Order of Man - How to Be Vulnerable Like a Man ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

00:00:00.000 vulnerability for the sake of being vulnerable is not the goal. It doesn't make you better to

00:00:05.940 expose all of your weaknesses and all of your problems and all of your issues if there's not

00:00:10.720 some sort of end goal in sight. Is the goal just to get some level of empathy or sympathy from

00:00:16.020 people? That's not a worthy goal. If you don't have the second part of the equation, which is

00:00:21.380 knowing what your goal and your objective is, then I don't think it's a healthy practice at all. In

00:00:26.680 fact, I actually believe that it could be detrimental. Man, we got to have a conversation

00:00:33.800 about the word vulnerability. It has been overused. It has been misinterpreted, misrepresented,

00:00:42.780 bastardized, and it's just becoming a problem. And I'll tell you why it's a problem. Because if you

00:00:51.360 adopt the current narrative of vulnerability, all you're doing is exposing yourself to weakness,

00:00:58.240 to heartache, to hardship, to being mistreated, abused, taken advantage of, and generally just 0.96

00:01:06.600 feeling pathetic. Now, I know this is going to be very controversial. Every time I mention this word, 0.58

00:01:12.860 it conjures up both positive and negative, a lot of vitriol, people on all ends of the spectrum

00:01:20.460 with what they think this word means. And I'm going to put that to rest today. I want to tell you

00:01:26.240 exactly what it means. I'm going to tell you how we can embrace to some degree vulnerability the way

00:01:32.080 men ought to consider embracing it. And I'm just going to end the conversation here because I think

00:01:39.540 it's hurting people. I really do. The Brené Browns of the world and the individuals who say just be

00:01:46.940 vulnerable for vulnerability's sake, that it makes you stronger, that vulnerability is strength,

00:01:53.480 that's not true. And you're only getting part of the equation. When people say vulnerability is strength

00:02:01.100 or a man ought to be vulnerable, that isn't a complete sentence in the dictionary of men.

00:02:08.320 Men ought to be vulnerable. That's not a complete sentence. I'm going to explain what I mean.

00:02:13.460 That's half of the equation. There's another half that often gets overlooked by the overly empathetic,

00:02:21.700 the soft, those who would love for you to keep your guard down, those who would love to take

00:02:28.080 advantage of and exploit you. And look, I'm not a pessimist by nature. I'm actually pretty optimistic.

00:02:34.060 But I think it's time that we start painting vulnerability as the way it's actually intended.

00:02:40.060 And with some nuance, talk about how we can actually use the concept, not for ends in and of

00:02:49.640 themselves, but means to an end. So that's what I'm going to talk with you about today. Very excited

00:02:56.000 to address this. And I've got some key pointers. And I've also got some resources available for you.

00:03:02.300 So let's break this down. Okay, there is a way to be vulnerable. And there's a way not to be

00:03:07.960 vulnerable. Vulnerability, by definition, is a representation of weakness. Period. Go look up

00:03:18.480 the definition. It's a representation of weakness. Now, I know when I say that, people are going to

00:03:23.900 be like, no, no, no, you got to be vulnerable. You got to be strong. No, vulnerability is a

00:03:29.060 representation of weakness. Now, that's not wrong. Because some of the strongest men throughout

00:03:34.480 the history of humankind have acknowledged, recognized, and in some ways honored some of

00:03:42.660 their vulnerabilities and paid it the reverence it deserved so that, here's the second half of the

00:03:48.380 equation, they could improve themselves. They could make themselves better. They could shore up those

00:03:53.820 weaknesses. Vulnerability is, by definition, a weakness. It most definitely is. Now, there's a way

00:04:01.820 that you can use vulnerability to become stronger, but it is not strength in and of itself. By definition,

00:04:08.680 it is weakness. It means that you're not good at something. It means that there's a flaw in your

00:04:14.860 thinking. It means that there's a flaw in, if we're talking about the physical realm, potentially your

00:04:22.160 home. You know, there's a vulnerability. There's a weak spot in this area. And so we need to fix it in

00:04:27.740 order to keep my family safe. That's what vulnerability means. Now, it is not without

00:04:32.920 warrant. It has its place. But the idea, this modern idea presented by Brené Brown and the likes in the

00:04:41.100 world of just expose yourself. Just be vulnerable. No. No. Men, don't do that. Okay. Do this correctly

00:04:51.800 and it will lead to better results for you and the people that you care about. So let's break down

00:04:56.580 the three points that I wanted to share with you today in how you can use vulnerability as a tool,

00:05:03.400 as an asset, not a liability. Number one is you have to exercise some discernment.

00:05:09.660 Everybody would tell you just mouth off, spout off about whatever's wrong, whatever your weaknesses

00:05:15.560 are, whatever you're struggling with. Why? Why would I do that? Why would I just go flap my gums

00:05:23.080 and blabber about all the things that are wrong with me to people who have no vested interest in my

00:05:28.040 development? In fact, many of them would actually like to see my downfall. And I'm going to go expose

00:05:35.600 all of the things wrong with me and all of the things that I'm doing wrong and all of the ways that

00:05:40.320 I'm falling short, not interested. Now I will share my weaknesses, AKA vulnerabilities with the

00:05:49.300 people that I trust. These are individuals who are two things. Number one, they're credible.

00:05:56.360 So they actually have information that could help me. It's a credible resource. And number two,

00:06:01.480 they care about me, but I'm not going to go tell everybody else in the world, including social media,

00:06:07.260 all the things that are wrong with me, just because. How does that help me? How does that

00:06:16.060 serve me? How does that drive my goals and my missions forward? And I know I'm talking about

00:06:20.400 me in this context, but replace me with you. How does it help you just to go flap your gums about

00:06:26.520 all the things that are wrong with you to people who are not credible and people who don't care about

00:06:30.440 you? And yet all these vulnerability gurus will tell you, just be vulnerable. It's okay. It'll all work

00:06:36.660 itself out. No, not interested. These people have to care about you. They have to be aligned with what

00:06:43.840 you want out of your life and they have to be credible. And if they're not, then I'm not really

00:06:48.320 going to be so willing to just expose all of my flaws and weaknesses, which is what vulnerability is.

00:06:55.400 So gentlemen, exercise some discernment. Does your wife deserve to know 0.93

00:06:59.860 that you acknowledge where you fall short? A hundred percent. She does.

00:07:07.040 Should, does she deserve to know what you think your weaknesses are?

00:07:11.340 Yeah, absolutely. Do your children deserve that? Yes, I believe they do. Do your closest confidants

00:07:19.780 deserve that? Yep, they do. Do your business partners deserve that? Yeah, you're in partnership

00:07:28.040 with them. Do your clients deserve that? To a degree. I'm not going to give you an entire yes or

00:07:34.080 no answer on that one, but yes, your clients deserve some of that. So if I have a client that

00:07:39.180 comes to me and says, hey, Ryan, you know, I'm dealing with this issue and I'm struggling in these

00:07:43.600 ways. Can you help me? If I can't help them with that, they, because that's a weakness of mine or not

00:07:48.960 an area that I focus on or something that I'm not strong with, they deserve to know the truth.

00:07:53.440 And I would say, no, that isn't something I can help you with because that's not my area of

00:07:59.060 expertise. So go to this individual, but you have to exercise some discernment when

00:08:04.260 being quote unquote vulnerable, because there are people who will exploit those vulnerabilities

00:08:11.080 and we're not going to give them ammunition to be able to do it. But your wife, yeah, she deserves

00:08:16.860 to know. She already knows. She just wants to know if you do your kids. They already know.

00:08:21.860 They just want to know if you do your business partners. They know they just want to know if you

00:08:26.720 do exercise some discernment. And if you want to get very tactical about this, make a list of people

00:08:33.160 that you deal with groups that you deal with customers, clients, et cetera, personal relationships,

00:08:38.960 romantic interests. And you can put them on do a T chart on the left side of the chart. You can say,

00:08:45.240 yes, they deserve some vulnerability. And on the right hand side, no, they don't deserve

00:08:50.740 any vulnerability from me. And those people who are not credible and who do not care about you,

00:08:55.920 they don't, they don't deserve your vulnerability. In fact, I would not give that to them.

00:09:01.120 Okay. Number two, know your goal. I already said this vulnerability for the sake of being vulnerable

00:09:08.700 is not the goal. It doesn't make you better to expose all of your weaknesses and all of your

00:09:15.820 problems and all of your issues. If there's not some sort of end goal in sight. Now, if you go to

00:09:21.360 a therapist and your therapist asks all these questions about what's going on with you and how

00:09:26.220 you're struggling and how you can improve and what you're dealing with, sure. Be honest, be humble,

00:09:33.300 be transparent. Those are synonyms for vulnerability. I tend to like those a little better

00:09:38.260 because it doesn't have the wrong connotation that often comes with this modern view of,

00:09:44.180 of vulnerability, but yes, talk with them about it because you have a goal. The goal is to recognize,

00:09:51.120 you know, maybe I am overly emotional, uh, or maybe I do get agitated quickly, or maybe this thing

00:10:00.360 triggers me, or maybe I do have this addiction I need to overcome, or maybe I do have these bad habits

00:10:06.020 that I need to address and your therapist will help you. Again, that goes back to point number one,

00:10:10.320 they care about you and they're credible. So you can expose that. You can share that. But what is the

00:10:16.020 goal? Is the goal just to get some level of empathy or sympathy from people? That's not a worthy goal.

00:10:23.260 Is the goal just to have content to share? So I don't know, people will feel sorry for you or

00:10:29.960 something. I, that's not the goal. If it is, it shouldn't be. Your goal should be improvement.

00:10:36.340 It ought to be self-development. It ought to be forward thinking. It ought to be progress.

00:10:43.760 So if, if you go to a therapist, again, for an example, and your goal is to overcome your emotional

00:10:50.400 outburst, let's say, then I think it's completely appropriate to share with a person who's credible

00:10:56.100 and who cares about you, what your weakness is, emotional outburst, so that you could obtain the

00:11:01.260 goal. And the goal is to be more emotionally regulated. See, everybody misses the second half.

00:11:07.460 They're there. They always say, be vulnerable. Vulnerability is strength. Vulnerability. Just,

00:11:11.520 just do it. Just be vulnerable. It's good. It's a healthy practice. Why? Why is it? If you don't

00:11:18.360 have the second part of the equation, which is knowing what your goal and your objective is,

00:11:23.720 then I don't think it's a healthy practice at all. In fact, I actually believe that it could be

00:11:28.360 detrimental and damaging to the goals and ambitions that you have and that you're trying

00:11:33.100 to accomplish. So what is your goal? Is it to become more emotionally regulated? Is it to overcome

00:11:41.180 some addiction or some vice? Is it to potentially connect with the person you care about platonically

00:11:48.380 or romantically or professionally? What is your goal? If you don't have some sort of goal with

00:11:54.780 quote unquote being vulnerable, then probably just keep it to yourself. But if you do have a goal,

00:12:00.300 then now we can be more strategic about how we're going to express our weaknesses and how we're going

00:12:05.180 to shore those up. And number three, last point I'm going to make with you today, come to the table

00:12:11.160 with some solutions. Okay. If you come to your wife habitually and you tell her how hard your day

00:12:21.180 was, how big of a jerk your boss was, why you lost all your clients, why this, why that, why the vendor 0.99

00:12:27.500 did this, why the traffic was bad on the way to work and why you couldn't accomplish what you wanted 1.00

00:12:32.620 to accomplish. How? Sure. We could make the case that that's vulnerable, but how long do you think

00:12:38.360 she's actually going to have some level of credibility for you? Or maybe put a different

00:12:43.160 way, how quickly is some of that credibility going to be diminished with her if all you do is complain

00:12:48.680 about the things that are going wrong in your life and where you don't feel like you're doing a good

00:12:52.780 job? Now, I'm not here to say that you should shut yourself off completely. In fact, I think that's

00:12:58.380 the antithesis of a healthy relationship is that you isolate yourself mentally, emotionally,

00:13:04.440 rhetorically. Nobody wants to be in a relationship like that. So you should be able to communicate

00:13:11.840 with her what is going on with your life. But if you can't bring the second half of the equation,

00:13:16.440 which is the solutions to the table, she's going to lose respect for you. 1.00

00:13:24.080 If you're meeting with a client and you tell them why you can't do it and why it's hard and why the

00:13:28.060 stock market, why this and why that and why, and why the competitor, like they're not going to

00:13:33.380 develop respect for you. I'd love to do this, but my boss and him and I don't get along and

00:13:38.780 nobody's going to develop respect. I watched a reel just the other day from Patrick David Bett

00:13:46.200 and he was in a debate, a round table type debate. And there was a gentleman who sat down with him

00:13:53.440 who had put in job applications after application, after application, he'd put in hundreds of

00:13:58.960 applications. He's not getting any calls back. And Patrick David Bett says, Hey, what if I just hire

00:14:04.080 you right now and I'll pay you a reasonable wage and then I'll give you 90 days and then we'll

00:14:07.980 evaluate after that. And this guy just complained. He said, well, what's a reasonable wage? Are you

00:14:12.740 talking about a reasonable wage or a living wage? Well, what is it that you do? Like, I want to know

00:14:17.280 that I'm interested. This is a guy who said he put in over 200, I believe, if I remember correctly

00:14:22.620 applications, and he still can't get a job. He can't get a job because he's looking at all the things

00:14:28.960 and he's not coming up with any solutions. He's a problem. People don't get into relationships,

00:14:37.100 business, personal, or professional relationships with problems. And if they do, they're not going

00:14:42.840 to do it again. This is not a relationship I'm interested in. So if you're acting like a problem

00:14:50.880 all the time, that's exhausting to individuals. Now, let me frame this in the right context. Let's

00:14:57.260 say you had a bad day at work. Let's say your boss really was unnecessarily arrogant or flippant or

00:15:05.320 aggressive towards you at work. And you come home and you're frustrated, rightfully so. And your wife

00:15:11.500 says to you, what's wrong? You seem bothered. You seem upset. You seem agitated. And you say, you know

00:15:20.000 what? I am. That's what you should say, by the way. You should not say, oh, everything's fine.

00:15:25.620 Because that's not true. We're going to be honest. So you say, yeah, I am agitated today.

00:15:29.840 By the way, it has nothing to do with you. Nothing between us. My boss was a real jerk today.

00:15:36.320 And this is what happened at work. And this was the problem. And I'm bothered. If you do that over and 1.00

00:15:45.060 over and over again, at some point, she's going to be like, oh my gosh, this guy is always bothered.

00:15:49.860 He's so weak. She might not express it that way, but I guarantee she's going to be feeling it that

00:15:54.800 way. Now, let me change the conversation. She says, hey, you seem bothered. You seem agitated. You seem

00:16:00.380 frustrated. And you say to her, because you're going to be honest, you say, yeah, I really am bothered

00:16:06.420 today. My boss was a jerk. He was upset that the task or the project wasn't completed the way that 1.00

00:16:15.220 it should have been completed. And part of the reason was we didn't have the tools that we needed.

00:16:20.060 Now, here's part two. But I recognize that even though we didn't get the tools that we needed,

00:16:26.240 I also failed to request the tools that we needed. I failed to communicate effectively with my boss.

00:16:32.060 And so, you know, it was rough, but moving forward, now what I know is that when I have a project or

00:16:38.400 assignment that I need to get done, I am going to make sure I communicate effectively with my boss

00:16:43.500 about the tools that I need in order to accomplish the task that he has assigned me. Do you see the

00:16:50.420 difference? It has the vulnerability portion, the factor, the variable in there, but it has the other

00:16:57.780 part of the equation, which is solutions. Now, when I talk about this, sometimes in our Facebook

00:17:02.660 group, we've got a free Facebook group and I've got 74,000 men over there. And when I talk about

00:17:10.540 this, inevitably somebody will say, well, if we had the solution, we wouldn't really be asking the

00:17:17.540 question now, would we? No, you probably still would because we do need some support.

00:17:23.620 We do need a sounding board. Maybe we do need a little bit of validation. Am I on the right track?

00:17:29.900 And even if you don't know the answer, don't ever come to the problem or the table

00:17:34.680 without a solution, a proposed solution. And you can always ask for feedback. What do you think about

00:17:39.640 that? So if you don't know what to do and you tell your wife, this is what I'm thinking I'm going to

00:17:44.180 do, but I care about your opinion. So what do you think that I'm missing here? Is there something that

00:17:49.440 you would propose or suggest to me? That does two things. Number one, it says you're solution

00:17:56.100 oriented. You're not problem oriented. And number two, it tells her even subconsciously that you

00:18:02.420 value her input, that you do value her insight, that you do believe that what she brings to the

00:18:09.000 table is something that you can't get on your own. It's a beautiful way to involve your wife with 0.99

00:18:15.980 what you're doing on a day-to-day basis while also complimenting, acknowledging, and respecting

00:18:21.680 and honoring her as your wife, as your partner. Ask her, hey, I might not be looking at this clearly,

00:18:29.040 but here's the solution I have, or here's A, B, and C, but maybe you have some thoughts to help me

00:18:34.460 flesh that out a little bit. Do you see the difference? I hope you do. I can't, I do get frustrated.

00:18:44.360 I don't want to hear men talk about vulnerability for vulnerability's sake anymore. It's not healthy.

00:18:51.060 And I'm going to refer people to this podcast and I'm going to help them see that yes, you can be

00:18:55.820 quote unquote vulnerable, but that's the first part of the equation. There's another part. And so it'd be

00:19:01.920 vulnerability plus solutions equals results. Vulnerability does not equal results. Vulnerability

00:19:10.360 plus solutions equals results. Make sure you infuse the solution component of that equation.

00:19:17.980 Otherwise you're just complaining. Was it Theodore Roosevelt who said offering complaints without a

00:19:24.660 solution is just whining? That's what people are telling you when they're telling you to be vulnerable.

00:19:30.100 Just whine. Just complain. Just gripe. Just bitch. Just moan about your life and your life will be better. 1.00

00:19:36.880 No, it won't. I think it'll actually be worse. But as a man, you have a moral imperative to

00:19:43.420 recognize your deficiencies or your weaknesses, AKA vulnerabilities, and then come to the table with

00:19:49.320 some solutions, bringing credible, qualified people who care about you so that you can create the best

00:19:57.100 path moving forward. That's it. That's how you can be vulnerable like a man. That's how you can use

00:20:05.320 this concept to your advantage and the betterment of the people that you're here to serve. Now, guys,

00:20:10.780 if you want more information on this, and if you want to have these types of conversations where you

00:20:16.020 can tell people what your problems are with solutions, and then bounce ideas off each other,

00:20:22.760 be sounding boards, give each other feedback where they can do it for you, you can do it for them.

00:20:27.420 The Iron Council is open right now. That's our exclusive brotherhood. Now, I'm only going to say this

00:20:32.280 a couple of times because we're doing a new thing when you join the Iron Council for the next

00:20:38.160 three weeks at this point, three and a half weeks or so, is that when you join us in the month of

00:20:44.700 September, I'm going to assign you to one of our vetted veteran coaches in the Iron Council.

00:20:51.900 And the way that's going to work is that when you join, you're going to be assigned one of our coaches,

00:20:56.140 and they're going to work directly with you one-on-one to get you up to speed, to get you

00:21:01.320 onboarded, to get you familiar with what we're doing, to make you familiar and introduced to the

00:21:06.800 people that you're going to be working with, and to eventually get you on a battle team within a very

00:21:11.020 short window of 10 to 12 to 15 other men who are going to hold you accountable, who are going to be

00:21:18.800 sounding boards, who are going to help you fulfill the second half of this vulnerability equation.

00:21:25.520 I hope that serves you guys. I would love to see you in the Iron Council. Remember again,

00:21:29.760 for the month of September, when you join us, you're going to be synced up with an Iron Council coach.

00:21:34.860 If you go to, actually, we're building this out right now. Do this. I'm going to give you my

00:21:41.460 personal email address. It's ryan at orderofman.com. ryan at orderofman.com. And you send me a message,

00:21:51.040 and in the subject line, type in coaching. If you type in coaching in the subject line for

00:21:57.720 ryan at orderofman.com, I'll know that you listen to this podcast. I'll know that you're interested

00:22:03.000 in joining the Iron Council and banding with us and having a coach work with you one-to-one. We've

00:22:08.360 got about seven coaches right now, bringing a few more on here shortly, getting them all trained up

00:22:13.740 and ready to go so they can help you maximize your experience in the Brotherhood, the Iron Council.

00:22:20.220 Guys, we can be vulnerable. That's fine. I'll acquiesce to that. We can be vulnerable. But if

00:22:26.640 you can't do it the right way, you're just complaining. And that never served anybody.

00:22:32.300 I hope that helps, guys. If you have any questions, disagreements, agreements, points I missed,

00:22:37.060 let me know. Hit me up on Instagram is where I'm most active. Also, very active over on Spotify.

00:22:44.340 Our Spotify podcast channel is growing. I believe we have over 100,000 subscribers or followers or

00:22:53.060 listeners. I don't know what terminology Spotify uses, but we do have quite a few people over there.

00:22:58.820 I'd love to see you on Spotify. Just type in order of man and you'll pull us right up.

00:23:02.400 Guys, we got a lot of work to do. We cannot be weak and we cannot just exercise one part of this

00:23:09.400 equation. We have to implement all of it. So I'll leave you there. We will be back next week. I've

00:23:15.560 got a great conversation with a divorce attorney on how to overcome divorce and how we can deal with

00:23:21.640 the challenges that we have in separation and divorce, how to avoid that in the first place,

00:23:27.560 how to reconcile if needed. Make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and let's go out there

00:23:35.900 and get work done. All right, guys, we'll be back next week. Until then, go out there,

00:23:40.320 take action, and become the man you are meant to be.

00:23:43.120 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

00:23:52.480 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - September 05, 2025

How to Be Vulnerable Like a Man ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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