How a Man Finds More Joy ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES
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Summary
If men found more joy in their lives, the world would be a better place. We pride ourselves on being workers, being producers, serving other people, being capable, learning new skills, providing the financial provision, taking care of others, and all of those things are wonderful. But if we can t find joy and happiness in our lives, what is the point?
Transcript
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if men found more joy in their lives, the world would be a better place. Now, we pride ourselves
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on being workers, being producers, serving other people, being capable, learning new skills,
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providing the financial provision, taking care of others, and all of those things are wonderful.
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But if we can't find joy and happiness in our lives, what is the point?
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So, years ago, I was talking with a good friend of mine, and we were discussing how each one of us
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were doing, how we were feeling, how life was going, and he said that he had a very interesting
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conversation with his wife. His wife had noticed some changes in his demeanor, some lack of motivation
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and enthusiasm for life, and she asked a very poignant and simple question. And the question
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was, are you happy? And as my friend evaluated the question and considered the answer, he realized
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that the answer was no, that he was not happy. And it wasn't that he was unhappy with her. It wasn't
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that he wasn't doing well in his business, which was very lucrative at the time. It wasn't that he
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was upset with his kids or dealing with something specific or some issue that he could point to.
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He was just feeling unhappy, generally. And I'm sure as a man, you have experienced that in your life.
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Maybe you're exhausted, maybe you're frustrated, maybe you're burnt out, maybe you're lacking
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enthusiasm or excitement or risk taking. Maybe you're dissatisfied with your career. Just the
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other day, I saw a study that said that over 70% of the workforce, people in the workforce are unhappy
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and dissatisfied with their work, which is astounding because of the sheer amount of time, the volume of
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time that we spend in our offices or in our work environments. And to know that we're unhappy and
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we're miserable and we wish we would be doing something else is very telling and indicative of
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the unhappiness that we see in society. And you can see it in a lot of different ways.
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You can see it in sedation methods, alcohol, drug abuse, gambling, pornography, womanizing,
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even just addiction to watching TV or playing video games. This is a sign that men are unhappy.
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You can see it as it relates to the conversations and the engagement that we have with our significant
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others and with our children. You can see it with our performance at work. You can see it with
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the way our bodies look and our performance in our careers. And so everywhere you look,
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people are unhappy. You can see it in social media. People are unhappy on social media.
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It has permeated every fabric of society. And I think that if men found more joy in their lives,
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the world would be a better place. Now we pride ourselves on being workers, being producers,
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serving other people, being capable, learning new skills, providing the financial provision,
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taking care of others. And all of those things are wonderful. All of those things are much needed.
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And all of those things are factors or measurements of our worth as men.
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But if we can't find joy and happiness in our lives, what is the point? What is the point of this
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existence to just merely exist, to burn yourself up and burn yourself out on being a slave to whatever
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career you might have, having a mediocre relationship with your wife, having a sad, somewhat pathetic
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relationship with your children, not realizing your full potential as it comes, as it relates to your
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physical health, just being a slave to your working hours all day, every day for the rest of your life.
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That does not sound enjoyable to me. I remember years ago in my financial planning practice,
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I knew I was doing good work. Being a financial advisor can be rewarding. I had attached it to
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the importance of serving other people and helping them. And I was talking with a good friend of mine
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who actually ended up eventually buying my financial planning practice. And we had a really interesting
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conversation about this. And I told him years before I'd ever sold my planning practice to him,
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I said, you know, I won't be in this work forever. And he said, what do you mean? And I said,
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well, this isn't really my calling. This isn't really what I'm meant to do. And through a series
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of decisions and conversations and experiences that I had. And over the course of years, I ended up
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selling my financial planning practice to him to pursue something significantly more meaningful
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to me, not more valuable, but more meaningful. And the byproduct of that was what you're listening
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to now, order of man. And my friend and I don't stay in touch as often as I would like, but I know
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how enthusiastic and how excited he is about the work that he's doing. He feels the same way I feel
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about the work that I'm doing. And yet when he talks with me about what he's doing, my eyes glaze over a
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little bit and I just lose complete interest. Not that it's not important work, not that I don't value
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what he does, but it isn't for me. And I want you as a man to find more joy, more fulfillment,
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more happiness in your life so that you can live your life. We talk about every week, we talk about
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serving others, helping others, providing for others, doing your job, being quiet, making sacrifices.
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Again, I will talk about that 99% of the time, but this podcast, this one's for you.
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So let's talk about, let's see, I messed up in counting here. Speaking of financial advising,
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let's talk about six things, six things that you can do to find more joy and happiness in your life.
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And I've often in times in my life thought that that was kind of a swear word. Like, we're not
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supposed, I'm not, I've said it, I've said it to you guys. My purpose is not happiness and it isn't my
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purpose. I still stand by that, but it's not to be a robot either. It's not to be miserable.
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It's not to hate life. It's not to lose myself in service to others.
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Happiness is a part of what I want in life. And I imagine it's a part of what you want in your life
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as well. So I've changed my mind and my perspective on that. Let's jump into it. Number one,
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only spend time with those people who serve you, who love you, who edify you, who uplift you and who
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fulfill you. And I'm going to give you a challenge on each one of these things. And so hopefully over
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the course of the next 24 hours, 24 days, 24 months, you can begin to incorporate these principles a lot
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more in your life, but only spend time with the people who fulfill you. That's it. So what I want
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you to do as a challenge is I want you to write down all of the people that you spend your time with
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on a daily basis. That could be your coworkers. It could be your boss. It could be your children.
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It could be your, your spouse. It could be your friends. It could be your neighbors. It could be
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your colleagues. Who are the people that you're spending the most time with? And I would say this,
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and I know this is not going to go over well. Maybe you do this in your head, but I would write
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this out on a scale from one to five with five being the best. How well do these people uplift you?
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How do you feel when you're around these people? When you're around your kids, for example, I hope it's
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a five. If it's not, we can talk about that separately, but do those, do those kids of yours make you feel
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excited and uplifted? Does your wife make you feel excited and uplifted? Which of your, I hope,
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I hope both of them do. And if not, then we have other work outside of the scope of this podcast.
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Do your friends uplift you and edify you? Who in your life is a one or a two? Who in your life
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needs to go? And I think you need to be ruthless about who needs to go. Is it those people who
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spread rumors and add drama and are leeches in the relationship? Probably. Those are the people
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who need to go. And you need to look at the ones and twos and you need to spend less and less time
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with them. And that gives way for people who are fours and fives, who do serve you, who do uplift you,
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who do edify you, who do love you and care about you and want you to win and can laugh with you and have
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fun and you want to experience life with. I'm going on a hunting trip with my oldest son here
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in a couple of days as of this recording. And my oldest son is a five. I love spending time with
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him. We have fun. We understand each other. We get to laugh and joke. We make fun of each other.
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I'm proud of him. I see the way he interacts with other people and it's exciting to me. And then we go
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on hunts. And in this case, we'll be in Minnesota hunting whitetail and the people who are going,
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I believe there's 11 of us. Every one of those is a person who edifies my life. Every single one.
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And we've had other people who aren't necessarily the types of individuals that want that edify my
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life in that way. And I've been on hunts with people that just, it doesn't work for whatever
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reason. And I don't spend more time with those people. And I know that that sounds harsh, but I
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get one shot at this life. And if I'm spending time with people who do not edify and uplift and
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motivate and inspire me, then I'm wasting my life. I really am. And they're sucking the energy from my
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life. And they're inhibiting me from growing and doing wonderful things and even serving the way that
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I want to serve as a man. So I'm going to, again, I'm going to share six things with you. That's
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number one, only spend time with those people who fulfill you. The first three are things that you
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need to get rid of. The next three are things you need to add into your life. Number two,
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eliminate toxic activities and find margin. Now we all know what toxic activities are, right? If you're
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scrolling and doom scrolling on social media, that's a toxic activity. If you're engaged in pornography,
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that's a toxic activity. If you're overly tired or engaged in substance abuse, that's a toxic activity.
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We all know that. So I'm going to put a pin in that, right? You understand that. But other activities
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are things that you just don't enjoy doing. It could be things at work that should be delegated to
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something else. It could be the entire breadth of the work that you do now. And I'm not saying you
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should march into your boss's office tomorrow and quit or fire all of your clients in the next 24
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hours and go live abroad somewhere. That's not what I'm saying. But as you inventory your life and you
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start to think about the way that you're spending, so we've already spent time thinking about who we
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spend it with. Now we're thinking about the way that we spend our time and do the same thing on a
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scale from one to five. How much do I enjoy this activity? Podcasting is a great example of that.
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How much do I enjoy podcasting? It's a five to me. It is. I like being behind this microphone. I like
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being in front of this camera. I like having conversations with interesting people. Now, not all of
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those conversations are fives, but I'm curious and excited and engaged and interested in seeing what
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makes those people tick. But that activity is a five to me. Accounting is a one. If it could be a zero or a
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negative one, it would be. But for the sake of this exercise, it's a one. So I don't do accounting. I don't
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do my own taxes. I don't engage in that. I have software that helps me do it. I've hired a CPA to help
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remind me when I need to. He just sent me an email and said I need to send in my quarterly sales tax for the
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year. I have people who help me do that because if I have to do that, I'm going to drive my head through the
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wall. I don't want to be like that because not only do I feel miserable, but I make the people around me,
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those who fulfill me, miserable as well. Now, look, certain things need to get done, but you don't have to be the
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one to do them all. In fact, you shouldn't do it all. I often tell the leaders that I work with inside of our
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organization that as the leader, it's not your job to do everything. It's your job to ensure everything gets done.
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And that requires delegation. That requires thoughtful planning. That requires identifying
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who the people are that are good at certain things that others are not. That requires
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vision casting and inspiration and letting go of control so that somebody else can step up in those
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positions. But document everything that you do for a week even and give it a one to five scale with five
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being the thing that makes you the happiest and everything else has got to go. And I already know people
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are gonna be like, well, Ryan, you know, we just can't run. I'm not telling you that. I'm not telling you to run
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away from your problems or run away from your responsibilities, but there's a way that you can do it that makes you
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happy and enjoyable and having fun. All right. Number three, have fewer things. Have fewer things. It's been said
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that the things that you own, own you. And so I want you to pick out over the next four weeks, four
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places, physical places in your proximity, in your environment that need to be scrubbed, that need to
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be cleaned. Maybe that's your closet and you need to go through there and you need to get rid of a third
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of your clothes that you haven't worn for the past five to 10 years. Get rid of it. Maybe it's your car
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and you get in there and there's wrappers from McDonald's from two years ago and there's French
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fries stuck in the little gap between your seat and the center console. And there's old registrations.
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I did this last week. There's registrations for your vehicle that are four years old and there's old
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receipts for getting the tires changed or having some mechanical issue repaired and just clean it,
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clean it, organize, throw away, get rid of, you don't need everything. You know, you go into your
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kitchen. My daughter did this the other day. I didn't even ask her. She did this the other day.
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I walked into the kitchen and she had food just everywhere on the counters. I'm like, what are you
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doing? And she said, oh, I'm just throwing away everything that's expired. Now, as a single father,
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it was more than I would like to admit. And so she threw away about 90% of what was in my
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refrigerator. And I opened the refrigerator and it was like a breath of fresh air. It was so clean,
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literally and figuratively, because it didn't smell as bad as it did before, but it was clean
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and it was orderly and it was organized. And then later that evening, I made a great meal for the kids
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and we enjoyed our time together. But she understood the concept. She knew the assignment.
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Go through and emails. I mean, how many emails do you have in your email inbox every day?
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I go through and my goal is to keep my inbox below 10 on my personal email and my professional email
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below 10. And if I get emails from people and I do every day that I'm not interested in, I delete
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those emails. Why do I need to keep those? I don't. I delete. My job is to be a minimalist. And
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in a couple of months, we're having Joshua Becker on the podcast. He's been on before talking about
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minimalism and he's got a new book coming out. And so we invited him back to talk about this,
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but guys, you have to have less things. You have to have fewer things. Go through your garage,
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go through your car, go through your closet, go through your refrigerator and get rid of stuff.
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Because what you own, owns you. All right, now let's move into part two. This is the things that
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you should implement in your life. I talked about part one because we can't move into part two until
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we create the margin from part one. So part two, say yes to a few more things in your life that
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aren't always practical, but are interesting. Yes to things that aren't always practical, but
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interesting. Again, I told you I'm going on a hunt here in the next couple of days.
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Is it practical? Probably not. You know, a lot of hunters would say, oh, it's good because you have
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organic meat and you save money and you do this humanely. And while I can appreciate and even agree
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to a degree with those stances, it's far less money, it's far less time, and it's far less cost for me
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just to go to the grocery store and get burger for burgers this weekend. So is it real practical for
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me to go on a hunt? No, it's not. But it makes things interesting. It excites me. It's fun. It's
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enjoyable. I meet new people. I have new experiences. I've seen some of the craziest things.
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Crazy things. A couple of years ago, I almost got pushed out of a tree stand because a turkey was
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roosting in the tree that I was roosting in and I didn't realize it. And when the sun came up,
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it woke up, saw me, scared the daylights out of both of us. It nearly knocked me out of the tree stand.
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That, to me, is fun. Those moments are exciting. Or sticking a deer with an arrow and not knowing
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whether or not you made a good shot and having to sit there for 30 minutes and just wait, hoping that
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you made a good shot and eventually crawling down and finding the blood trail and hopefully, ideally,
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walking up to a deer that has expired in a relatively short period of time. That, to me,
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is exciting. I almost got ran over by a 290-pound white tail in Minnesota that I had already shot and
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it nearly ran me over. And that was exciting and that was fun and it was hilarious. And that's a
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story that I have to tell for generations. And the friends who were there who saw it can tell that story
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and laugh with me. Do you have stories like that? It may not be hunting. Maybe it's hiking or maybe
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it's on the pursuit of some other noble goal or objective. But what are you saying yes to that
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everybody else would say, that's stupid, that's dumb, that's impractical, you shouldn't do that.
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What if this? What if that? Those are the losers who are ones and twos from the first exercise I gave you
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that are taking away, extracting from your life? Because the fours and the fives say,
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when are we doing it? As the meme goes, whose car are we taking? Those are the kind of people you
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want in your life and those are the kind of experiences you want to have. You need to have edges.
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Being interesting is interesting. Number five, attaching your work, excuse me, your work to a mission,
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to something important. I did an exercise with our brothers inside the Iron Council this morning
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and I said, how many of you guys are engaged in professional work that is attached to some life
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experience that you had when you were younger or some travesty or miscarriage of justice that you see
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in the world? And several people raised their hand, but I was surprised that it wasn't more.
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But that's why that statistic I gave you earlier, over 70% of people are unhappy with their work
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because they're doing work that doesn't matter to them. It just doesn't matter. And it doesn't matter
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if you're a janitor, if you're a bus driver, if you're a CPA or a CFO or in financial planning,
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like I was, or podcasting or a school teacher or a trash collector, it doesn't matter what it is.
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If you don't find value in that, just intrinsic worth, then you got to do something else.
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One of the guys on the call from the Iron Council this morning said that he was,
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if I remember correctly, talking with a friend or an acquaintance who works at Home Depot.
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Now, I don't want to throw anybody who works at Home Depot under the bus when I say this,
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and I'm not even alluding to that at all. But I think most people would say that's not real
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passionate work. But as this man told the story about his friend who works at Home Depot,
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his friend is just in love with the job, enthusiastic, excited, passionate about it.
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And he asked him why it was the case. And he said, you know, it's really cool
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to be able to be here and be a resource for people building beautiful homes and making places
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for them to live and improving the quality of their life through their home. And I get to be a part of
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that. That's what I'm talking about when I say attach your work to a mission. He's not going in to punch
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in at a nine to five job. Clearly he is technically, that's what he's doing. But what he's really doing
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is creating dreams. What he's really doing is helping people live better lives. And I don't
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care what position of work you're in right now, even if it's you're not not your ultimate objective
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and not your most favorite. I'm telling you with 100% certainty that if you find meaning in the work
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that you do, you will live a better life. You spend eight, nine, some 10, maybe even long 12 hours
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of your day at your work and you're miserable. So how do you think the rest of your life is going to be
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miserable? Find a mission, find a purpose, find a reason. Even in those last years and months of doing
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the financial planning, it wasn't that I was miserable. I knew I was doing good work. I knew
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there were people who were retiring because of the advice that I had given them for seven, eight, nine,
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10 years. I knew it was important to teach them how to get out of debt. I knew it was important to
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teach them how to properly budget and deal with their cashflow. I wasn't miserable. I was happy with
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it. And because I was happy, I poured more into it. And because I poured more into it, I created more
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opportunities, both there and externally, which is part of the reason that we're here. Small little
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story there. I knew I wasn't going to be doing it forever, but I knew in the moment that I was doing
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it. So I needed to make the most of it. So I thought, you know, what would be the best way to help
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prospects, people that I could help, but weren't my clients yet. And I thought, you know what? I think
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I'm going to do an audio presentation of my first conversation with potential clients. And I went
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to Staples and I got blank CDs and I went to, uh, the local, I don't even remember what it was called.
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The plate, you get your professional pictures done. And, um, I felt like, you know, Kip and uncle Rico and
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Napoleon dynamite where, you know, is there some sort of vest that I can wear? That's what I felt like.
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So you guys get the picture. And I wore my suit and the guy or gal there took pictures of me. And I
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had a design by a designer and I printed the CD covers. This I'm dating myself here. I printed the
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CD covers and I slapped those CD covers on a bunch of blank CDs. I bought a $99 microphone and I recorded
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my very first conversation with prospective clients. And I just started handing them out like candy,
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just hand them to whoever, give them to whoever, give them to my clients. Hopefully they'll pass it on.
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I'll get referrals. And it was fun. It was enjoyable. And I picked up a lot of new clients
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and eventually that actually merged into me starting a podcast for my financial planning practice called
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wealth anatomy. And, uh, I don't think that the website doesn't exist anymore, but you might find
00:25:02.800
some audio floating around there somewhere, but it's hilarious wealth anatomy. And I did about 20
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episodes and realized I love this podcasting thing. This was in 2014, early 2015. I love this podcasting
00:25:17.080
thing. I just don't want to have this conversation anymore. And so I pivoted and I started order of
00:25:23.100
man. And I remember talking with a, uh, a friend of mine, his name is ever, uh, in Southern Utah.
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And we were talking about this order of man idea. And I said, you know, I'm going to do this for two
00:25:32.000
years before I even consider throwing in the towel and just see what it does.
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And, uh, we had conversations about marketing and what, what it would be like and what it would,
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what we would do. And here, here we are 10 years later, over 10 years now.
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And it's a result of me not moping, not crying, not complaining about doing something that I didn't
00:25:53.440
ultimately enjoy. It was a result of doing the most that I could possibly do in the situation I was
00:25:59.720
currently in. I made the most of my job and my job actually became more enjoyable. And because it was
00:26:07.340
more enjoyable, it caused me to pour more deeply into it because I poured more deeply into it.
00:26:12.100
I found other work. I built other work that is infinitely more engaging to me, infinitely more
00:26:19.780
fulfilling and rewarding for me. But I wouldn't have done that if I would have just moped around and
00:26:24.720
cried and complained about how horrible my job was. So you have a decision to make. Are you going to be
00:26:32.360
the best at whatever you're currently doing? And I promise you right now, right here, I guarantee and
00:26:37.840
promise you that if you do that, you will create all sorts of opportunities that you did not know
00:26:42.940
existed and you will find joy and you will find happiness because you decide to create it. All right,
00:26:48.800
last one here, guys. We can create environments where we become very selfish and self-serving and we
00:27:00.060
become overly competitive. We begin to operate in a scarcity mentality and we begin to act as if I don't get
00:27:12.620
mine, then I'll never accomplish anything, do anything, be anything, et cetera. And so we become
00:27:21.380
selfish. And the more selfish that we get, and I'm convinced this is true, that the more selfish that
00:27:28.080
we become, the more miserable we are. Because if you're so selfish that all you do is think about
00:27:34.920
yourself, then all you're really thinking about is what you don't have and who you currently aren't
00:27:41.980
and how far or lack thereof you've gotten to the point you are in your life. And when you're selfish,
00:27:52.280
you always operate from a scarcity mentality. I don't have this. I'm not being this. People aren't
00:27:58.380
respecting me. People aren't giving me the respect I deserve. I'm not making as much money as I'd like.
00:28:02.800
I don't have as many clients as I need. I'm not as popular as that guy. I'm not doing as much as this
00:28:08.120
guy. That guy has a better car. That guy has a more attractive wife. We always think about what we
00:28:13.560
don't have when we become selfish. And the antithesis to that and the anecdote is to be selfless.
00:28:23.600
It's to serve other people. Stop thinking about what you don't have. Stop thinking about yourself
00:28:28.940
and start thinking about other people. Not in a competitive way. Not in a way to compare yourself
00:28:35.680
negatively or toxically to what they have, but to say, how can I help that person? If you have a
00:28:41.200
client, instead of thinking, oh man, how can I extract more revenue from this client? Instead, think,
00:28:46.260
how can I help this person solve more problems? Instead of saying to yourself, how can I get my wife to do
00:28:54.960
more of fill in the blank? Cook me dinner, have sex with me, validate me, appreciate me more, respect me
00:29:03.000
more. Instead of that, be selfless. How can I serve her more? How can I make her life better? How can I
00:29:10.780
love her? How can I show that I appreciate her? And as a byproduct, you will get what you want.
00:29:17.600
The famous salesman Zig Ziglar once said, if you help enough people get what they want,
00:29:22.380
you will inevitably get what you want. It is a eternal principle. You might even weave the law
00:29:28.980
of reciprocity into that. If you give, you will get. There's a great business institution that I
00:29:35.300
belonged to for years. When I was in my financial planning practice, it's called BNI, Business Network
00:29:40.580
International. And their motto was two simple words, givers gain. Givers gain. That's it. Givers gain.
00:29:49.580
The more you give, the more you will gain, period. You want your kids to love you the way I want my
00:29:58.980
kids to love me, I have to give to them. If I want to be a valuable, well-respected, highly regarded man
00:30:07.960
in my community, then I need to serve my community. If I want to have a great relationship with my
00:30:16.220
girlfriend and I want her to recognize what I bring to the table and value my input to the relationship,
00:30:24.320
then I need to provide that to her. So has, she has something to be excited about.
00:30:31.980
If I want to get a promotion that I need to be valuable to my boss. If I want to make more money,
00:30:36.420
I need to be valuable to my clients. If I just want to feel good that I need to go serve locally
00:30:41.060
without any expectation or anticipation of anything in return. Givers gain 100% of the time.
00:30:50.280
Now it might take a little while and what you gain might be different than what you thought you would,
00:30:55.720
but you will always come out ahead and you will always be happier because you're not as selfish.
00:31:01.180
You are selfless. Guys, I really want you to take this stuff to heart. I really do.
00:31:06.960
I have in my life in at times. And when I implement these six things, life is better. I'm happy. I'm
00:31:14.620
more pleasant to be around. Life is more enjoyable. It's more, I was going to say tolerable. That's the
00:31:19.660
bare minimum, but it is, but I want more. And there's been times in my life where I have neglected
00:31:25.060
these six things where I have been selfish or I have been around people who don't serve me well,
00:31:30.080
or I have been filled to the brim with meaningless pursuits and activities that aren't interesting.
00:31:35.740
Or I have been kind of that one guy at the office who's just the negative dude and always complaining
00:31:40.960
and griping about what isn't working well. I've been that guy. It's miserable. It makes you and me
00:31:47.460
miserable. It makes the people around us miserable. And I don't want that to be the case for you,
00:31:54.720
for me, or for anybody listening to this podcast. So again, only spend time with people who fulfill you.
00:32:00.500
Eliminate toxic activities and find margin. Have fewer things. Number four, excuse me,
00:32:06.720
say yes to a few more things that aren't always practical. Number five, attach your work to your
00:32:11.520
mission. And number six, serve other people. I hope that serves you. If you are interested in learning
00:32:17.020
about this particular topic or thousands of other topics on fitness and faith and money and finances
00:32:25.740
and relationship building and mentality and mindset, vision planning, goal setting, join me in our
00:32:34.200
exclusive brotherhood, the Iron Council. I'm very active there as are a thousand other people. And we
00:32:39.480
would love to see you there. Guys, we will be back next week for our interview. Until then, go out there,
00:32:44.540
take action, find more joy in your life and become a man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to
00:32:51.660
the Order of Man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant
00:32:56.820
to be. We invite you to join the Order at orderofman.com.