Order of Man - How to Build Purpose, Find Friends Who Support Sobriety, and Hold Brothers Accountable ｜ ASK ME ANYTHING

00:00:00.000 and it could be a small decision you make like drinking right when you get home or it could be

00:00:05.620 a small seemingly insignificant argument again a seemingly small insignificant promise that wasn't

00:00:12.020 kept and it becomes in a lot of ways death by a thousand cuts it's not that you go over and you're

00:00:18.680 like it's like one final blow it's just death by a thousand cuts and you need to stop making those

00:00:25.660 small cuts and you need to work to heal whatever those cuts might be might be creating

00:00:32.120 kip what's up man so great to see you on this friday morning we've had a couple really good

00:00:38.100 calls in the iron council over the past couple of days and so as always it's uh it's always a

00:00:43.360 pleasure to finish and have more of these conversations with you man i love the input

00:00:47.980 from the guys and always love your input so glad to be doing this today yeah thanks man it's always

00:00:54.520 an honor. And to your point of these conversations we've been having in the IC, it's just so

00:01:00.420 critical that we get into the real stuff, right? And you kind of alluded to it last night. We have

00:01:06.160 a tendency sometimes to get in our processes and the mundane schedules and we might lose sight of

00:01:13.120 what's really important, right? And you might think, oh, it's the little project at work

00:01:18.660 that's important, right? You might think, oh, it's the house, keeping the house clean that's

00:01:23.760 important right in reality if it's not it's it's the people it's our kids it's our spouses it's

00:01:29.540 the men uh that we stand up for uh within the iron council that we speak into it's it's humanity

00:01:36.440 right and um and it's i don't know and these conversations are conversations always it seems

00:01:42.760 like in that space right and so that's why it's always i always look forward to recording

00:01:47.060 yeah i mean i hope so i think a lot of guys and i'm guilty of this all of us are where we just

00:01:52.660 go through the motions, right? Or we check off those boxes and we tell ourselves, well, I'm doing

00:01:57.800 a good job. It's like, yeah, technically you're doing all the things that a man should do, but

00:02:02.840 how connected are you with your kids? How present are you with your wife? Do you know if your

00:02:07.400 employees are struggling in their own home lives or what is motivating them or what they're working

00:02:12.680 towards or what their dreams and fears and ambitions are? So yeah, we might be able to say,

00:02:17.240 hey i did this i made payroll i cooked dinner i took my wife on a date i spent time with my kids

00:02:23.980 but it's not so much the activity it's the depth behind it that i think sometimes we lose because

00:02:30.180 we do get so busy and consumed with life and everything else so that's that's part of the

00:02:35.300 reason this is so powerful well before we get into the questions last week we started a new

00:02:39.660 segment i still don't know what to call it but wholesome or not or something is i think what we

00:02:43.940 were talking about and the thing that comes to comes to mind today and i and i want to always

00:02:49.180 dance on the fringes of this not a clear-cut wholesome or not type scenario so there might

00:02:54.840 be a little bit of controversy around this one so there's a um a gentleman in uh louisiana i believe

00:03:01.100 i think his name is tony spell you kip i'm sure you saw this and i'm sure everybody who's listening

00:03:06.200 has seen this i think he's a pastor from what i gather and he beat the living hell out of

00:03:13.680 his 20-year-old neighbor. And the circumstances behind the why and the reasoning are questionable.

00:03:20.200 I think that the going narrative is that this neighbor had made some really vile and disgusting 0.99

00:03:28.380 comments about sexually abusing his wife and his kids and wanting to murder all of them. And 0.99

00:03:35.860 this pastor decided he had enough, I guess, and got into the altercation and got the man

00:03:43.480 down on his back and just wailed on him and uh and then there's other reports that this stemmed

00:03:48.960 from a a long feud between neighbors that took place during covid and this guy called called

00:03:56.760 tony in on covid charges or something so it's it's it's questionable it's disputable

00:04:02.380 i like it i like it i think it's good i you know i i'm not one to say always turn to violence

00:04:09.580 but the threat of violence keeps people at check and at bay and you know if you're making credible

00:04:17.260 threats i don't know the situation but if you're making credible threats and you're threatening my

00:04:21.800 family then i believe a man should have a right to say no this is how we're going to handle this

00:04:27.360 we're not doing this i don't think that you should wait for another person to put their hands on you

00:04:32.320 before you put your hands on them and frankly some people just need to be taught a lesson now

00:04:36.980 again circumstances questionable you know so that's kind of the part where maybe it's a little

00:04:43.120 controversial but yeah i think there's reasons for beating somebody up and this may or may not

00:04:47.840 be one of them but i think beating up the right people is a wholesome activity

00:04:51.780 well and i i mean if if you or i were in a circumstance where someone made a threat

00:05:01.580 and you really considered that their threat could be viable and that they may act on it right

00:05:09.520 yeah wouldn't you go beat the shit out of him i would hope i would yeah yeah i mean if if if 0.77

00:05:17.500 someone threatened to do something like that to my daughter and they're a neighbor it's not like 0.98

00:05:22.500 i can kick them out of the neighborhood they're going to be around i mean there's some value in

00:05:26.700 setting the tone of like, let's get really clear around consequences. Let me show you a little bit

00:05:34.280 of consequence of what might occur if you ever even think or lean in that direction. So I get

00:05:41.700 it as well, but to your point, it's probably way more complex than that. The guy's probably ego

00:05:47.500 driven. This guy, it's more about a bunch of other variables than just that, I'm sure. He

00:05:53.320 definitely wailed on him when i watched the video like when i saw the headline i was like oh yeah

00:05:58.640 that makes sense but then i watched the video and i'm like oh he's going to town for a while

00:06:03.860 and i was like the threat is neutralized yeah totally like you could stop now but he just

00:06:11.840 kept going it reminded me of the scene of in i mean it's so not appropriate and and it's not

00:06:17.540 the same thing, but it reminded me of the scene in the Patriot where the father goes hog wild

00:06:23.980 with his ax over in the ditch. And his kids are like, uh, like they didn't know their dad this

00:06:29.560 way. Yeah. Totally. Did you ever see that video? This was a few years ago now, probably. And from

00:06:36.540 what I remember, it was this, this creeper stalker guy. He was making threats against this guy's

00:06:42.740 daughter and stalking her and showing up to the house and all this sort of thing. And the dad

00:06:48.640 came out and started to get into a verbal altercation with them. And then it just turned

00:06:53.440 into a physical altercation. Well, the dad trains jujitsu. I mean, you can tell by the way he

00:06:59.100 handles himself. And, but that video is really good because you can hear the daughter and she's

00:07:04.380 like on the phone with the cop. She's like, Hey, my dad and this guy are fighting. And she's like,

00:07:08.940 yeah that's my dad but she wasn't saying it like she was disgusted she's like oh he's doing what

00:07:13.460 dads do and the dad just subdued him and he ended up mounting him and it looked like he was gonna

00:07:20.900 punch him but he didn't he just pinned his hands down he's like i told you not to do this you

00:07:25.480 should have just left it alone and now you're gonna get the cops here and he just subdued the

00:07:29.340 man and uh you know i know i don't know whatever came of it but i thought that was a really that

00:07:35.180 one was wholesome to me you know this guy's coming around version of the same thing yeah he's stalking

00:07:40.760 your daughter he's making creepy comments this guy went out and had a verbal altercation with

00:07:46.320 him first it turned physical and then he subdued him but he didn't you know murder the guy either

00:07:50.540 um so so i thought that i thought that was a good use of it but i always i never agreed with

00:07:57.120 this idea of if somebody gets into your space that you're supposed to wait till they hit you to

00:08:03.520 uh you know hit them back or something like if somebody's in my space and they're within reach

00:08:09.060 and they're threatening me i i cannot allow that i cannot allow somebody in my space to threaten me

00:08:16.360 verbally or physically um without defending myself and preemptively defending myself too

00:08:23.160 yeah well it might be too late if you don't do preemptive totally the other thing that comes

00:08:28.840 of mind here is like let's say this pastor for instance takes it too far he ends up in jail

00:08:35.100 now where are you to protect your wife and daughter that's not going to help you either

00:08:41.340 right right so you got to be careful around this stuff because you know what say he retaliates

00:08:47.100 ends up in jail and then this kid he doesn't back me this kid may not back down he might be like oh

00:08:52.520 okay up the ante right because most people up the ante yeah they just escalate and if he finds

00:08:57.720 himself yeah and he and he finds himself behind bars now now he's protecting his family right so

00:09:04.620 i mean yeah we gotta i don't know holistically look at the situation and and and be there to

00:09:11.180 support our family and and protect them but also don't get ourselves in a circumstance where

00:09:15.500 we can no longer protect them right because we lost control yeah i just think at the end of the

00:09:21.180 day administering violence to the right people is a wholesome activity that more men should engage in

00:09:25.820 that's that's my call for today yeah well and that's why we love jujitsu right it's like we're

00:09:31.560 administering violence voluntarily right and and it feels good and you know in fact i was thinking

00:09:39.960 about this the other day the principle around when you're a higher belt or you perceive that

00:09:46.580 you're better than someone and they catch you that is hard on the ego yeah like when that happens

00:09:55.300 you want to destroy them right and and and you want to lash out and you know and those are those

00:10:04.600 are good emotions to deal with so that way you can kind of control it and do what makes sense

00:10:10.980 not necessarily just lash out for the sake of lashing out and but most people never experience

00:10:15.480 that right they walk around with this persona of like i'm better than or whatever and the minute

00:10:21.860 that gets threatened, they, they lose control of their emotions or they react to their emotions,

00:10:27.560 right. And, and they might get themselves in circumstances that are not ideal.

00:10:32.260 Yeah. I think that level of restraint and just discernment, I remember one, one time I was

00:10:37.380 training with, with a Brown belt and I caught him in something, you know, and it was, it was a fluke,

00:10:43.600 maybe, maybe partially fluke, maybe partially some skill that he just didn't expect. Like it

00:10:48.280 happens yeah and he got really angry that i caught him and i wasn't aggressive about it or

00:10:53.940 inappropriate about it it just caught him and he tapped and then i let go and the minute we started 0.98

00:10:59.400 rolling again you could tell he was like unhinged and he got me in an arm bar and he was a jerk 0.92

00:11:05.900 about it and he like i tapped and he like yanked on it i got up and i kicked him and i said what 0.99

00:11:11.580 are you doing and he's like what i'm like don't do that shit like we're training together even if 0.89

00:11:18.060 you could even if i didn't tap don't do that to my arm and like he kind of put his tail between 0.97

00:11:25.180 his legs and because you don't it's like it's like playing football and practicing football

00:11:30.300 and tackling your quarterback before the before the game like yeah you're there to train and learn

00:11:35.500 but you don't want to hurt each other before the game and but he let his arrogance and his ego get

00:11:40.580 the better of him and then i just made it a goal to every time i trained with him just to submit

00:11:44.800 him and sometimes it works and sometimes it didn't but man i was really bothered by his

00:11:50.040 by his arrogance and letting letting that get to him and it happens you know it happens to all of

00:11:55.820 us and that's when you hear this term matt enforcement that's what they're enforcing

00:12:00.200 they're enforcing the reduction of ego yeah yeah when guys don't check their ego that's the

00:12:08.560 enforcement you go okay god mental note we years ago is so funny we had this guy we're training

00:12:15.140 no joke mid-round this guy stands up and yells wrist lock yes and he's standing up and his and

00:12:24.700 his opponent is laying on the mat oh i'd be pissed and all of us like look over to like

00:12:32.180 mental note of like who this dude is and that day and forever forward if i ever rolled with him

00:12:41.100 there was zero mercy and wrist lock i just i would go so hard i just try to break his spirit

00:12:48.160 not even submit him i don't even want him to give up i just wanted to make it miserable

00:12:52.320 and you know and and he had two options check the ego right and keep training or

00:13:01.860 he's going to end up leaving because he can't handle it yeah yeah it's a good it's a good

00:13:07.880 mechanism it's a good accountability mechanism it's also a good testing mechanism like can this

00:13:13.160 guy hang with us on a on a moral principled mental level not just the physical aspect of it but it's

00:13:21.820 like is this guy is he our people right like is this the kind of guy we want in our corner not

00:13:27.460 just because of training, but because of the rest of life. This is why years ago, you, me, and

00:13:33.200 Clint invented the concept of perching, which is hilarious. Mock people. I don't know. Did we

00:13:41.240 invent that or were people doing that before? Because I never saw anybody do that. No, no,

00:13:47.060 no jujitsu guy comes up with a perching move. It has to be this group. So, so if you guys don't

00:13:53.940 know what the perch is and you wouldn't, cause this is with us is basically the idea is that

00:13:58.920 you're, when you're training, you try to get them into a position where you can literally just stand

00:14:04.020 on them and perch on them. Like a bird would perch on a tree limb. And a Clint was actually

00:14:09.900 really good or a surfboard. Right. Yeah. Clint was actually really good at it, but, uh, so

00:14:15.480 demoralizing talk about breaking your spirit. A guy's just standing on you. Yeah. It's more or

00:14:21.220 i'm messing around because you suck so bad yeah totally totally toying with you all right man 0.98

00:14:26.840 well let's get into some questions today yeah absolutely all right ryan my father passed last 0.99

00:14:33.240 year and we never made peace i keep waiting to feel closure and it never comes how does a man

00:14:40.260 grieve a relationship that was broken before it ended um oh i didn't even read his name patrick

00:14:46.000 Donnelly. Well, this is what came to mind. And I, and I didn't see these questions ahead of time,

00:14:52.640 but this is what came to mind when you talked about closure, a door can be closed from both

00:14:56.940 sides, right? So if, if I'm on one side of the door, let's say in my office and you're on the

00:15:03.800 other side, you can grab it and close it, or I can grab it from the inside and close it.

00:15:08.060 But all of us can close the door. The problem is, is you might be in the room waiting for

00:15:13.580 that closure to take place but he's not there physically to be able to close the door so you

00:15:18.660 have to do it so but that's the thing that people realize and i'm not saying close the door on

00:15:23.600 him as a person or how you feel about him or the hole that you might have in your heart because

00:15:29.060 father wound but closure i'm using it as an analogy for letting the past be the past

00:15:35.660 and a few other ways you can quote unquote close the door or get this closure is write him a letter

00:15:41.340 write him a letter say write down all the things that you should have said that you wanted to say

00:15:48.660 maybe some things that you would have done differently some things that you would like

00:15:52.840 him to have done differently and write that letter as if it's the last letter or the last

00:15:57.900 thing that you'll ever say to him and you can file it you can burn it you can throw it away

00:16:02.820 you can read it out loud you can share it with somebody who's close to you maybe there was

00:16:06.740 another father figure you had in your life who you can talk with about those things, but

00:16:11.580 you can create whatever you feel like you didn't have the opportunity to do.

00:16:18.580 That last conversation can be created in a letter or created in your mind.

00:16:23.480 And then what I would say from there is once you've done that, and obviously there's the

00:16:28.100 act of forgiving and those sorts of things as well, but now you have an opportunity to

00:16:33.200 be the kind of man that you wished maybe he would have been or be the kind of man that you wished

00:16:39.000 you would have been in that relationship. You can make that decision today and you can put a pin on

00:16:44.420 this. So this podcast will come out on July 1st and you can put a pin on July 1st and you can say

00:16:49.680 to yourself and act as if July 1st was the day you became the man or started working towards the man

00:16:55.560 you wish you would have had in a father. And then it becomes more of a optimistic, empowering

00:17:03.080 moment instead of a restraining, demoralizing moment. Like it sounds like maybe it has been

00:17:10.940 up to this point. Totally. I'm going to take, I'm hesitant or I want to tread lightly because

00:17:20.740 I don't want to say this in a way that it doesn't get received or it gets perceived wrong.

00:17:25.560 So let me try, and Ryan, you help me out here.

00:17:31.980 Most upsets or relationships that we have that are incomplete, that we think we have need closure around, it's because we are justifying the relationship.

00:17:47.740 We are using the relationship or the actions of other individuals to justify our way of showing up in it.

00:17:56.520 And so if you want to get complete with your dad and anyone listening, and I would challenge

00:18:02.460 everybody, you have an upset with someone, whether they're alive, your dad's passed away,

00:18:08.020 an uncle, your grandpa, it doesn't matter. Just choose it. Own your role in it.

00:18:16.240 You want to get complete, you get complete with you, not them. You can't control them anyway.

00:18:21.880 And most of us approach completeness with, well, I'm going to have this conversation with Ryan, and Ryan's going to, oh, Kip, I'm so sorry, and I should have been a better friend or whatever.

00:18:33.660 That's out of my control.

00:18:35.920 So if I want to complete something with my father, guess what I do?

00:18:38.960 I say, hey, Dad, when these things occurred when we were younger or whatever happened, I interpret it as that you didn't care.

00:18:48.620 and I actually want to apologize

00:18:51.220 because I didn't give you the love

00:18:54.440 that you deserved as my father.

00:18:56.200 I should have showed up better.

00:18:57.780 I'm going to own my part in it.

00:19:00.080 Now, I'm not taking accountability for his actions.

00:19:01.960 I'm taking accountability for my actions

00:19:04.580 and I restore my integrity

00:19:08.560 regardless of the other individual.

00:19:12.740 That's where the upset is.

00:19:14.340 The upset is I don't feel great about how I showed up

00:19:17.800 or how I'm showing up and, and I'm justifying it. Why? Because they're the problem. And I showed

00:19:24.580 this up because the way they are, well, you get complete by being whole and complete and whole

00:19:30.040 and complete is being in integrity with yourself, regardless of them. So just, and I'm not saying

00:19:37.800 don't take accountability for their actions. I'm saying, identify what you could have done,

00:19:42.960 clean that up and move forward. And to your point, Ryan, I don't need them to accept it.

00:19:49.060 I don't need them to even be alive for me to come to that conclusion. And this is where we talk

00:19:55.980 about one of the best ways to move on is to grow. This is how you grow by going, oh man, I should

00:20:02.780 have, I could have, and I'm now going to learn from that and I'm going to grow. And now I'm not

00:20:08.740 going to, because I'm in a better version of myself, I'm not going to drag that forward

00:20:12.800 anymore in my life because I've learned from it and I'm a better person because of it.

00:20:18.300 Yeah. And it doesn't make it easier necessarily. It just makes it meaningful. It makes it a

00:20:24.760 significant moment, even though it's still difficult to wrestle with. I also think part

00:20:30.100 of the reason that we have such a hard time with this and just relationships in general

00:20:34.040 is because we have such high expectations of other people.

00:20:37.920 He should have done this.

00:20:38.960 He should have done that.

00:20:39.800 He should have showed up this way.

00:20:40.840 He should have shown up that way.

00:20:42.140 And maybe you're right.

00:20:43.920 Maybe he should have, but he didn't.

00:20:47.620 And you don't get to control that.

00:20:49.700 And the more that I've had expectations of others,

00:20:52.960 especially if they're uncommunicated expectations,

00:20:56.680 the more stress I've had in my life.

00:20:59.240 And what I've tried to do is move from having expectations of others

00:21:03.400 to having standards for myself.

00:21:06.380 Yeah, maybe he should have showed up differently,

00:21:08.840 but here's my standard.

00:21:10.960 I'm forgiving, I'm empathetic, I'm kind, I'm courageous.

00:21:15.300 I'm willing to say the things that need to be said.

00:21:17.220 I'm willing to offer forgiveness.

00:21:19.580 I'm willing to move on with my life.

00:21:21.560 I'm willing to put that aside for the betterment of me

00:21:23.720 and my family and other people who are impacted

00:21:26.100 by the baggage that I'm carrying around right now.

00:21:28.360 And the only other thing that I would say here,

00:21:30.100 and this has been a big lesson for me

00:21:31.480 because my father passed away years ago as well,

00:21:34.220 is I didn't really find much grace and empathy for him

00:21:37.320 until after he passed away.

00:21:40.120 And primarily through a lot of my own struggles

00:21:43.000 and sufferings as a father,

00:21:45.160 where I realized, oh, I wonder if this is how he felt.

00:21:50.280 And it's not that I ever don't love my kids,

00:21:53.300 but I'm sure there were moments,

00:21:54.860 especially when I was in the throes of my alcohol abuse,

00:21:57.660 where they actually thought that.

00:22:00.000 Like he doesn't love us,

00:22:00.840 he doesn't care for us he doesn't care about us when none of that is true but i could see how they

00:22:05.640 would interpret it that way and it kind of opened my eyes to see that even though people behave in

00:22:11.700 a way that might make you believe they don't care rarely is that the case in a situation like this

00:22:16.580 it might mean that he does and he doesn't know how to handle it or that maybe he's frustrated

00:22:22.420 with you for something and there's an uncommunicated expectation on his end so

00:22:26.560 I think finding the grace and the humanity in people and and I I like this quote a lot never 0.62

00:22:33.380 attribute to malice what could be attributed to stupidity but this is also true don't just 0.98

00:22:40.080 attribute it his absence or the way he showed up to malice maybe it was ignorance maybe it was 1.00

00:22:46.060 stupidity maybe it was not knowing any better maybe it was addiction maybe it's the stories 0.98

00:22:52.120 that he conjured up in his mind as a result of his childhood like it's very rarely malicious in 0.99

00:22:58.020 nature and once we start to realize that i think we see people differently totally a story it's not

00:23:04.440 true but a story that i use often right at least i did when i was younger was if i were them and i

00:23:11.900 was raised the way they were raised i probably would have done the same thing they would have

00:23:15.500 done. Yeah. So who am I to have all you should, or you shouldn't? I don't know their circumstances.

00:23:23.240 Right. And, and we honor choice anyway. And so we have to let people be, and, and, and sometimes we

00:23:30.680 don't have to have the answer. Well, they should have, or maybe they should have, I don't know.

00:23:34.860 There's a lot of variables. I just don't know, but I know what I'm going to do. I know what's

00:23:40.020 important to me you know and and focus on with what's within our realm of control i do think

00:23:45.980 there is one one danger that men might fall into when they adopt that that mentality um and i don't

00:23:53.120 think it's wrong i just think there's a trap that men could fall into is that if i was in their

00:23:57.400 shoes with their education upbringing experiences i would act the same way what i want to make sure

00:24:03.900 that we're really clear about is that doesn't make certain behavior okay it doesn't excuse

00:24:09.840 or justify that behavior and the trap is that if you're saying that about in this case your father

00:24:14.720 or someone else then you're also likely to say that about yourself and i've i've said this and

00:24:20.140 i've heard people say this like you did the best you could with the information you had

00:24:23.240 it's a lovely sentiment and i think it's largely true but it doesn't make it okay there's still

00:24:30.840 consequences there's still fallout uh it's still potentially you know a sin or a bad decision like

00:24:38.940 that doesn't go away just because you did the best you could with the information you had.

00:24:42.420 So don't let yourself out or off the hook because you tell yourself, well, I did the best I could.

00:24:48.660 Yeah, maybe. And also you're a sentient human being who could make better choices moving forward.

00:24:54.620 So you, as people say, need to do better. Yeah, I love it. All right. Eli Vasquez.

00:25:02.180 I'm 34 and still don't know what I want to do with my life. Everyone around me seems to have

00:25:08.300 a direction and I'm just grinding through the days. Is purpose something you find or something

00:25:14.840 you build? And how do you start when you're, when you've got nothing? Well, why would you have

00:25:21.440 anything? You're just, like you said, you're just starting. This is a weird thing that we do. And

00:25:27.260 I know he's a little older than, you know, a 20 year old who's asking the same question, but

00:25:31.360 it's so interesting to me. I think it might be at the part of like, partly the baby boomer

00:25:37.140 generation where they just feel entitled to everything and it's just trickled down to their

00:25:41.840 kids and grandkids and we have this idea that just because somebody happens to be you know driving a

00:25:48.200 i don't know mercedes around that well how come we don't get to drive a mercedes around like

00:25:54.820 they're 70 years old you know that guy that guy worked for 50 years you don't know what he's done

00:26:01.720 to have that and you didn't you haven't done what he did to have that mercedes or fill in the blank

00:26:05.960 with the luxury item of choice. But as kids or younger people, we often think, well, if that guy

00:26:12.220 has it, I should have it too. Why have you done the work to have it? And so at this point in your

00:26:17.800 life, you might say, well, I have nothing. That's not entirely true. You might not have very many

00:26:23.200 savings, very much savings. You might not have a secure job. Maybe you don't have a family. I don't

00:26:28.960 know, but you still have something. You have 34 years of experience. You have some level of

00:26:34.660 education you clearly you have enough insight to start thinking critically about what you can do

00:26:39.600 moving forward and you have a level of maturity on your side that a 20 year old doesn't so there's

00:26:46.060 a lot that you have to work with but i what i would say for eli is uh what did he say pat

00:26:52.260 but he didn't say passion purpose is that what he said purpose purpose yeah purpose is not found

00:26:59.580 because it makes it sound as if you just stumble across it.

00:27:04.660 And I've seen way too many men who say things like,

00:27:08.780 well, you know, when my ship comes in,

00:27:11.940 or, you know, I haven't hit my luck yet,

00:27:15.120 or, you know, I'm right place at the right time.

00:27:18.820 Very rarely does that happen.

00:27:20.760 And even if it does,

00:27:22.400 you don't get to keep the benefits of the blessing

00:27:24.380 because you didn't earn it.

00:27:25.740 This is why so many men struggle when they win the lottery.

00:27:29.580 yeah they have a huge windfall but they didn't earn the right to manage that money properly and

00:27:35.580 so they end up making really horrible broke mentality decisions which is why they were

00:27:40.700 broke having money is is not the issue it's the same thing we talked about this the other day

00:27:46.600 about homelessness you know i can you could give a a man a home but if he doesn't know how to manage

00:27:53.380 a home or, or manage the, uh, the, the money to pay for rent. I mean, how long is it going to be

00:27:59.280 before he loses that home? This is why homelessness is not a financial problem. You know, people like

00:28:04.500 to beat up on Elon Musk and say, well, he could solve world hunger. No, he couldn't. I don't care

00:28:11.540 how much money he has. I mean, he might be able to feed everybody on the planet for a month. I don't

00:28:15.260 know what the statistics are, but what then? Well, he has enough money to buy everybody in America

00:28:21.880 a house and what what does that mean like what is that gonna do well you think they yeah you think

00:28:29.260 that they're starving or they don't have a home because of just circumstances not has nothing to

00:28:34.100 do with the individual right right yeah so i got off a little bit on a on a tangent there but the

00:28:39.840 point that i want to bring this back to is that you have a real opportunity here you have a clean

00:28:45.460 slate you say you have nothing good because when i hear you say i have nothing to me what i'm

00:28:51.540 hearing is, well, I'm not married. I don't have kids. I don't have a bunch of debt pinning me

00:28:57.700 down. I don't have responsibilities and obligations keeping me tied to whatever it is I'm doing right

00:29:03.460 now. But you know who does? All the buddies that you think they have everything figured out. And

00:29:07.960 guess what? They don't. I'm just telling you right now, they don't have it all figured out either.

00:29:12.060 They're the same questions that you do. If you asked all of them, they'd say, yeah, I don't know

00:29:15.280 what I'm going to do with my life. So from the surface, you might say, these guys have it all

00:29:20.240 figured out. I don't think they do. Um, but what I would do is I would stay in the job that you're

00:29:26.520 at, whatever you're doing right now, but I would also be doing other things to experiment with

00:29:30.940 interests. Like if, if something seems interesting to you, go do it again with nothing, you can go

00:29:39.420 do that. If I said, well, I'm really interested in spending two months in Australia. I can't do

00:29:45.060 that. I've got, I've got this job. I've got payments. I've got businesses. I've got my kids

00:29:51.160 like I've got obligate. I can do that, but you can. And that's a really powerful position to be

00:29:58.320 in. So if it's, I want to go travel the world, like one of our guys asked a couple of weeks ago,

00:30:03.480 or if it's, I want to pick up photography or I want to go run a Spartan race, or I want to learn

00:30:09.440 how to paint, or I want to join Toastmasters and learn how to do public speaking, or I want to

00:30:13.980 learn how to code and build websites or build out a new AI agent yeah you should do all of those

00:30:19.980 things with the idea that you're going to explore fringes and things that you'd never considered

00:30:27.980 before and some of them aren't going to work you're not going to enjoy them and others are

00:30:31.300 and you're going to take another step and another step and another step and another step and in five

00:30:34.820 years you look back and you're like oh wait I have built my purpose I am excited I am passionate about

00:30:40.180 what i'm doing it happens so gradually not all at once but it happens that way yeah ryan when you

00:30:47.200 hear him or other men say purpose what do you think they're saying like what's the definition

00:30:55.380 that you would put on that i think men want to feel

00:31:00.640 valued in a meaningful way. I think that's what it is. I think men want to feel valued in a

00:31:10.520 meaningful way. And I think that men want to know that their time on this earth was well spent,

00:31:18.620 that we didn't squander it. So when a man is stuck in a cubicle somewhere and he's not excited about

00:31:26.340 it even subconsciously he believes that he's squandering his opportunities and frankly he is

00:31:31.640 i've got a friend um jordan harbinger the jordan harbinger show i haven't talked to him for a very

00:31:38.180 long time but he he went to law school and hated it hated every minute of it so i think halfway

00:31:47.700 through his his education he stopped or maybe he i think he might even finished up law school and

00:31:52.480 past the bar and everything else. And then he started podcasting. He doesn't, he didn't want

00:31:56.880 to squander it. And by all outside perspective, we'd say, oh, that's a, that's a respectable

00:32:01.700 lawyer, maybe not respectable. We, we, I don't know, that's going a little too far, but,

00:32:06.920 but we would say, okay, that's a good career choice. Right. But for him, it wasn't, I've got

00:32:11.840 another friend. He's got a family full of dentists. His dad's a dentist, two brothers

00:32:15.800 that are dentists. I think he has one or two brothers-in-law that are dentists and he did

00:32:20.500 really well in school. He's lining up to do dentistry. Uh, and I think he took the dental

00:32:27.880 school exam. I can't remember what it was called and did really well on it. And it was getting

00:32:32.360 ready to go to dental school and said, I don't want to, I don't want to do this. And he went

00:32:36.380 into financial planning. He's got a beautiful family. He's got a lucrative financial planning

00:32:40.500 career. He's helping people in meaningful and significant ways with their finances.

00:32:45.160 And it's funny because he's a little bit of the black sheep that not that his family

00:32:48.560 shuns him by any means but he's he's not in dentistry and all of his family is it's not the

00:32:54.320 path he wanted to choose he chose a different path and it worked out really really well for him

00:32:58.600 yeah and maybe something for eli and guys listening a little bit too it's like if i

00:33:04.540 grab the definition ryan that you just gave knowing that i'm not wasting my time right

00:33:09.360 that i made a difference that i'm leaving an impact don't get me wrong i'm not saying don't

00:33:14.720 set goals and try to achieve something, but also ask yourselves, what does that look like today?

00:33:22.720 How do I not squander today? How do I have impact today? Because sometimes I think what we'll do is

00:33:29.060 like, oh, well, if I become a dentist or if I become a lawyer, then, then I will, then I will.

00:33:35.320 And then we wait like 10 years and then it's like, and we did waste our time, right? We did squander

00:33:40.780 it. So not only look on the horizon of where you're going, but ask yourself, how do I do that

00:33:47.200 right now with what I have? And start living a life of purpose in the moment. Yeah. I think

00:33:53.700 that's great. That's your be, do, have mentality that you talk about often. Yeah. Yeah. Cool.

00:33:59.260 All right. Daniel Hayes, I want to ask about your divorce specifically. When you look back,

00:34:04.700 was there a single moment you could have changed the outcome or was it already gone by the time

00:34:10.360 you noticed i'm trying to figure out which situation i'm actually in yeah there's some

00:34:16.260 good counsel for you for from ryan for you on this one yeah i mean for me by the time i noticed it

00:34:22.400 was in trouble it was too late because she had said she wants a divorce and i spent six months

00:34:27.660 solid six months sober going to therapy trying to you know work on things trying to show up the way

00:34:34.080 I had showed up before and it was just too little too late at that point for me um I actually had

00:34:40.760 I had a conversation with her the other day and I won't get into it too much but it was a good

00:34:45.740 conversation and I remember this moment it's so it's such a weird thing to remember we went on a

00:34:53.240 camp out uh the family so her me and the kids and I at the time I had been drinking like every day

00:35:01.380 but i thought you know what we're going on this camp out i'm not gonna i don't need to drink on

00:35:05.420 the camp out i want to be here we want to go to the lake we want to have fun stay up hang out by

00:35:10.060 the campfire and so i didn't bring anything to drink with me and i remember her asking me she's

00:35:16.800 like did you bring did you bring anything i said no i didn't bring anything she was surprised she's

00:35:20.240 like you didn't i said no i just wanted to be here and be like i don't want to drink and she's

00:35:24.760 like oh and then she was pleasantly surprised well we got home you know a day or two later

00:35:30.900 and I immediately went to the convenience store and picked up whatever beer whiskey I can't

00:35:36.020 remember and I just fell back into the old pattern and I don't know why but I thought

00:35:42.340 to myself like that was kind of the last straw for her I think

00:35:48.520 and I don't and when I talked to her and told her that I told her that unsolicited and she's like

00:35:56.520 yeah I remember that like I could tell that it was impactful to her and I said you know

00:36:00.460 I wonder a lot if I would have just stopped drinking there if we would have been able to

00:36:07.340 salvage the marriage. And it seems like such an insignificant little moment in time, but for

00:36:12.620 whatever reason, that has replayed in my head over and over again. And I think I would have.

00:36:19.220 I think I could have salvaged it at that point. But after that, I think it was all downhill from

00:36:23.560 there. So the hard thing is, is we don't know what the, the, the breaking point is for other

00:36:31.860 people. Like what's, what's the final straw? I don't know until it happens till it's that breaking

00:36:37.480 point, but it, it doesn't have, you don't have to wait for it to be the final straw. You just have

00:36:43.640 to stop adding straw. And it could be a small decision you make like drinking right when you

00:36:51.860 get home or it could be a small seemingly insignificant argument or disagreement it could

00:36:58.520 be again a seemingly small insignificant promise that wasn't kept and it becomes in a lot of ways

00:37:05.880 death by a thousand cuts it's not that you go over and you're like it's like one final blow it's just

00:37:12.740 death by a thousand cuts and you need to stop making those small cuts and you need to work to

00:37:20.080 heal whatever those cuts might be might be grading now yeah you know what this reminds me of

00:37:28.280 ryan is playing basketball in high school and you you come into the fourth quarter

00:37:36.440 and maybe just the team has just played like crap the other team's up 20 points and this is high

00:37:43.900 school right so like high school max points in high school what's what 60 maybe right maybe 50 0.95

00:37:50.160 points you know it's not a high scoring game yeah for the fourth quarter it was a little bit more

00:37:55.820 so but you're looking at it through the wrong lens you're mistaken i'm just kidding yeah you're

00:38:00.500 mistaken football with basketball we were actually somewhat decent in basketball but regardless right

00:38:05.940 you guys were fourth quarter you're down by 20 does the coach pull you up on the bench and say

00:38:12.020 hey guys yeah i've really thought about it and uh this is unrecoverable so let's just call it

00:38:19.580 no he doesn't what does he say hey we're gonna lose this game maybe but we're gonna finish strong

00:38:28.940 we're gonna finish this game how we should have been playing the whole game

00:38:34.580 and we're not we're not going to lower our standards of how we show up even though the

00:38:41.920 game's over why because you're dealing with you it's not about the game now right the game's lost

00:38:49.220 probably but now you're you're being intact with you with how you're showing up in the world

00:38:55.080 and honoring how you're showing up and so Daniel look at it that way yeah maybe it is lost

00:39:01.160 but how are you going to finish right finish strong right and and be be that man that you

00:39:10.980 should have been you know and and yeah it's too late but you know what you do you and and you do

00:39:17.320 it the way it should have been done well and and yes to everything and what's the alternative

00:39:24.220 to not i mean this is the only play that you have is to show up fully and if you do that

00:39:30.720 it's more likely that you can salvage the marriage than if you don't and if the marriage is

00:39:37.080 unsalvageable then you're going to be a really good person moving into the next season of your

00:39:42.860 life whether that's pursuing a new career or just trying to build a relationship with your children

00:39:48.700 if you have them or the next lucky woman to come into your life you're going to position yourself

00:39:53.720 in a much better scenario so you really only and i'm stealing this from my friend keith yackie

00:39:58.060 because I talked to him quite a bit when I went through my my divorce and he has a program called

00:40:03.760 the married game and he said Ryan you only have one play in the playbook that's to be the best

00:40:08.640 man you possibly can be and then you just have to let the chips fall where they may but if you

00:40:12.940 only have one play in the playbook you have to execute it to perfection so you're going to start

00:40:19.040 doing everything right you're not going to drink you're going to show up you're going to be helpful

00:40:22.660 you're going to do this you're going to do that and you're going to do every little aspect of that

00:40:26.740 play exactly correct and that's the only way to position yourself whether it's in the marriage or

00:40:31.980 not in the best position possible yeah and you might end up being like the knicks and before

00:40:38.320 you know it you're in the fourth quarter and you're going holy crap we can maybe win this game

00:40:42.720 yeah you know one of the biggest comebacks in nba history and playoff history happened this year

00:40:48.880 because why when the game was probably over they chose not to give up yeah exactly yeah cool

00:40:55.780 Anthony Russo I've been sober eight months after 15 years of drinking the men in my life don't know

00:41:03.200 how to be around me they keep handling handing me beers out of habit how do you build a new circle

00:41:10.240 without burning the old one to the ground uh cut out a little bit how do you build a new what

00:41:18.440 build a new circle without burning the old one to the ground

00:41:24.440 oh got it okay yeah i mean i don't think you need to burn the old one to the ground just yet

00:41:32.160 and you said it yourself they just don't know yet what's going on i can't remember did he say

00:41:37.100 he'd been sober for eight months is that what he said eight months been drinking for 15 years

00:41:42.760 yeah what i would suggest is to sit down with your guys and just say hey look guys like i still want

00:41:49.660 to spend time with you and hang out with you i'm going to put some self-imposed boundaries in place

00:41:54.080 i'm not going to go to these places for example i'm not going to engage in this behavior for

00:41:58.160 example and i'd really like your support in that because it means a lot to me i'm trying to

00:42:03.260 bring my family back together or be the best man that i can be and i would just be helpful for me

00:42:09.100 if you supported me and here's how you can support me by when we're hanging out going to different

00:42:14.080 places um not offering beer to me not not tempting me this is not your responsibility i'm not saying

00:42:19.780 that but it would be helpful if you rallied behind me in this like really worthwhile goal that i have

00:42:27.340 and i don't know very many people who wouldn't be like hell yeah dude i'll help you with that

00:42:33.580 and and actually they would probably go above and beyond and call you and say hey are you still on

00:42:37.840 still on the bandwagon like what's going on everything good if you if you approach it like

00:42:42.740 that i would it would be hard for me to believe that they wouldn't get behind that now they'll

00:42:46.640 probably get a bust your chops about it they're going to tease you about it make fun of you a 0.97

00:42:50.900 little bit they might even say that's silly or that's stupid until you prove that you actually 0.97

00:42:55.760 mean it and you know what else you might do that you're serious about you're right and you might 0.93

00:43:03.640 actually inspire one of these guys or all of them to say, Hey, we'll, we'll do that. I don't want to

00:43:11.020 drink anymore. I'll stop drinking. Or maybe some of them are like, Hey, well, you know, while you're

00:43:15.060 going through this time, I'm going to stop drinking for the next 60 days or 90 days. I'm not going to

00:43:20.580 give it up indefinitely, but I can do that. And you're actually inspiring these guys to improve

00:43:25.560 in their own lives. But again, this goes back to the, um, uh, what covert contracts. We've talked

00:43:32.180 a lot about that in the past if you're expecting these guys to show up a certain way when you're

00:43:37.960 spending time with them but you haven't communicated how you expect them to show up

00:43:41.520 you can't be upset with them that they're not doing what you didn't tell them not to do

00:43:45.800 so the first step is always just clear communication we talked about that on the

00:43:51.320 iron council call this morning being clear about what you're after and so go to them tell them what

00:43:56.460 you're after ask for their support and i think if i had to guess they'd be like yeah dude we'll do

00:44:02.040 that. We can do that for you because they care about you. They love you. They want to see you

00:44:05.440 succeed. As far as the other part of it, how do you create a new circle? We talked about that last

00:44:11.120 week. So go back and listen. I don't want to beat a dead horse on that today because there's other

00:44:15.520 questions that we can get to. Go back and listen to last week's Ask Me Anything. We talk about the

00:44:21.620 four places to go being business functions, the gym, church, and any hobbies that you want to

00:44:30.780 have in your life. And you can find good, solid men who you can build and develop relationships

00:44:38.080 with in those areas. That's where I personally go to develop and build male friendships and

00:44:43.520 brotherhood. Got it. All right. Kevin Brazzard, you talk a lot about accountability, but I've got

00:44:52.920 a guy in my friend group who's tanking his marriage and won't hear it. At what point is

00:44:59.520 calling a man out actually just judgment dressed up as brotherhood well judgment is okay actually

00:45:07.680 like i don't yeah i don't actually think there's anything wrong with that yeah i mean i yeah you

00:45:14.940 should be judging and i don't know enough about the biblical references of of judging you know

00:45:22.020 like and i'm not saying like judge him harshly but you can definitely judge the behavior maybe

00:45:27.940 that's what, maybe that's the distinction. You're not judging him as much as you're judging the

00:45:31.980 behavior. Like, Hey, that's poor behavior. You're better than that, man. Like don't engage in that

00:45:36.280 behavior. And to me, that means accountability. It's like, Hey Kip, I see you going down the

00:45:41.520 wrong path. You're better than that, man. And I love you and I care about you and I want you to

00:45:44.960 win. So I'm going to walk with you on this journey. That's what true accountability is.

00:45:49.860 Father Stephen Gadbury taught me this. He said, most people think accountability is just calling

00:45:53.700 people out. And he said, that might just be being a dick to people. True accountability is willing 0.98

00:46:00.060 to say what needs to be said. And this is the most important part, being willing to walk with

00:46:05.340 the man in his journey. So if we go back to that previous question from Anthony, eight months sober,

00:46:13.120 accountability from his friends wouldn't be, Hey man, you're not supposed to drink. We're not

00:46:17.380 hanging out with you anymore. That's not accountability. Accountability is, Hey man,

00:46:22.220 you said you weren't going to drink everything. All right. Cause you're, you're having a drink

00:46:25.620 right now. Like what happened? You've been eight months sober. How do we get you back on the train?

00:46:29.400 And how do we get you away from alcohol? That's accountability. So, um, you know, you should

00:46:37.260 judge the behavior. There's, there's certain things that you should judge as righteous or not

00:46:41.260 righteous. Now, as far as him listening, that's his prerogative. He is not obligated to listen

00:46:50.260 or to take your advice all that you can do is your part which is to bring it up and if he's

00:46:55.140 like no no no no no i mean i would still be friends with a guy unless it was some you know

00:47:00.200 egregious behavior or something that would even put me or my family at risk i wouldn't i wouldn't

00:47:06.060 continue to to have a friendship like that but outside of that i can still be friends with a

00:47:11.960 guy even though he's making poor decisions i mean the best opportunity he has to make better

00:47:15.680 decisions is to spend time with me, even if I'm not actively telling him what he should and should

00:47:21.900 not do. So once you've shared, you've done your part. That's how I view it. And I'll bring it up

00:47:28.980 and I'll do gentle nudges here and there. The rest of it is I'm going to model the example

00:47:33.120 and allow him to come into my world. Totally. I think the mindset that might help

00:47:39.960 is think of accountability as someone's ability to account to the, to their commitment,

00:47:47.320 to give an account of their commitment. And so, well, what's his commitment?

00:47:55.100 Okay. Well, I, I believed that he was committed to his marriage. Okay. Got it. So a strong way

00:48:01.360 to hold someone accountable is to help him and, or have a conversation around that commitment.

00:48:08.420 you're not trying to get him to do something you're trying to help him remember and realign

00:48:14.180 to the commitment and so you know i don't know just as a thought here kevin's like

00:48:19.680 dude it what's going on with your marriage are you no longer committed with her

00:48:24.840 what's getting in the way of the commitment that is going to bring what much more fruits to the

00:48:34.560 conversation, then, Hey, you're being a dip wad and you shouldn't do X, Y, Z. No, no, no. Go

00:48:40.360 deeper. What's changed, right? What's changed in the relationship that's causing you not to be

00:48:47.320 committed to it? How can I help you with that? How do you, how do you re-engage it? Or maybe she's

00:48:53.900 not committed and you don't know all the details, right? And so really focus on what commitment

00:48:59.420 it really is right. And accountability and, and that might help the conversation. The other thing

00:49:05.400 I'd, I'd like to suggest and remember is coaching is always going to be difficult if you're not in

00:49:10.900 a position of influence and this is your friend. So he probably knows you care. So that's perfect.

00:49:16.760 But before coaching, you also need to be knowing the nuance, right? I always love this in corporate

00:49:22.260 America. It's like, you know, leadership arrogance is assuming that, you know, more than the people

00:49:26.880 actually doing the job. Friend arrogance is assuming you know more without knowing the

00:49:33.060 details of the marriage. So ask questions about how it's going, right? Don't be so quick to

00:49:39.980 point out his failures. Maybe ask how are things going overall with her? How is she treating him?

00:49:45.740 What other things? Now you're going to be in a better position to actually provide some guidance.

00:49:50.460 So be a little slow to jump to conclusion, be a little bit quicker to curiosity, and that will position you better to coaching.

00:50:01.080 I like that.

00:50:02.320 Questions are always better in my mind in these circumstances.

00:50:06.160 He probably knows things aren't good.

00:50:08.580 He probably knows he's messing some things up.

00:50:11.220 He's the one who has to sit with it.

00:50:12.660 He probably stays awake at night thinking about it or is less productive at work because it's on his mind.

00:50:16.700 and you coming at him and pointing your finger in his chest and telling him all the things he's

00:50:20.840 doing wrong is not going to ease his stress or make him want to you know jump to a solution it's

00:50:26.500 just going to make it worse i think so that's why the questions are so important like hey man like

00:50:31.780 things don't seem good between you and and jill i think everything everything good or you seem

00:50:38.760 different or you seem distant or like whatever and start asking those questions from like you

00:50:44.160 said, Kip, a place of curiosity, not indictment. Yeah. And how many times Ryan, you and I have

00:50:50.460 come to a conclusion on our own due to a conversation, right? Not because someone

00:50:55.120 dropped knowledge at me. In fact, that's the value of this podcast. Every single week,

00:51:00.420 when we record, you don't think we hang up. You guys don't think we don't hang up off this podcast

00:51:05.180 and I, and I self-evaluate and go, Hmm, maybe I'm not holding my friends accountable as much

00:51:11.060 as I should. Maybe I'm out of integrity. Maybe there's a relationship that I'm not being complete

00:51:15.260 with. Absolutely. So just get him talking and, and we're smart enough. Most people are smart

00:51:22.000 enough to come to connect the dots, right. And to come to some conclusions from just the

00:51:28.100 conversation itself. Right. Right. Absolutely. Cool. All right. Samuel, uh, Whitfield. I grew

00:51:36.580 up in church, but walked away from faith in my twenties. Now I'm 40 with kids and I feel the

00:51:43.280 pullback, but I don't know if I believe it or if I just want the structure. How do you tell the

00:51:49.620 difference between real faith and just wanting order? I don't, I don't know for this, for this

00:51:58.840 conversation, you need to have a distinction right away. If church is the place that provides order,

00:52:05.380 i mean we talk about this all the time guys like more and more people are saying

00:52:08.700 i i'm spiritual but i'm not religious and i understand i get it but also i don't it's the

00:52:16.860 religion that supports the spirituality i don't think you can just win i mean i guess you could

00:52:22.860 wing spirituality but i think the practice of spirituality in an environment that fosters it

00:52:31.100 is what makes it stronger to me it's like being on a college football team and you show up to

00:52:38.240 practice and you're a great athlete and you really believe in their program and you think it could be

00:52:43.880 a good thing and you go and the coach is like cool here's the playbook and you grab it and you throw

00:52:48.920 it away you're like i don't need that i'm gonna do my own thing how long are you gonna last in

00:52:53.880 the program you say you believe it but you're not actually running the plays so how much do you

00:52:58.420 actually believe in it. And that's why church I think is so powerful for men who want that

00:53:05.740 spirituality in their lives is because you're around other people who are holding you accountable

00:53:10.520 to the same standard you want to live to. Their structure carved out dedicated time for worship

00:53:17.140 of God because we're busy. We get distracted and we get busy and we get frustrated and kids are

00:53:23.120 pulling on us and our boss is calling us and our clients are questioning us. And if you don't carve

00:53:27.620 out the time for that spiritual growth, the likelihood of it happening are low, if not

00:53:33.460 non-existent. So what I would do is I would say you have enough faith that church is where you

00:53:40.940 need to be. So that's a good starting point. If you didn't have any sort of faith at all,

00:53:46.580 you'd pick something else. You'd pick the Iron Council or some other men's group or the Chamber

00:53:51.400 of Commerce or Rotary, but you're not. You're picking church. Why? Because you know there's

00:53:56.500 something good there. You get structure in all sorts of places, but you know there's something

00:54:01.200 good there. So if you're contemplating, then what I would suggest to you is to start going to church

00:54:08.260 and maybe you don't have the faith that you hope you have, but do it to the nth degree.

00:54:15.720 When you go to church, bring your Bible with you. Bring a highlighter with you. When the pastor's

00:54:20.300 talking about certain passages, highlight it. If it speaks to you, dog ear it, write notes in it.

00:54:27.060 If there's no men's group, start a men's group. 0.84

00:54:30.500 When you get home and the pastor's talking about a certain passage,

00:54:33.400 sit and talk with your wife and your kids about that passage

00:54:36.040 and what they got out of church.

00:54:38.360 Wear a tie, wear a suit, dress up, show some reverence.

00:54:42.540 Be all the way in.

00:54:43.880 And I promise you, if you go all the way in,

00:54:47.620 I don't think it's possible for you not to develop more and more faith,

00:54:53.340 for that spirit to grow inside of you

00:54:55.900 even more than it is now.

00:54:57.800 But the problem most people have

00:55:00.140 is not just in church and this conversation,

00:55:03.640 but every aspect of life

00:55:04.780 is they don't go all the way in.

00:55:07.460 They open the door and they put their foot

00:55:09.800 and they're like, see, I'm here.

00:55:12.080 Dabble.

00:55:12.800 It's like, wait, are you here?

00:55:14.240 I mean, I can see your foot in the door,

00:55:15.700 but are you in here with us?

00:55:17.760 Because it doesn't look like it.

00:55:18.980 You got 70% of your body outside the door,

00:55:21.760 30% in.

00:55:22.620 you're not in. It's like being in a pool. You're either in the pool or you're not. In the pool

00:55:29.000 means about 90% of your body's in the water, maybe not your head at certain points. But I

00:55:34.520 wouldn't say if my toes in the water, I wouldn't say I'm swimming. I'm in the pool. I'm swimming

00:55:39.840 today. And my feet are just dangling in the water. That's not swimming. So if you're going to do it,

00:55:45.660 like go all the way in and then you can decide if this is for you or not for you, but you can't do

00:55:51.840 it unless you fully commit. That's the recommend. And that goes for anybody doing anything. Don't

00:55:57.360 tell me something doesn't work if you haven't gone all in. I remember years ago when I was doing

00:56:04.200 financial planning, I actually started my financial planning career with a multi-level marketing

00:56:08.400 company. And I went to a big conference, I think it was in Vegas. And there was this guy who was

00:56:13.480 really, really successful in the organization. He was very sharp, very bright, very charismatic.

00:56:18.560 and I really looked up to him. I admired him. And he got on stage and he started talking about

00:56:24.700 how powerful this business is. And he said he had a couple of brothers who tried it as well,

00:56:30.100 but they kept telling him it didn't work. And he's like, how can you tell me it doesn't work?

00:56:35.820 I'm doing it. How do you have the right and the audacity to say it doesn't work? And he said,

00:56:41.220 you know what I told my brothers? I said, no, the program works. You don't work.

00:56:45.680 there's nothing wrong with the program there's something wrong with you and that's true about

00:56:52.480 everything people say that all the time i did my lifts but i'm not getting any stronger walk me

00:56:56.960 through what you're doing of course you're doing it wrong or you're eating like junk or you're in

00:57:02.300 the gym but you're not actually training at all you can look really quickly and see that people

00:57:07.740 who say things don't work that clearly do just aren't doing the work. Yeah. No, not going all

00:57:15.860 out. All right. We got another question from Cole, uh, before we wrap up, I'm actually excited to

00:57:21.860 hear you answer this. So Cole Bergstrom, he says, I took my son on his first hunt this fall

00:57:27.200 and he froze when it came time to taking the shot. He says, I handled it badly and I pushed

00:57:33.640 too hard. How do you introduce a kid to that without making it about your ego and, and instead

00:57:40.180 about his growth? I've done this. I've done this. Has this happened to you? Like take the shot,

00:57:45.700 take the shot. And they don't. And then, and then you're frustrated. Yeah. And they're frustrated 0.97

00:57:50.080 and it's not good because if you want your kids and other people, um, to spend time with you

00:57:57.560 hunting then you better lock it in because they just won't so i i feel for you um look it's scary

00:58:04.520 man i don't know how how does his son did he say uh it's scary we we had one of our friends

00:58:11.960 we were in montana and he he's canadian and we asked is there something that you've wanted to

00:58:21.340 do here he's like oh yeah i want to smoke a cigar with you guys and i don't smoke cigars but the

00:58:25.120 rest of the guys did. So we sat around the campfire and he had his first cigar. And then we

00:58:29.500 were talking about guns and he's like, dude, I've never shot a gun. I'm like, what? All of us were

00:58:33.220 just, it's just so foreign to us that you've never even shot a gun. Like I get it if you don't shoot 0.94

00:58:40.640 guns, but never even shot one. He's like, no, I never shot one. And we're on Montana on Frank's

00:58:45.460 ranch. And I'm like, Frank, go get up a gun. So we grab a couple of guns and we go out back and,

00:58:51.660 and this guy, he's a, he's a grown man. He's a, he's a strong guy. He's bold. He's,

00:58:56.240 he's assertive. Like he's, he's a solid dude, but still, you know, you get that

00:58:59.880 hunk of metal in your hand and it's, it can be scary. It's intimidating.

00:59:04.140 And then you put it behind, you know, on the, in front of the shoulder of an eight-year-old boy

00:59:08.420 or a 10-year-old boy. That's scary, man. So try to remember that, but also introduce it in bite

00:59:14.940 sized segments you know so when my kids were first learning to shoot i got them a little um

00:59:20.700 uh what's it called a savage it's called a savage it's a little undersized uh bolt action single

00:59:28.960 shot 22 22 with with iron sights and so they would go clink targets with that like that's not scary

00:59:36.340 so they loved it and then we moved up to this little competition ruger rifle with you know 10

00:59:42.160 rounds I'd only put five in at a time and I put a red dot sight on it so whatever the red dot was

00:59:47.080 on that's what they were going to hit and they were plinking targets with that and then I moved

00:59:51.000 to let's see we've got a uh uh Henry 22 like lever action 22 that they that thing's so fun to shoot

01:00:01.740 the lever action's always cool so we shot that and then they move up and up and up and up and up

01:00:07.060 And so I'm introducing these things in bite-sized segments, and then it becomes not so intimidating or scary for them.

01:00:14.280 And then I think just the other thing is to make sure you just put yourself in their shoes.

01:00:18.460 It's really easy to say, what's the problem?

01:00:20.560 Because you don't have a problem doing it.

01:00:22.500 That's not empathy.

01:00:24.960 Empathy is saying, okay, this is an eight-year-old kid.

01:00:27.380 Like, he's never done this before.

01:00:28.920 He probably wants to impress his dad.

01:00:31.480 Maybe he doesn't want to hurt that fluffy animal that looks cute because everybody tells him, oh, you shouldn't hunt.

01:00:36.380 or mommy's, you know, coddling him. There's so many different factors going on. I remember two

01:00:42.600 years ago, I told my youngest son, I'm like, hey, bud, do you want to go on a hunt with me? He's

01:00:47.440 like, yeah. I'm like, cool. We're going to go on a pig hunt in Texas. And it got closer and closer.

01:00:51.860 And he's like, dad, I don't want to go on that. And I said, what? Why? And he's like, I don't know.

01:00:57.460 I said, are you scared? He's like, yeah, I am scared. And I said, okay. I said, are you,

01:01:02.700 do you not want to leave mom? He's like, no, I don't want to leave mom. Because that would have

01:01:06.980 been a big week long trip for him. I'm like, okay. So we talked about it. He was pretty adamant about

01:01:12.300 not wanting to go. I'm like, I'm not going to force him to go hunting with me. I mean, there

01:01:16.660 are some things I'd force him to do, but I'm not going to force him to do a week away and hunt like

01:01:21.940 I'm not going to force that. And so I said, all right, but I'll tell you what, you don't have to

01:01:26.080 go this year, but you are going to go next year with me, but we're going to work for a year to

01:01:29.840 help you be more comfortable and that was this year and we shot and we talked about it and I

01:01:36.100 went and bought camo with him he was excited about it and excited to wear it like all these little

01:01:41.880 things about the hunt leading up to the hunt is what made it so exciting for him and then we went

01:01:46.640 on the hunt and he shot the biggest boar I've ever seen it's bigger than any boar I've shot bigger

01:01:53.780 than any boar my oldest son's ever shot so he has the biggest boar in the house we just got the skull

01:01:58.580 back yesterday. But when you introduce all of those other dynamics of the hunt, that's where

01:02:04.220 it becomes exciting for a kid. And then just let go of the pressure. Just let it, it doesn't matter

01:02:10.980 if he shoots it or doesn't shoot it, if he kills it or doesn't kill it, if he pulls the trigger or 0.84

01:02:15.580 not, what matters is that you get time in a blind, you get experiences together, you get to laugh,

01:02:21.220 you get to work through boredom, you get to work through cold and the elements. That's the real

01:02:26.120 stuff of a hunt. Anyways, the shooting thing is good. You want to fill the freezer, but that's

01:02:31.260 the least of my worries when I'm with one of my kids. Yeah. I love it, man. I, I thought you were

01:02:39.120 going to go down the path of like, he's less concerned or fearful of the gun, but like this

01:02:45.100 commitment of the kill. Right. And cause even as an adult, I actually, I remember when we went on

01:02:52.660 that, um, our, my first access hunt with you, it was kind of interesting. My mindset was different.

01:02:59.880 The first few shots, it was this kind of like, Ooh, see what happens, see what happens.

01:03:06.960 And I, and I, and I probably a little bit too introspective as an individual period,

01:03:13.020 but I realized I wasn't committed to the kill. And I remember when I did get my first kill,

01:03:22.280 it was different. I remember going, I am going to kill this animal right here. Not like I'm going 0.99

01:03:29.240 to see what happens. Like this is going to happen. And, and I think literally I had a better shot

01:03:37.980 because of it. It wasn't, it wasn't this half, you know, back to the question around going to

01:03:42.520 church. It wasn't like, ah, just show up. It was like, no, I'm doing this. Yeah. It was like,

01:03:48.380 I'm doing this. And, and I had to get in the mindset of I'm doing this, not just, well, we'll

01:03:54.700 see. And, and I, it changed how I hunted and how I took the shot. I think it was much more serious.

01:04:02.580 Yeah. I hadn't really considered that at all, let alone for, for a kid, but yeah. Are you,

01:04:09.100 I mean, we know how important it is to be intentional, but are you helping your children

01:04:13.580 understand what the mission and the assignment is like hey bud when we're out there we're going 0.78

01:04:19.400 to see animals and i want you to know we're trying to kill one and then when we kill one

01:04:25.300 we're gonna break it down and it's gonna put food on the table and it's we can have fun we can we're

01:04:30.960 gonna have fun but this is also a serious game like there's consequences to it and that's what

01:04:35.820 makes it so exciting because if there wasn't consequences to it it wouldn't be as fun it

01:04:40.780 wouldn't be as engaging and so yeah maybe there is a good conversation around the expectation

01:04:46.420 yeah maybe that's actually a good point now that i'm now that you say that i'm wondering if there

01:04:51.720 was a gap in expectation for him totally like he didn't quite understand yeah and he's too high

01:04:59.160 level with it i mean i remember the first time i had my boys shoot a higher caliber rifle

01:05:04.660 where it was actually a handgun and they they immediately was like one shot and they're like

01:05:09.680 hand it back to me they're like yeah i'm done yeah right and yeah and part of that was like i

01:05:15.720 didn't help them understand like this is lethal this isn't poo poo right this is like it's legit

01:05:23.960 yeah you know and they probably would have handled a little bit better versus a single shot and i'm

01:05:28.820 like uh you know we don't want to shoot anymore plus i get i think i like literally had him shoot

01:05:33.980 a 40 you know like the first time you know it was like reckless but on my part i should have

01:05:38.840 introduced the smaller caliber, but yeah, that's funny. No, I think it's cool. You know, and I

01:05:45.540 don't know if this is his first son. I could talk about this question all day long. And I don't know

01:05:49.680 if this is his first son or multiple kids, but I know that my youngest son, he's been around

01:05:57.760 hunting for his entire life. I started hunting 11, no nine or 10 years ago. So just about his

01:06:05.300 entire life and he's seen his brothers kill animals and he's seen me talk about hunting

01:06:10.260 stories and there's heads in the house there's like 20 something heads in my house uh literally

01:06:16.160 there are that many i've counted them and like he's been around it so they're like he knows what

01:06:24.300 we're doing and that familiarity i think made it a more easy thing and he was funny too he was like

01:06:31.800 laughing at the guy like some of the guys missed shots and he's like what he's laughing that they

01:06:36.860 missed their shot and he's like this one guy missed a couple shots he's like it's like they

01:06:43.000 keep putting this guy out on the hot spots and he keeps missing shots he's like if i sat there i'd

01:06:48.160 hit it in the first shot i'm like easy there slugger like let's see how it goes and we get

01:06:53.840 into this block this blind and he's like dad there he is and i'm like yeah there he is and 0.98

01:06:59.920 he's like, should I shoot him? I'm like, no, wait, like, hold on. And he's like, now I'm like, no, 1.00

01:07:05.120 can you even see him? He's like, no, he's behind the feeder. I'm like, well, no, then don't shoot

01:07:09.280 him. Right. And you can't even see him. And he's like, oh yeah. And I'm like, just wait, he's going

01:07:14.240 to come out. And when he turns sideways, broadside, wait till he settles down and puts his head down

01:07:19.020 and then put one in his ear. He's like, okay. He's like, I'll count to three. I'm like, you don't

01:07:23.500 need to count to three. I'm ready. You just take the shot when you feel comfortable, nice and slow,

01:07:27.640 take a breath and he's like are you ready i'm like i'm ready and he took that shot 120 ish yards 0.91

01:07:35.560 and put one right in that ear hole and drop that i pig dropped right there headshot oh so awesome

01:07:41.440 yeah so awesome i love it anyways all right brother i mean call to action is always gentlemen

01:07:47.240 you know we had a couple questions around the circle right it's like we got one of those it's

01:07:52.820 called the iron council like-minded men focus on becoming better versions of themselves trickled in

01:07:58.640 with some solid accountability and order and structure so yeah to learn more about the iron

01:08:03.560 council uh go to the ironcouncil.com and as always connect with mr mickler on the socials at ryan

01:08:09.840 mickler both on x and the gram anything else sir that's it i'm looking forward to seeing you guys

01:08:15.660 in the iron council keep the conversations going and the questions coming uh we let's see

01:08:20.840 interview that just came out is with mike glover so make sure you check that one out

01:08:26.540 and then i also had a really good one last week with george from the 10 men that was very

01:08:31.100 enlightening as well so make sure you subscribe check it out on youtube youtube.com slash order

01:08:36.320 of man and stay plugged in and connected all right guys go out there take action and become

01:08:40.720 the man you are meant to be thank you for listening to the order of man podcast you're

01:08:46.040 ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be we invite you

01:08:50.440 to join the order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - July 01, 2026

How to Build Purpose, Find Friends Who Support Sobriety, and Hold Brothers Accountable ｜ ASK ME ANYTHING

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