How to Harness Your Emotions ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
182.62471
Summary
In this episode, Ryan Michler discusses the importance of emotions and how they can be harnessed in order to be a better man. He uses an analogy to explain why emotions are actually important and how to harness them.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart
00:00:04.980
your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.
00:00:10.420
You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who
00:00:17.220
you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,
00:00:22.780
you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler,
00:00:27.760
and I am the host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement. I want to welcome you
00:00:32.600
here. I don't care how long you've been here. It doesn't matter to me. If you're here, you're here.
00:00:37.220
If you're a man, you want to improve, you want to get better, you want to make yourself more capable,
00:00:41.120
then we've got the tools, the resources, the conversations, the outlets you need to be able
00:00:45.800
to do just that. And I've got an important one for you today because you know as well as I do
00:00:51.140
that we live in, I was going to say interesting times. That's not the right word. Insane would be
00:00:57.460
more accurate. We've got children dictating the tone of the conversation, the tone of culture.
00:01:04.120
We've got elected officials who are cowardly and spineless and unwilling to do anything about it.
00:01:10.840
We've got citizens who are taking matters into their own hands and rightfully so, and then being
00:01:18.200
faced with either some sort of public ridicule or shame or doxing or even legal ramifications and
00:01:26.680
actions. Uh, and it's clear to me that we have a huge, huge discrepancy in the type of men
00:01:35.580
collectively. We know we can be that we should be that people are relying upon us to be. And
00:01:42.660
the fact that there just doesn't seem to be very men, many men in positions of authority and power who
00:01:50.220
are doing, uh, the work of men. So it's on us, it's on us to be able to step up and to do what
00:01:57.380
needs to be done to take back society, to take back culture, to be able to dictate the tone of
00:02:01.480
the conversation and, uh, to be able to lead our families and our communities and neighborhoods
00:02:06.220
effectively. And one of the things that I think is the biggest challenge to us doing that is allowing
00:02:13.620
our emotions to get the better of us. Obviously we live in emotionally turbulent and charged times.
00:02:19.980
People are riled up and upset. And some of that might be justified, but the way that I've seen
00:02:25.320
people react and behave and lash out is not indicative of what it means to be a man, but more indicative of
00:02:34.680
what it means to be a boy who has no control over his emotional response, reaction, and outburst.
00:02:44.540
So today, what I thought I'd do is share with you why, why emotions are actually important.
00:02:49.940
There seems to be a lot of misconceptions behind what emotions are and how they can serve us, because
00:02:54.760
I'm not telling you not to be emotional. That's taking things to the extreme on the other end,
00:02:59.780
overly emotional versus, uh, not emotional at all. And I'm not saying that. And I don't think anybody
00:03:06.560
generally speaking, who, who talks about being able to control your emotions is to tell, is telling
00:03:12.580
you to suppress your emotions. That's not what this is about. But I think there is a general belief
00:03:19.040
that somehow, if you're saying, don't be overly emotional, that it's interpreted as don't be emotional
00:03:26.380
at all, at all, that men aren't allowed to express their emotions. And nobody's actually saying that.
00:03:32.040
All right. What, what I'm suggesting to you, when I say something like, don't be overly emotional or
00:03:37.260
don't react or respond emotionally is not that it's not present, but that you use your emotions in a way
00:03:43.720
that's actually going to serve you and your best interest and the best interest of the people that
00:03:48.300
you have an obligation and responsibility for. And we do that not by dismissing what our emotions are
00:03:54.020
signifying to us, but we do that by embracing it and then creating and coming up with a better course
00:03:59.360
of action that will propel and move us forward. So in, in my book sovereignty that I wrote or released
00:04:05.640
in February of 2017, I think that's right. 2017 or maybe 2018. I don't know. It blends all together
00:04:14.260
at this point. Uh, I talked about an analogy that I wanted to share with you here today so that you and
00:04:20.240
I can wrap our heads around where our emotions come into play and why it's so important and the analogy
00:04:24.920
or the metaphor, whatever it is that I use regarding your emotions is like a dashboard on your car
00:04:36.340
vehicle. You've got the speedometer, you've got the odometer, you've got the fuel gauge, you've got
00:04:40.540
the oil light, you've got all these little, little indicators telling you if your engine is working
00:04:45.460
right. And my wife and I had just bought a, uh, a new suburban, uh, about a week, week and a half ago.
00:04:52.380
And we went on a little vacation for not only our anniversary, but with the kids as well for the
00:04:57.140
past three or four days. As of this recording, it was, uh, just, just a couple of days ago.
00:05:02.220
And, uh, we, we felt a noise or we heard a noise and we felt a little bump as we were driving in our
00:05:08.480
new suburban and we weren't quite sure what it was. And both of us looked at each other like,
00:05:11.500
what was that? And immediately my eyes were drawn to the dashboard, right? Because you want to look
00:05:17.900
at the dashboard and say, okay, are, are we still going the same speed? Is the engine getting hot?
00:05:22.160
Are there any check engine lights that have come on? Are there any indicators on this dashboard
00:05:26.600
that would tell us or signify that something is off, that something is wrong? And if there was,
00:05:31.960
then we would respond and we would react accordingly. Well, your emotions are the same.
00:05:36.560
If for example, you're driving down the road and you notice that, uh, the, the fuel, the,
00:05:43.320
the fuel gauge comes on or the little, the, the beep comes on and says, you're, you're running low
00:05:47.260
on gas. What would you do? Well, you, you'd pull over at the next gas station and you'd go to the gas
00:05:53.160
pump and you'd fill up gas. And then you'd put the gas cap back on and you'd get on the road and
00:05:57.380
you'd go about your day, but it certainly wouldn't derail you, right? It wouldn't cripple you.
00:06:03.380
It wouldn't ruin you. You wouldn't get mad at the car for running out of gas. You would just say,
00:06:07.780
Hey, I need to make a correction here. I need to fill the gas up. And here we go.
00:06:11.300
If the little check engine light came on, you, you wouldn't get like pissed, right? Because that
00:06:18.300
would be unreasonable. You would take it to your mechanic or you would look it up yourself and
00:06:23.560
you would figure out what is going on. You'd get under the hood. You'd explore, you dive in a little
00:06:29.680
bit deeper, figure out, okay, what is it that's going on here? And then what is my course of
00:06:34.540
action to fix it so that I can maintain the vehicle and I can continue doing what it is I need to be
00:06:39.400
doing. Those are your emotions. All right. So we get upset and we get pissed off and we get fired up
00:06:45.120
and we get mad and we get all these things. And then we, we get out of control and then we end up
00:06:50.960
not helping ourselves, but undermining our efforts because we freak out.
00:06:55.180
And what we need to realize is that our emotions are there to serve us. Even the so-called negative
00:07:01.640
emotions that you'll hear people talk about anger or sorrow or guilt or remorse or jealousy or envy.
00:07:11.520
You'll hear people talk about these things as if they're negative. Well, they're not negative,
00:07:15.240
right? You wouldn't consider any of the gauges on your dashboard as negative.
00:07:20.760
They're, they're, they're amoral. They're not good nor bad. They just are. And if you as a man can
00:07:31.240
look at your emotions as, as a tool, not the only tool, because if you're building a house and you
00:07:38.600
need a hammer and all you have is a screwdriver, well, you're out of luck. I mean, maybe you could
00:07:44.160
like whack it with the end of the screwdriver, but it's going to take you a really long time and it's not
00:07:47.940
going to be built very well. So what you need is another tool in the tool belt. And that's what
00:07:52.980
emotions are. They're a another tool. They're not the only tool. And that is what the problem is in
00:08:01.060
society is that so many people are reacting based solely off emotion. This is why I actually like
00:08:09.880
what Ben Shapiro says when he says facts don't care about your feelings. Rationale and logic and
00:08:18.340
critical thinking are another tool. Again, not the only tool because your emotions should be taken
00:08:24.200
into consideration, but clear level-headed thinking, facts, statistic, data, information,
00:08:33.240
resources, all these things. These are tools and your emotions are tools. And when you're building
00:08:40.920
a house, you need to know what tool needs to be used, but you're not going to be upset
00:08:45.540
that you have a screwdriver. You're going to be upset that you don't have this other tool, right? So
00:08:50.120
you've got to develop the tools. You've got to harness your emotions so that you can produce
00:08:55.540
effective outcomes for everybody involved. And the first step is to realize that they're not,
00:09:02.220
your emotions aren't there to hinder you. So this isn't some, you know, people like to talk about
00:09:08.100
toxic masculinity, which we've talked about and I'll probably talk about again. And like, I don't,
00:09:11.740
I dismiss that term, but when people say that, what part of what they're saying is that men believe
00:09:18.220
they need to reject and dismiss their emotions altogether. And I actually believe that there's
00:09:22.640
a lot of men who do think that, that we can't be emotional at all. Well, that's not true.
00:09:29.660
I get emotional. I get angry. I get upset. I get sad. I get happy. I get teary eyed from time to
00:09:37.400
time. If I'm dealing with something emotional, I see one of my kids do something or say something
00:09:40.900
to me or give me a gift or something's touching, or I lose a loved one or a friend. Like I get
00:09:46.500
emotional, but not to the point where it hinders my ability to do what I need to do.
00:09:52.580
And that's the difference. See so many people in society and culture today, and these are,
00:09:58.320
these are children and I don't care what age they are. These could be grown people and they're
00:10:03.020
acting like children because they're letting their emotion dictate as the sole indicator,
00:10:09.080
their response. And what I'm suggesting to you is not again, that we dismiss it completely
00:10:13.660
and not that we embrace it solely, but that we use it. We use it. So here's the first step.
00:10:22.660
You got to understand that if your emotions are there to serve you, even like I said, a minute
00:10:26.540
ago, the so-called negative ones, then you've got to ask yourself when you feel that you're getting
00:10:31.940
emotional. And by the way, this takes margin in your day. Most of us don't have this margin.
00:10:39.200
Like think about how consumed your day is. Think about how backed up it is. And if you have any
00:10:45.000
spare time at all, what do you do? You jump on your phone, right? And you waste it on your phone.
00:10:51.120
But what if instead you had checkpoints throughout your day where you just gave yourself an opportunity
00:10:55.540
to take a step back, to evaluate the situation, evaluate how you're feeling. Just like if you're
00:11:01.460
driving down the road, occasionally you glance at your speedometer and you say, okay, how fast am I
00:11:05.100
going? Or you glance at your fuel gauge? How much fuel do I have? Well, you need to do that in your
00:11:10.560
life with your emotions, right? So throughout the day, if you notice yourself getting fired up, heated
00:11:15.440
up, angry, happy, sad, glad, mad, whatever, then you need to take a step back so that you can say,
00:11:22.640
all right, what is it that's causing this? Instead of just being so reactionary, respond instead.
00:11:29.840
The difference between reaction and response. Reaction is not thinking. It's just intuitively,
00:11:35.960
instinctively like, I'm pissed. Address it. I'm pissed. Yell at somebody. I feel bad. Be upset
00:11:42.440
and ruin your day, right? Response on the other hand is more of a mature level-headed approach. Like
00:11:48.040
I'm pissed. What am I pissed off about? Okay. Now you're acting more maturely.
00:11:55.020
So if you're angry about something, it's okay. Actually, anger might be the right emotion.
00:12:02.600
People say, oh, don't get angry. Why? There are certain things you should be angry about.
00:12:07.760
Or if you feel guilt for not performing the way you should or doing something you shouldn't or not
00:12:12.800
honoring your word and upholding what it is you said you were going to do, then guilt is actually
00:12:17.040
the right emotion to be experiencing. Now we don't want to dwell in this forever. We don't want to be
00:12:24.560
guilty about something forever because then it turns into anxiety. It turns into depression and
00:12:33.260
potentially even turns into suicidal thoughts. And this is what a lot of men are missing.
00:12:38.920
They're missing the bridge between emotion and response. So they get caught up in this emotional
00:12:45.760
feedback loop. So for example, they make a commitment to themselves or maybe even their spouse.
00:12:53.100
And they slip up, they screw up, they mess up and they step out on their spouse. They step out on
00:13:01.000
their wife and sleep with another woman, get involved with another woman in some way.
00:13:06.080
And they realize it's wrong. They realize it's bad. And so now they feel guilty about it.
00:13:11.160
But instead of using the guilt as an appropriate respond and way to move forward,
00:13:17.120
now they feel bad about being guilty. And then they want to hide the guilt instead of deal with it.
00:13:22.520
So they get into mediums of sedation is what I'll call them, whether it's alcohol or drug use or
00:13:32.400
pornography, or just withdrawing from your responsibilities altogether. These are, these are
00:13:39.480
mediums of escape. And so now, you know, you shouldn't be doing something. You did it. You
00:13:48.060
feel guilty about it. Now you're going to sedate the guilt by getting involved with these things that
00:13:52.020
can cover up and hide. And you know, you're still not addressing the root issue, which is being a man
00:13:56.620
of your word, which is owning up to your mistakes and your shortcomings, and then correcting the behavior
00:14:02.220
moving forward. That's what, you know, you should do, but you got into this emotional loop. And, and,
00:14:09.760
and it's, it's just like a cycle. You never get out of it. Instead, what you need to do is you need
00:14:17.600
to deal with it in a healthy way, which is okay. I feel guilty because I did this thing. Now, instead
00:14:22.620
of sedating myself, I'm going to address it. I'm going to make amends. I'm going to fix the situation.
00:14:28.300
I'm going to tell the truth to potentially my spouse about what happened, which is obviously
00:14:35.780
very uncomfortable and very difficult or the, or alternatively, you could never do it and completely
00:14:41.900
ruin your life because you're stuck in this emotional loop. So emotions are just a, a trigger
00:14:53.540
So if you're feeling angry or you're feeling remorseful, or you're feeling guilty, or you're
00:15:00.500
feeling happy, the first step is to ask yourself, what is it that I'm experiencing? Fill in the
00:15:07.580
blank with your emotion. Why am I feeling that way? If it's a, if it's a positive, if it's a net gain
00:15:14.840
to your life, then congratulations. You just figured out something that makes you happy.
00:15:18.700
Something that makes you proud, something that fulfills you or makes you satisfied.
00:15:26.340
A great example would be going to the gym. You get up early. You don't want to get up because
00:15:30.720
you're in the warm bed. Your wife's next to you. You want to get a few more wings. Like it's,
00:15:34.080
it's better in the short term to stay in bed, but you decide because you're a man of your word.
00:15:40.540
You made the commitment to do it, to get out of bed, to go into the gym and go work out and go train
00:15:44.780
or do whatever it is you're going to do physical. And you're exhausted and you're beat down and it
00:15:49.380
takes you a minute to get going, but finally you get going and then you get done with the workout
00:15:52.320
and you feel better about yourself. But don't let that stop there. You feel pride. You feel
00:15:58.820
accomplishment. You feel satisfied. You feel fulfilled and energized and uplifted. And most of us just dismiss
00:16:05.360
it. Like we don't give it a second thought, but we need to connect those dots. The dots that need to
00:16:12.820
be connected are a feeling of pride, satisfaction, fulfillment, worth with going to the gym.
00:16:19.660
And if you give yourself the margin and the space to actually think about that and let your mind
00:16:23.520
hardwire, quite literally hardwire those connections, gym feels good, right? Gym equals feels good.
00:16:31.820
Then you're more likely to do it next time when you have the desire to shirk off, to sleep in a little
00:16:36.620
bit longer than you'd like those type of things. So again, the first step is to give yourself the
00:16:43.460
margin and start thinking about or answering the question. Why do I feel this way? Why do I feel
00:16:50.860
this way? If it's positive, good, keep doing it. If it's negative, now you start coming up with some
00:16:58.040
solutions. And I'm not going to tell you all the solutions or how to get into that right now. And not
00:17:03.060
for the sake of time necessarily, but just because there's so many variabilities, but I want you to
00:17:07.680
start looking at emotions differently. Instead of thinking that this is a great hindrance to you,
00:17:15.060
that you consider that your emotions are a great help. And look, whether you believe in creation or
00:17:21.880
evolution or somewhere in between or a combination of both, like we would not have our emotions if they
00:17:27.380
didn't serve us in some capacity, but like everything, things can be taken to the extreme.
00:17:33.700
And when they're taken to the extreme, it becomes unhealthy and your emotions taken to the extreme
00:17:39.540
can become unhealthy, but use correctly can be a very healthy medium and outlet for you improving your
00:17:49.300
life and for helping other people improve their lives. So my call to you today guys is to not be
00:17:56.860
so emotional, I should say emotionally reactionary. And instead, as you become emotional,
00:18:05.860
take a step back, pause, timeout, withdrawal. If you're in a heated debate and argument,
00:18:11.700
you get pissed off, like don't keep going. That's the exact wrong thing to do. It's like, well,
00:18:16.540
timeout, let me take a step back. Maybe that's 15 minutes. Maybe that's a full day or longer.
00:18:23.320
Don't withdraw altogether. That's where we get into the sedation thing and the emotional
00:18:26.540
loop that I was talking about, but you withdraw temporarily. So you can wrap your head around
00:18:32.200
why you're feeling this way and use the emotion of anger, fear, whatever, as a tool, not the only
00:18:37.680
tool, as a tool to combine it with rational, clear, level-headed thinking. And then you can
00:18:44.700
re-engage in the situation. Whether it's an argument with your wife, conversation with your boss,
00:18:50.880
you falling short of your expectations, you feeling bad because you did or did not do something that
00:18:56.380
you knew you should not be doing. Then you re-engage and you create a new course of action
00:19:02.480
and your emotions can be a big help in that. This is how we harness these things. This is how we use
00:19:09.420
the tools at our disposal to become more effective men, to lead effectively, to lead ourselves effectively,
00:19:14.500
to lose weight, to honor our commitments, to stand strong when we're tempted to waver,
00:19:22.300
when other people might be ridiculing or mocking or belittling what it is you're doing.
00:19:26.680
These are ways that you can act on the courage that you feel and all the emotions, the range of
00:19:32.100
emotions that we experience as men. Guys, don't allow yourself not to be emotional. It's not what it's
00:19:39.660
about. It's about not being emotionally reactional and instead learning to respond in a mature,
00:19:48.860
healthy way to the emotions that you're feeling, that you're experiencing, and then allowing those
00:19:53.200
things to produce positive results for you. All right? So connect with me, guys. Connect with me
00:19:58.440
on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, wherever you're doing the social media thing. Parler is a new app.
00:20:02.500
I'm on there as well. All at Ryan Mickler. Let me know how you're using your emotions, how you're
00:20:07.280
harnessing your emotions for the betterment of yourself and your family and your loved ones.
00:20:12.680
I think this is a conversation that we need to have more often because it seems like there's
00:20:16.700
two sides to the equation or two teams, like the no emotion ever, which obviously is just not possible.
00:20:24.680
And the overly emotional, which is just react to the emotion and just make stupid decisions based on
00:20:31.520
the solely on the emotions that you're experiencing. So let me know what's working for you.
00:20:37.280
Also, we've got a new course available. If you're not familiar with it, it's called 30 days to battle
00:20:40.960
ready. It's free. It's a 30 day course. You'll get a bunch of emails from me walking you through
00:20:45.820
four phases to develop the discipline. That's what guys are really needing in my experience and what
00:20:51.780
I've seen and what they've communicated with me is just developing the discipline to do what they know
00:20:56.720
they should be doing. Like guys, you all know what you should be doing. You have goals, you have
00:21:01.300
ambitions, you know what it is you should be doing, but there's so many of you who are lacking
00:21:06.640
the discipline to be able to follow through and carry through with the things that you know,
00:21:10.820
you should be doing. This course is going to walk you through the four phases to develop the systems
00:21:16.200
for discipline and exerting willpower so that you can accomplish what you want to accomplish.
00:21:21.160
If you head to order of man.com slash battle ready, you can check it out and access it.
00:21:27.280
It's immediate access. So once you drop your email in there, you're going to get an email
00:21:30.400
for me explaining the first steps and we're off to the races. So guys, learn how to harness your
00:21:35.160
emotions, connect into the battle ready program. Um, we've also got a lot of new merchandise in our
00:21:41.060
store store.orderofman.com is a great way, not only to support what we're doing, but to look good in
00:21:45.740
the process. We've got our battle planners in stock. We've got a new kids battle planner coming
00:21:49.800
down the pike here within the next, I would say two to three weeks. So we've got a lot going on.
00:21:54.800
Uh, and I just want to tell you that I appreciate you, that I thank you for being in this battle in
00:21:58.640
this fight with me. Uh, and it is battle. I use that term deliberately. That's not just hyperbole.
00:22:03.960
It's a battle. It's a battle against your, your weaker self. It's a battle for your family,
00:22:08.360
for our society, for our culture, for our country, for crying out loud right now. It's a battle for
00:22:13.280
everything. And if you approach it with that mindset, I think you're going to equip
00:22:15.640
yourself with what you need to thrive and succeed and win, win the battle. All right, guys, we'll be
00:22:20.780
back next week for another exciting interview. Make sure you subscribed, but until then go out
00:22:25.520
there, harness your emotions, harness them. Don't subdue them. Don't react to them, harness them
00:22:33.240
and respond correctly. Anyways, come to man, you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order
00:22:39.680
of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.
00:22:44.900
We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.