.

00:43:01.540 Tyler Smith from Battle Team Constitution. He said, I had one of the worst couple weeks at work

00:43:09.100 for a long time. My days were working past midnight to finish up a bunch of things at work. I know we

00:43:14.940 have a ton of people on the battle teams who are probably busier than I was, but I couldn't focus

00:43:20.540 on my battle plan at all. How do you keep up with your battle plan when you're working long hours to

00:43:26.540 catch up on a project to meet deadlines? And I know this will come around again, and I would like

00:43:34.220 your advice on how to handle this.

00:43:36.660 Well, first, I'd say don't compare yourself to other people in that way. Like, you don't know.

00:43:41.540 You said, oh, they're busier than I am. Well, by whose standards? Like, and what is the purpose of

00:43:47.340 doing that anyways? For excuses, right? Like, so don't do that. Don't, like, you don't know what's

00:43:52.340 going on in other people's lives. And, you know, here's one thing people say is like, oh, but this

00:43:57.240 person has it harder than me. You know, like maybe you're throwing yourself a bit of a pity party

00:44:00.660 about something. You're like, oh, that person has it harder than me, though. How do you know? Like,

00:44:04.680 you don't know what people are dealing with. Don't, don't say that you're allowed to have,

00:44:08.800 you're allowed to be upset. You're allowed to not feel productive. You're like, that's okay.

00:44:13.400 Acknowledge it. And then you can improve it, but you don't need to compare it to write off

00:44:17.140 whatever you're dealing with. Cause that's not healthy. I don't think. So that that's the first thing.

00:44:21.200 The second thing is you said, I know this will come up again. Good. Make a plan now. Anticipate

00:44:29.800 what's going to happen in the future so that your battle plan doesn't misfire when this inevitably

00:44:35.900 comes up again, make that plan now. And what does that look like now for in the future? And today,

00:44:41.600 what does it look like? Just readjusting your plan. I just talked about balance. It's an active

00:44:48.540 process. You're constantly balancing. So you're putting in these long hours. And so as an example,

00:44:54.540 maybe that keeps you from going to the gym like you normally do. Okay. Maybe you aren't going to be

00:45:00.760 able to go to the gym, but you probably have 45 minutes of lunch in there somewhere. And so maybe

00:45:07.220 you take 20 minutes to eat and then another 20 minutes is spent exercising out in the garage or the

00:45:12.880 parking lot of, of your office or wherever you're at. Those are pivots that you can make that keep you

00:45:17.540 on track with the battle plan. Maybe you're neglecting your family because you're putting in these types

00:45:22.080 of hours. And so the, the dates with your wife and then going to games and things like that aren't

00:45:27.920 happening, but what else could you do? Well, you can stay connected by sending a couple of texts that

00:45:34.120 you normally wouldn't send, or maybe doing a video message and saying, Hey hon, I'm thinking about you

00:45:38.640 today, man, I'm so busy. And I know this is just a season, but I just wanted you to know,

00:45:44.380 I'm still thinking about you. I hope you're having a great day. I love you. The end. Or to one of your

00:45:49.600 children. Hey bud, I know you've got a baseball game tonight. You know, I can't be there. We've

00:45:53.840 talked about why I can't be there, but I just wanted to tell you that I'm thinking about you,

00:45:58.500 that I love you, that I hope you do well. And I'm really, really anxious to hear about your game

00:46:02.660 tonight when I get home. So there's things that you can do to stay in contact with the people that

00:46:07.620 you care about in spite of having to work. The other important thing is that you're communicating

00:46:12.160 this effectively to the people who are impacted by what's going on in your life, because you might

00:46:16.620 assume that she understands. You might assume that little Timmy's okay with you missing his baseball

00:46:23.300 game. If you assume those things, you're probably wrong. So it's really, really important to

00:46:28.260 communicate those to those that are going to be impacted by this. And then the last thing on this

00:46:33.980 is making sure that you're honoring your word after the fact. So for example, if you tell little

00:46:38.840 Timmy, Hey bud, I can't make your game because I'm putting in 12 hour shifts and I got to work late

00:46:43.740 and here's why I work. But I'll tell you what, Saturday morning, I have the day off. We're going

00:46:48.520 to get up early and we're going to go to the baseball field. And you and I are going to play

00:46:52.340 some catch and take some ground balls or whatever your thing is, right? You actually have to do that

00:46:57.480 because a lot of guys will say, Oh, but I'm tight. Like I work so much. I'm tired. Can we do it

00:47:02.980 tomorrow? Nope. You can't. You've got to do it today because that's what you said you would do.

00:47:08.120 And they're watching and they're observing and they understand. I think, you know, kids,

00:47:13.180 kids are pretty resilient. They understand that you have to work. What they don't understand is you

00:47:17.520 lying to them. And that's a lie. I'll play with you on Saturday and then say, no, I'm not going to,

00:47:23.180 I'll do it tomorrow. You can sugarcoat it however you want. That's a lie. So don't lie because that

00:47:29.320 they're not going to understand. And it's going to be very hard for them to reconcile the two.

00:47:33.540 And then you're going to lose trust with them. Oh yeah. When dad says something, it's just not

00:47:37.680 going to happen. And I know that that's not a great place to be in order to build a healthy

00:47:41.740 relationship. I think you could have probably read my notes here, Ryan. We're so married up in our

00:47:48.760 thought pattern. The only thing that I'd like to add to that is that, you know, a lot of times

00:47:54.840 these are just seasons, like Ryan said, sometimes they're longer than that. Right. So number one,

00:48:01.180 make sure that it aligns with where you're wanting to go. You know, don't just work the long hours

00:48:05.280 because someone else is telling you there's other jobs out there. There's other things that'll help

00:48:10.260 you get to your vision. Right. But also understand whether it's going to be short-term or long-term,

00:48:15.840 if it's in the short-term, pivot, move, right? Maybe your tactics aren't built

00:48:22.340 for what you're experiencing right now, you know, and Ryan hit on that, you know, maybe it's using

00:48:31.060 your lunch break. Maybe it's buying a TRX system, putting it up on your office door, whatever you do,

00:48:36.220 right. Adjust your tactics for the season that you're living in, but don't do it all the time.

00:48:42.960 I understand whether this is a short period of time, long period of time, how often it's going

00:48:48.260 to happen. So you can plan for it. You know, the other thing that you hit on Steve, as you said,

00:48:53.000 you know, there's other jobs out there and there's things that you can do. And I know a lot of guys

00:48:56.340 can probably, even in the back of their mind, I can almost hear him saying, well, yeah, I mean,

00:48:59.740 easy for you to say, but like for me, I have to work this job because I got to put food on the table

00:49:04.060 or make the car payment. I get that. You do have to, that's your responsibility. You do have to do that.

00:49:08.800 So this is why it's so important that you build financial sovereignty right now.

00:49:16.620 This is why it's important that you pay off the car. This is why it's important that you have

00:49:20.640 money in savings. This is why it's important that you don't spend as much or more than you're

00:49:25.060 currently making. So you can stash some money aside. This is why you have a budget. You do all

00:49:29.980 of those things now. And you might be behind right now. You might be up to your eyeballs and debt,

00:49:34.460 credit card debt, medical bills, car payments, all sorts of weird things like that you shouldn't

00:49:38.580 have purchased and you've got them. So what do you do? Get yourself in order today. That way,

00:49:45.020 if an employer comes to you and says, Hey, I want you to sacrifice your morals maybe, or your values 0.91

00:49:52.540 or your priorities, you can say, screw off. I wouldn't necessarily say it that way, but you can,

00:50:00.840 you're in the position to say, Nope, I'm good. Thanks for the offer though, because there's no

00:50:08.000 threat to you. If he says, well, then you can't work here. It's like, okay, I'm good. I got 80

00:50:13.460 grand in the bank. I have no debt. I'll have to find another job. And also another way to build

00:50:18.360 sovereignty in the financial and job career realm is learn how to network, right? So if your employer

00:50:25.480 says you're out of here, then if you're not going to do it, say good. Joe down the street actually

00:50:29.080 just offered me a job. Bye. Because you learned how to build a network and a reputation for your

00:50:36.760 work that you're not hamstringed or beholden to any other person who might ask you to do something

00:50:42.880 that goes against anything that you want to do. And you're the only one who gets to decide what that

00:50:47.180 is. It's a rough position to be in when you compromise yourself because you're afraid of losing

00:50:54.400 something. You see it in relationships too. Men will compromise themselves because they're afraid

00:51:00.420 of losing a woman and they're operating from a place of scarcity that they'll be completely,

00:51:06.280 somebody completely different than they are. And that ends up ironically becoming repulsive to the 0.75

00:51:10.960 woman anyway. So they're going to lose her anyways. And then you see it in the job space, in the financial

00:51:14.880 space, you know, people, they've got thousands of dollars worth of debt. They're behind on all their

00:51:21.380 payments and their boss says, Hey, I need you to work late. And you're, you really wanted to go to

00:51:25.380 Timmy's game this weekend and now you can't, you have to work. That's a bad spot to be in. And I've

00:51:31.940 been there and a lot of men listening to this are there. You know how miserable that is. The way you

00:51:36.140 don't be miserable is by building that sovereignty now so that when those things come up, you don't have

00:51:41.980 to compromise yourself. On that switching job and sovereignty topic as well. There's one more point

00:51:49.260 too. There are so many times that I see, uh, applications come in for open positions in my

00:51:55.980 company and they're like, I supervised putting parts together on this when they should read.

00:52:06.040 I led a team of people, right? So they get themselves boxed in this little box. This is all

00:52:13.380 I can do, which makes their world really small when they're looking for another job, right? Rather

00:52:18.480 than applying those qualities that they have across the entire spectrum. Yeah. Good point. All

00:52:25.480 that transferable knowledge, you know, making that one specific part might not be transferable,

00:52:30.740 but getting people to make a part or to be motivated or to get there on time or increase

00:52:35.140 productivity, that stuff is transferable. A hundred percent. Yeah. All right. We have a

00:52:42.620 gentleman from battle team Vulcan. Woody Lord says, where do you draw the line between do it yourself

00:52:49.680 and hire out? He's got a new fence that he's looking to put up to keep the neighbor's dogs

00:52:54.920 from coming over to his house. He could save a few grand doing it himself. No, that's false. Keep

00:53:01.160 going. I'll explain that in a minute or hire it out and have it done quickly. So he just wants to know

00:53:08.780 our thoughts on that. Look, we can look at it purely from a numerical perspective. Let's say

00:53:14.460 it's going to cost $5,000 for parts and labor. I don't know. I'm just throwing out arbitrary

00:53:20.340 numbers. That could be way low, but let's just say that's what it is. $5,000. And you're saying to

00:53:25.060 yourself, well, I could save 2000. So you're going to spend 3000 in parts and you're saying you could

00:53:29.020 save $2,000 in labor. And let's say that job is going to take, I don't know, 10. I'm just doing

00:53:34.420 easy math here. 10 hours. No, let's say 20 hours. What that means, if my math is correct, is that

00:53:40.600 that's basically a hundred dollars an hour. Is my math correct on that? I'll believe you.

00:53:45.400 Let's just say that's what it is. I could be way off. It's early. It's early more. It's not early.

00:53:49.560 It's whatever. Let's just say it's a hundred dollars an hour. Okay. You're going to take 20 hours,

00:53:55.900 20 hours, and you're going to pay a guy a hundred dollars. So that's the $2,000 that,

00:54:00.700 you know, you're going to pay. What can you be doing with that 20 hours? If you can be making

00:54:07.700 $150 an hour, then it's worth it for you to have somebody else do it. That's just, that's just the

00:54:15.160 numbers guys. There's a cost associated with everything. So even if you're not in that realm

00:54:20.040 there of like the numbers work, you can't just say, I'm going to save $2,000 because that's half the

00:54:25.360 equation. The other half is that you're going to bust your ass, be frustrated, do a shitty job. 1.00

00:54:31.300 And then, you know, you're going to be upset about it. So yeah, congratulations. You saved, 1.00

00:54:36.940 you know, $2,000, but you, you broke your arm because you fell off the ladder. You had to spend

00:54:44.420 all that time. You and your wife got an argument and a fight over, you know, the style or whatever

00:54:49.260 that you weren't the inside spending time with her and the kids. Like there's other factors that need

00:54:54.640 to be taken into consideration that you can't necessarily quantify the way I did with the math.

00:54:59.640 But if we're just looking at it from a numerical perspective, yeah. The other thing is what kind

00:55:04.900 of quality do you want? There's a lot of things that I could probably do on my own, but it wouldn't

00:55:11.740 look good. And if I, if I, if we're talking about home construction, for example, I want something

00:55:17.500 that's going to last a long time. That's going to look good. If I put up a crooked fence or,

00:55:22.640 or here's something I I've actually done this. I didn't have the property surveyed. I put up a

00:55:28.620 fence and the neighbor's like, Hey, you're on my, you're on my property. And he was good about it.

00:55:33.560 We were, we were friendly about it. He's like, Hey, you put the fence on my property. Well, guess what?

00:55:37.760 That fence had to come down. And then we had the property surveyed. And sure enough,

00:55:42.120 I was like six, seven inches over on his side of his property. So did I save $2,000? No, I spent it

00:55:49.840 and some because I had to build it, take it down, put another one back up and the headache and

00:55:54.740 frustration of doing it. So look at the money side of it. Look at the quality side of it.

00:56:00.400 And then, you know, ask yourself the other side is maybe you just enjoy doing it or you want to

00:56:05.620 figure out how to do it. That's cool. I think that's a reason to do it. That's a better reason to me

00:56:11.840 than saving the $2,000, by the way. Like I want to do it. I enjoy it. It's, it's fun. It's enjoyable.

00:56:16.480 Me and my, my kids are going to do it together. Cool. Do that. What I'm saying is there's a lot

00:56:21.920 of factors to consider. Hopefully I gave you a few to think about. Yeah, I totally agree with all

00:56:28.720 those points too, Ryan. I want to bring up a couple examples in my personal life. Before I moved

00:56:35.840 from Nebraska to the Kansas City area, I wanted to add a little bit of value to my, to my home that

00:56:44.940 was down there. So I built a couple extra bedrooms and a bathroom down in the basement. So I'm

00:56:50.700 perfectly capable to do all this stuff. And I was sitting there thinking about whether I really

00:56:56.260 wanted to do it or not, you know, whether I wanted to hire it out. And my son-in-law said,

00:57:02.300 hey, if you do it, can I help? Because I'm working on my house, right? And I would like to

00:57:08.000 learn some of these things. That was a time to bond with him. I definitely did that. When we got

00:57:15.220 to the house down in Kansas City, there was a deck around the pool that had some boards that needed to

00:57:20.820 be replaced. I started looking at it. It's going to take a whole deck replacement, right? That point

00:57:26.020 in time, my priorities were build community for my family down around here, get started in a new

00:57:32.220 job, you know, make sure everybody has everything they need. It wasn't about building a deck. So

00:57:37.920 that was an easy decision. It was spend the 25 grand and have a new deck built. So everything that

00:57:44.920 Ryan just said is a hundred percent true. You got to weigh all those factors in, right? You got to

00:57:50.460 think about the connection points. You got to think about the quality points, everything that he just said.

00:57:56.000 Yep. That's an interesting one. It's, it's so hard. It's, it's hard to weigh all that stuff and take

00:58:03.180 it into consideration. Again, I tend to be more intuitive on things like that. And I tend to stay

00:58:08.680 in my lane pretty well. So if it's outside of my realm, I'm okay. I'm also at a different financial

00:58:16.140 position than I'm sure a lot of people listening to. And so if money is tight, but the fence needs

00:58:20.480 to be built, then do the, do the thing that needs to be done. Build the fence may not be perfect, but

00:58:26.000 Hey, it needed to be built. And, uh, it's going to improve the quality of the house or improve the

00:58:30.600 relationship with your wife because she wanted the fence. And, um, you know, maybe it's not a hundred

00:58:35.240 percent, but yeah, you save some money, got it done. And that's what needed to be done in the

00:58:39.380 circumstances you're in. Nothing wrong with that at all. Yeah. To this specific example, I think the

00:58:45.780 finances comes into play a lot, right? Do you have the money for someone else to do it? Yeah. Because

00:58:51.700 if you don't have one of your children out there learning this task or whatever, you could be out

00:58:56.700 playing football with that kid. Yeah. Yep. For sure. Let's take a one or two more.

00:59:03.600 All right. Shane Moody. He's an XO from Cerberus, which, uh, he says, what is your best advice when

00:59:13.660 considering a career fork in the road? The company I'm currently with is one of the best I've worked

00:59:19.420 for so far. I've been with them for seven years. I'm interested in making more money and haven't

00:59:25.120 talked to them and have talked to them about my goals. They've offered a couple options, but haven't

00:59:31.000 given a career or clear path to additional compensation. I'm feeling like they're yanking

00:59:37.120 me around. There's other jobs that would offer substantially more compensation. And I've never

00:59:44.520 made a move that hasn't turned out to be a good decision, but for some reason with a young family

00:59:49.300 now, the stakes seem higher and I find myself stuck in fear. That was a mouthful.

00:59:54.280 Yeah. Well, I don't, again, we're kind of almost dealing in false dichotomies again,

00:59:59.400 where it, you know, it, and I don't think that's the case. I, depending on the situation you have

01:00:04.180 with your current employment, it sounds like everything's really good. Like it's the best

01:00:07.400 place you've ever worked. Uh, they were willing to talk with you about your goals. They just haven't

01:00:12.040 come up with a compensation model. Um, I think if you were to go look somewhere else and you were to

01:00:18.420 explain that clearly to it, you have to be careful because if you start telling a company,

01:00:23.200 you're looking somewhere else, they might just can you. So you have to be careful on that.

01:00:26.360 But if you do find and have other opportunities that are going to present something better to you,

01:00:31.280 don't just look at it short term either. You might make more money now, but does that mean that that's

01:00:36.000 going to continue? And this is going to be a place that you want to be at for the next 20, 30,

01:00:39.840 40 years. Consider that. But if you find these other places and then you end up leaving under

01:00:45.240 amicable terms, your current employment, I've seen a lot of people, if things don't work out,

01:00:49.520 go back to previous employment and say, Hey, you know what? I wouldn't did this thing. And you know

01:00:53.060 why? And, but I was a hard worker for you and I'd love to come back. I've seen a lot of situations

01:00:57.980 like that happen. There is one question, and this is more of a 30,000 foot view that I really like

01:01:04.040 that I've asked myself frequently is fast forward 30 years, looking back over the past 30 years,

01:01:12.300 which decision will you be happy that you made? Cause right now you're thinking about your young

01:01:17.460 family, which is justifiable. Of course you should. And you're looking at, I'm really good

01:01:23.080 with this company. And, but some decisions that seem big in the moment over a 30 year timeframe

01:01:29.360 aren't as big and catastrophic as we make them out to be. And I really liked that question because it

01:01:35.800 allows me to see the situation from a perspective that maybe I hadn't considered before. It's a longer

01:01:41.660 term horizon. So fast forwarding 30 years, looking back on your life, which decision will you be happy

01:01:47.860 that you made? And it's easy to say, well, I don't know because I don't know which is going to be

01:01:51.500 better. Yeah, I know when nobody knows, we have to make the best possible guess with all of the

01:01:57.720 information that we have at hand. And if something changes down the road, you don't really have to

01:02:01.400 beat yourself up because you made a decision without that information. Had you had that information,

01:02:06.680 you would have made a different decision. So that doesn't mean it absolves you of the

01:02:10.880 responsibility of figuring things out. You still need to figure it out now that you're faced with

01:02:14.220 this dilemma, but you didn't have that information before. So you can rest easy knowing, Hey, you made

01:02:19.720 a good decision with what you had at hand. I would also talk with your wife because she might, she

01:02:26.340 might say, no, I want you to chase like your dream. Maybe she works. I don't know if she works 1.00

01:02:31.720 that might hedge against some of the financial pressure as well, but she might say, no, I think you

01:02:37.260 should go, man, that's awesome. Or she might say, Hey, you know what? Like we're, you know, we just

01:02:44.200 bought the house or we have the car, man. I really think it would make sense if you just buckle down

01:02:49.140 for six months because this is secure. This is safe. And then in six months, maybe between now and

01:02:54.580 then you can look at what other opportunities are there. And then we can consider making a change in

01:02:58.520 the summer or the fall or whatever, but there's things that you can look at, but I would definitely

01:03:02.780 include her in that decision-making process because she's going to be affected by it.

01:03:06.800 She should be included in it. Oh, a hundred percent. I want to challenge this question a little bit

01:03:12.420 though, right? Um, all that I heard while reading down through it is I want more money. I want more

01:03:17.920 compensation. I want, I want, I want, right. And there could be more to the, the story than this.

01:03:24.400 I do, uh, like how Shane went and talked to his employer, but I would have framed that,

01:03:30.740 framed that conversation a lot differently than what he did. So for me, my next step up on the

01:03:38.940 rung, which I don't want is a vice president role. If I was going to approach this, how I would have

01:03:44.580 said it is something more like, Hey boss, I've been thinking quite a bit about it lately, you know,

01:03:49.280 growing into the next level position, right? I'm interested in being a VP for this, this, and this,

01:03:56.440 right. How can I grow more to achieve that role? Right. And then bring him in as a partner

01:04:05.880 to help my growth. What I saw in Shane's question was more of, Hey, I want more money.

01:04:14.280 How are you going to help me get it? Hmm. Does that make sense?

01:04:18.820 Yeah. Makes a lot of sense.

01:04:20.440 So I think framing up that conversation is highly important.

01:04:24.140 Yeah. I think anytime you're going to ask somebody for money, like you have to consider

01:04:28.600 that you're looking at it in from your perspective, which is what can I get out of the deal?

01:04:33.180 That's understandable. Nothing wrong with it, but you're in a, you're in a negotiation at that point.

01:04:39.060 And so you have to consider that this other party, in this case, your boss is trying to get you.

01:04:45.160 And this is no, no, uh, incrimination on him by any means. So please don't take this the wrong way,

01:04:50.840 but he's trying to get you to do as much as you possibly can for as little as he can pay.

01:04:57.860 That's not immoral by the way. It's just a negotiation. People say, Oh, he's taking advantage.

01:05:02.160 No, he's not. You're a grown adult. He's a grown adult. You guys can come to a conclusion or just

01:05:06.980 not work together. There's no, there's no manipulation there. It's not a bad thing. It's just

01:05:11.220 the reality of it. So if you want to improve your odds of getting more money, then you need to look

01:05:19.200 at it from his perspective. How can you bring in a hundred dollars for every additional dollar he's

01:05:24.480 going to pay you? If you can do that to your point, you're helping him win. He'll I'd make

01:05:31.360 that trade all day long. If you came to me and said, Hey, Ryan, for every thousand dollars you give

01:05:34.420 me, I'll give you 10,000. I'd give you all of my thousands all day long. I would do that. Right.

01:05:41.040 And that's the kind of negotiation we're talking about here. How can you show him that him paying

01:05:46.220 you more money is actually going to yield a favor higher and favorable return for him.

01:05:51.380 Got time for one more. Yep. Let's do it. All right. Last one is from Kevin Nickel from Romulus.

01:05:58.860 He says, relation relationships are emotional roller coasters. How do we get to a place where

01:06:05.800 covert contracts and establishing hitting expectations, hidden expectations of our

01:06:11.540 significant other no longer exist? There's a lot, I think there, and I'm not a relationship expert by

01:06:18.020 any means, but when I get things right, I think the best thing that we can do as men is allow the women

01:06:26.880 in our lives to express what they need to express without disincentivizing them for doing it.

01:06:36.580 So for example, if you want honesty from your wife about how she's feeling about your performance as a

01:06:43.340 husband or a father, let's say, and you want her to be honest, no covert contracts. That's what you're

01:06:47.340 asking for right now. So you want her to be honest and she comes at you and she says, well, you don't love

01:06:54.000 me the way I want to be loved and you don't spend enough time with the kids and you blow up and you

01:07:00.940 say, well, I only because I'm working and I'm doing it for you guys. Like what the hell? Why don't you

01:07:05.640 appreciate me? Which is what guys will say. And I've said it. What do you think you're telling her about

01:07:12.740 how she communicates with you? You're saying, don't communicate with me. Don't be honest with me.

01:07:18.980 Continue the covert contracts. I'd rather have that and be comfortable than you being honest with me

01:07:25.600 and being uncomfortable. So when she comes and she says to you, well, you know, you don't pay

01:07:31.420 enough attention to me and you're not spending time with the kids and you seem so vested in work

01:07:34.920 and we feel left out. Then I think the proper response is, I really appreciate you expressing that.

01:07:43.620 If that were to improve, what would that look like for you? And she's going to say, I don't know,

01:07:49.980 maybe she says, well, I'd like to go on a date every week or, you know, have you ever considered

01:07:55.020 coaching, you know, little Timmy's baseball or his baseball team or a soccer team? Like maybe you

01:08:01.640 could carve out time for that. Guys, we can do, we want to do that, right? Don't you want it? Like I,

01:08:06.160 I want to do that. I want to be involved with my kids stuff. I want to take my significant other on a

01:08:11.980 date. Like I want to do those things. Like we want those things. So we can't, we can't

01:08:19.000 disincentivize them. And we do because we get emotional and we get reactive and then it blows

01:08:23.880 up. And then you're telling her the exact opposite of what you're saying. Your actions are saying

01:08:28.860 something different than what your words are saying. Does that make sense? It makes a lot of

01:08:33.220 sense. And I took quite a bit away from that for myself. I think you are a relationship expert.

01:08:37.760 I'm not saying I look, I know that's true and I don't do it all the time. I, I, I've gotten a lot

01:08:45.120 better. I'll say that, but just let her express, let her express what she needs to express. And I

01:08:50.680 think saying thank you. And I'm grateful actually, you know, if, if she says something to me, that's

01:08:55.560 uncomfortable, that's awkward or that I don't like. And, and like, I really am grateful for that.

01:09:00.600 I would rather know and be a little uncomfortable for a little bit and then give ourselves the

01:09:05.860 opportunity to work on it. Then, you know, pretending everything's a Disney fairy tale.

01:09:11.900 And then under underneath, it's like a road, the foundation is just eroding and crumbling

01:09:17.460 around us. And then that you realize, you know, five years down the road, you could have done all

01:09:21.940 this work, but you didn't because everything looked good because you were never willing to

01:09:27.460 address the foundation of the relationship. And that that's happened, you know, in my life. So

01:09:31.900 I'd rather be uncomfortable now and say, yeah, you know, do your, it's kind of like the analogy of

01:09:37.320 your deck. You know, you got to go under and look at the footings, look at the foundation,

01:09:41.300 look at the rot. Like you don't want to look at it. Cause it's going to cost you $25,000,

01:09:45.840 but I'll tell you what, you don't want to be standing on there with your kids doing a barbecue

01:09:49.420 this summer. And the whole thing crashes and collapses on you. And you end up killing yourself

01:09:53.740 or one of your kids. Like what's, what's worse address the foundation. Now, even though it's

01:10:01.240 uncomfortable and let her share what she needs to share and then do what she asks, if you can do

01:10:07.620 it. Now, there might be circumstances where she wants something that either you can't or won't

01:10:11.880 do. And then you need to communicate like, no, I'm not doing that. That's a boundary of mine.

01:10:16.440 And then we should be able to communicate those things.

01:10:19.220 You know, every one of our battle teams in the iron council, the, when they really hit the pinnacle

01:10:24.960 of success, in my opinion, is when they start getting really uncomfortable with each other. Right.

01:10:29.920 Yeah. And we, we can do that with men, but we somehow block our families out from that, 0.99

01:10:37.040 you know? And, uh, I think there's another way that we do that as well. And that's when we

01:10:42.640 try and interpret their feelings by what they say. Right. So I, I used to do this all the time.

01:10:50.620 My wife would, uh, you know, she would say something out of frustration or whatever,

01:10:57.260 or, or just say it wrong. Right. Not how she really meant it. Or I just took it wrong.

01:11:03.560 And it's like, yeah, F that, you know, woman, she just, you know, she's trying to do this or that, 0.99

01:11:09.860 or, you know, she thinks or feels this, uh, this or that, but we, we bring a lot of ego into our

01:11:16.800 relationships as well. Right. And that ego shows up in those moments by, you know, that anticipation

01:11:25.600 of how she's feeling or thinking because of the words that she said. So I would say that, you know,

01:11:31.540 going back to that conversation piece too, is when you get yourself in moments like that,

01:11:36.040 and you start having these thoughts, you know, of what your wife's feeling or thinking that you just

01:11:43.880 stop, drop that ego and ask her, right. Maybe ask her the next day so that it's not your feelings

01:11:50.200 coming out, but just ask her communicate. Is this what you really meant? Because that's what I thought

01:11:57.440 I heard. Right. And having those kinds of conversations really opens that up. My wife

01:12:03.320 and I, we, um, we start the day out with expectations. So we get together, we read the

01:12:10.160 gospel together, we do a little meditation together, and then we talk about our day. I don't have those

01:12:16.000 thoughts a lot of the time now, because we do that about why didn't the bathroom get cleaned or the

01:12:22.660 laundry get done because she's already told me she's taking the kids to the zoo. Right. That's 0.94

01:12:29.540 good. Or they're doing a field trip and homeschool. Yeah. I like that. I think that's good. I also,

01:12:36.060 I wrote this down as you're saying this, cause I, I just got thinking about this. It's usually not

01:12:41.900 personal, even if it feels personal and this goes to your ego thing. If she says something that's like,

01:12:47.640 well, you know, you're not showing up the way we want you to show up. I'm just kind of thinking

01:12:53.520 through this. So I might stumble over my words a little bit. You know, we would take that personally

01:12:56.920 like, oh, she doesn't love me. She doesn't like me. She doesn't care about me. She doesn't respect

01:12:59.840 me. She doesn't appreciate me. These are all the things that we say. What if she's just saying,

01:13:04.580 and I just started thinking about this, as you said it, she's just saying, I want to be with a man

01:13:08.360 who shows up for me. Like, it's not even personal. It sounded personal. It has nothing to do with

01:13:14.720 you. It has to do with her. She wants something. She needs something. Like I want a man who shows

01:13:19.000 up and is fully present. And then the only question is, can you be that man? Do you want

01:13:24.180 to be that man? I think most of us, yes, we want to be that man. Now, what do we need to do to give

01:13:30.220 her what she needs in the relationship? It's an interesting, just the way you frame that made me

01:13:36.260 think about reframing what's being said versus what is actually happening. Hey guys, sorry for the

01:13:44.100 abrupt end on that podcast. I lost internet service here. They're doing some construction

01:13:48.500 outside and I think a wire got hit. Anyways, we were about to wrap things up. Anyways,

01:13:53.700 thank you for the questions today. I hope that Steve and I gave you some answers to consider

01:13:57.360 and that you'll apply them in your life. That is the goal of this podcast to not only give you the

01:14:02.520 information and tools that you need, but to help you actually implement these things for the

01:14:06.660 betterment of yourself, your family, your business, your community, everybody that you have a desire

01:14:12.120 to serve. Guys, we talked a little bit about the Iron Council. If you want to check out that again,

01:14:16.960 we're going to be opening up mid-March and you can check that out at orderofman.com

01:14:21.720 slash Iron Council. All right, guys, we'll be back next week or excuse me, we'll be back on Friday

01:14:26.640 for this week's Friday Field Notes. Until then, go out there, take action and become a man you are meant

01:14:32.080 to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

01:14:38.320 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the Order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - February 21, 2024

Hazing for Men, Why Systems are Crucial, and Building Financial Sovereignty ｜ ASK ME ANYTHING

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