Order of Man - September 05, 2025


How to Be Vulnerable Like a Man ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES


Episode Stats

Length

23 minutes

Words per Minute

172.27855

Word Count

4,129

Sentence Count

290

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

3


Summary

Vulnerability has been overused, misrepresented, and bastardized, and it s becoming a problem. And I ll tell you why it s a problem - because if you adopt the current narrative of vulnerability, all you re doing is exposing yourself to weakness, to heartache, to hardship, to being mistreated, abused, and generally feeling pathetic.


Transcript

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