Order of Man - How Your Future Self Can Guide You ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

00:00:00.000 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart

00:00:05.000 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

00:00:17.200 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.740 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, welcome to the Order of Man podcast. It's good to be

00:00:27.800 with you today. My name is Ryan Michler. I'm the host and founder of the Order of Man podcast and

00:00:32.780 movement. And we are a movement designed to help give you all the tools and resources as a man that

00:00:38.860 you need to thrive in your business, your family, your community, and every facet of life in which

00:00:43.320 you're operating. This podcast is specifically designed to give you information and resources

00:00:49.600 and conversations from some incredible men, guys like Tim Tebow and Tim Kennedy and Terry Cruz and

00:00:56.580 Matthew McConaughey and Ben Shapiro and Andy Priscilla and Grant Cardone and Jocko Willink,

00:01:02.360 David Goggins. By now, you know some of the guys that we've had on. Over 450 men that we've

00:01:07.860 interviewed on this podcast now. So I hope that you're getting some value from those conversations

00:01:12.800 and from what these guys have to offer. Today, I want to talk with you about the concept of

00:01:17.640 allowing your future self to guide you. Now, I don't want to say that just because you're

00:01:22.580 allowing yourself to guide your decision-making process. That's the only thing you need to be

00:01:27.320 doing. We need to be enlisting the help of others. We need experts in our lives. We need coaches and

00:01:32.080 mentors and friends along the path. We need to make those good decisions. But there's ways that we can

00:01:37.020 make our own decisions. And we can do it with confidence. And we can make correct and accurate

00:01:41.920 decisions that are going to fulfill and add meaning to our lives and the lives of the people that we care

00:01:46.460 about. This isn't some woo-woo type nonsense. And I'm not going to get into weird stuff like that.

00:01:51.620 There are some key strategies that you can employ. And I'm going to share with you four specific

00:01:56.100 strategies that you can use to allow your future self to guide you. Before I get into that, I just

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00:02:38.860 All right, guys, let's get into it. What I'm talking about today when I talk about the concept of

00:02:43.300 allowing your future self to guide you is really a practice in consciousness. And we are the only

00:02:48.760 species on the planet that can actually do this. A great example of this is waking up one day and

00:02:54.480 deciding that you want to change your behavior simply because you want to. The rest of the animal

00:03:00.040 kingdom can't do that. They make decisions on instinct. They're not even decisions really,

00:03:04.640 but they make these decisions on instinct, on breeding, on genetics, and they do not have the

00:03:10.480 ability to change simply because they want to. It's all reactionary to their environment.

00:03:15.940 An example of this might be me hunting in Hawaii, hunting axis deer. If you've ever hunted axis deer,

00:03:22.180 you know how challenging of a hunt it is. These animals are crazy. And for whatever reason,

00:03:26.640 they go left when you want them to go right. They go right when you want them to go left.

00:03:30.420 If they show up one day down there and you go there the very next day, they're going to show up

00:03:34.020 somewhere else. They're not actively and consciously making the decision to avoid you as a hunter.

00:03:39.020 They're picking up on subtle cues with their genetics, with their training and their conditioning,

00:03:45.180 with things that are just instinctive in their DNA. And that's why they're able to stay alive.

00:03:51.100 These deer are from India. And so they are genetically built to escape and evade tigers. And so they can pick

00:04:02.020 up on subtle, small little movements. They're very twitchy. They're very fast. They're very turned on

00:04:07.440 because they need to be able to avoid getting eaten. Okay. That's not consciousness. That's just

00:04:13.100 instinct. Now, a lot of the way that we operate as men in our lives is instinctual. You might get into

00:04:18.820 an argument with your significant other, for example, and not really know why whatever that

00:04:23.200 person said is triggering or upsetting to you. Something happened in your past and you're now

00:04:28.280 equating that conversation or those words that she might be using with something that you experienced

00:04:33.600 in the past. You're not actually making that decision. It's now hardwired into your brain to

00:04:39.240 be on alert, to be triggered, to respond in a way that may not be favorable to you because you're

00:04:45.320 trying to keep yourself safe. That is not an active decision-making process. But deciding that you're

00:04:51.900 going to go to the gym today, you don't want to. You don't want to get out of bed. You're warm.

00:04:55.840 Your wife's there next to you. You're lazy. Maybe you had a rough night and you don't want to get out 0.99

00:05:00.620 of the gym or out of the bed to go to the gym, but you do anyways. And you do it because you know

00:05:06.120 over the long haul, it's going to make you faster, bigger, stronger, more effective, give you more

00:05:13.480 focus, more clarity, more energy. And so you're actively deciding that that's what you're going to

00:05:18.380 do, even though every other part of your body is telling you that you don't want to go to the gym.

00:05:26.900 Same thing with your financial situation. I'm going to decide to take a specific course

00:05:32.360 so that I can be more valuable in the marketplace, so that I can make more money, so that I can put

00:05:37.900 food on the table or create experiences for myself and other people. Those are active decisions.

00:05:43.020 That's consciousness. Another beautiful way to look at this is that we have the ability as human beings

00:05:48.380 to escape our own situation and look at the situation we find ourselves in objectively.

00:05:54.860 So for example, if you are in that argument with your spouse, instead of getting heated and

00:05:59.980 reactionary, like I do, like we all do, you can pause and take a step back and evaluate it almost

00:06:06.200 from a different position and look at how you're responding, look at how you're behaving, look at

00:06:11.240 how you're reacting and choose deliberately and intentionally to make different choices with

00:06:16.400 regards to that conversation. This is consciousness. It is so powerful if we use it correctly.

00:06:22.820 One question I'm often met with as I share my insight and hear from other guests is from men

00:06:29.960 who are trying to make a decision about their future lives. So for example, it might be they're

00:06:35.380 in a job that they're not real satisfied with, but they make great money and they're able to stay

00:06:41.000 close to home and they get another job offer. And that second job offer is one where they may not

00:06:46.880 make as much initially and they may have to travel, but it's their dream job and they want to pursue

00:06:53.260 it. And there's really a lot of room for growth in that new job, even though they'll take a cut now

00:06:57.760 or have to travel and be away from their family for a period of time. So which one do you go with?

00:07:03.120 That's a question I can't answer for somebody. I can't tell you that you should do A or B. I don't

00:07:07.700 know you. It's not my place to tell you what's best for you. But the bit of advice that I've offered in

00:07:12.500 the past, and this highlights and underscores the power of consciousness, is this is the question.

00:07:18.540 If you were to fast forward in your life 20 years, looking back on the decision that you're making

00:07:24.900 now and that 20-year timeframe, which decision will you be happy that you went with? So again,

00:07:32.520 fast forward 20 years, looking back on your life over 20 years, which decision will you be happy that

00:07:38.620 you made? That is an exercise in consciousness. You're putting your mind and your soul in another

00:07:44.360 position, 20 years older, different facet of your life, and you're looking at the problem or the

00:07:49.560 dilemma or the choice that you have in this case from a different perspective. Even though it's still

00:07:54.000 you, it's a different perspective. It's a different part of you that's looking back on it. And that's

00:07:59.020 going to lead you to making, in this case, a better long-term decision instead of the temporary,

00:08:05.220 here's how I feel about it. This is consciousness. Guys, there's one more point that I want to share

00:08:11.620 with you before I get into the four bullet points. And that is this notion that we constantly hear

00:08:16.320 that comparison is the thief of joy. Comparison is the thief of joy. It might be if you're comparing

00:08:23.060 yourself and it's debilitating you. It's keeping you from progressing. It's keeping you from moving

00:08:28.280 forward. It's deflating you. It's demoralizing you because of where you are and the gap, the distance

00:08:34.340 between where that individual is and where you are is so great that you can't see yourself

00:08:38.680 navigating that gap. But there is an opportunity when you're looking at other people to recognize

00:08:47.700 what is now possible. The often example that we hear is the first man who ever broke the four-minute

00:08:54.080 mile. People said it wasn't possible. Well, he proved that it was. And within a very short window of

00:09:00.420 time, two or three other individuals were able to hit that four-minute mile because somebody

00:09:05.220 unlocked that achievement. Somebody did it and showed that it was possible. And because other

00:09:10.440 people knew it was possible, it made it easier for them to go ahead and do that.

00:09:14.980 So when I'm looking at podcast guests, for example, or I'm looking at other podcasters or businesses that

00:09:20.720 I admire, I'm not looking at them from a demoralized position. I'm looking at that individual and

00:09:25.620 thinking if that person can do what they're doing, then I can certainly change the way I'm doing

00:09:31.500 things or invest or go more fully into something or pull back from another thing and create a similar

00:09:37.280 result in my own life. This illustrates the concept of consciousness because now we're looking at

00:09:43.000 somebody else or something else to show us what's possible. We're going to get out of our head.

00:09:48.920 We're going to get out of the box that we've created. All the narratives go away and all the baggage

00:09:53.660 and bullshit that we've held onto in our lives is dissipated because it doesn't exist in another 0.98

00:09:58.120 person. That person doesn't have the same baggage that you do. That future self is going to have a 0.98

00:10:05.120 different set of ideas than you currently do because you're in the middle of the mud and the 0.90

00:10:09.500 muck and everything else that you're dealing with right now. We have to exercise consciousness if

00:10:14.420 we're going to allow our future selves to guide us. So let's get to the four points that I wanted to

00:10:19.840 share with you. Number one is we have to have some level of vision. How much time as men do you spend

00:10:25.860 thinking about what do I want? What do I want my life to look like? What do I want to have

00:10:30.720 accomplished? If I'm on my deathbed or I'm dead and somebody's giving me the eulogy over my body,

00:10:37.980 what would I want them to say? What would I want other people to feel? How many people would I want to

00:10:42.720 show up? What would they all think about me? What would my legacy be? When I'm in difficult and

00:10:48.320 challenging circumstances, how does the man I want to be show up? What does he look like? What is he

00:10:52.460 dressed as? What car does he drive? Where does he live? What does his house look like? What is

00:10:57.880 his family dynamic? Guys, we have to spend time thinking about what we want. If you don't know what

00:11:03.460 you want, which is most people, by the way, then we live lives based on what other people want.

00:11:10.500 So think about your day. You get up at a certain time. Why do you get up at the time that you get up?

00:11:15.060 Many of you, if you're being honest, say, well, that's the time I have to go to work.

00:11:18.440 Right. Listen to that for a second. You get up at a certain time with just enough time to get ready

00:11:24.080 so you can drive into work. And what does that signify? That means that somebody else likely,

00:11:30.500 whether it was a boss or a client, told you that you had to be at the office at that time.

00:11:36.980 Now that may align with your goals and visions, but for many of you, it doesn't.

00:11:40.620 And you're not happy about it, but you're not casting any vision in your own life. And so you're left

00:11:44.960 with dealing with your boss's vision of you and his workforce being there at eight or nine

00:11:49.700 o'clock in the morning to do the work that you're doing. That's somebody else's decision.

00:11:55.960 Guys, it needs to be your decision. And I'm not saying that all of you should quit right now and

00:12:00.280 you shouldn't do that because sometimes going into the office at 9am to do our work aligns with our

00:12:05.920 vision. So for example, if you really are satisfied with the work that you're doing,

00:12:10.360 then the boss having you there at eight o'clock in the morning aligns with the work you're excited

00:12:14.800 to do. If you like it enough and you're making great income and that income is important to you

00:12:19.900 because you have some stability within your paycheck and you get paid every two weeks and you get your

00:12:25.800 two weeks a year and that happens to align with your vision. Great. Who am I to say you shouldn't do

00:12:30.880 that? What I am telling you though, is if you don't have vision for yourself and you're just operating

00:12:35.860 at a default mode instead of by design, your design, you're going to have a problem with

00:12:40.920 consciousness. You're going to wake up, you're going to be tossed to and fro based on what other

00:12:45.240 people desire and want from you. And your life is going to hold no meaning or purpose because you

00:12:49.360 haven't given it any. So we need to spend a lot more time. And I would suggest doing this on a daily

00:12:55.260 basis. I'm not saying write out this, this life vision every single day, but what I would say

00:13:00.540 is that every single day you're going to think about what am I going to accomplish today?

00:13:05.080 What am I going to accomplish this week? What ultimate objective or goal is this leading me

00:13:09.700 to? How is this helping me become the type of man that I want to become? And I spend about five to

00:13:14.580 10 minutes every single day, visualizing my day, my week, my year and my life and how today this

00:13:20.900 moment plays into that. Number two, in addition to this, and I would say part of this is you ought to

00:13:26.780 have a journal somewhere. If you can take a journal out and you can start documenting what you want,

00:13:33.060 what the person you want to be looks like, the car he drives, the relationship he has,

00:13:38.740 the conversations he's having, the things he does for fun, the places he's went on vacation,

00:13:43.400 the way he handles stress, the way he overcomes hardship, what kind of hardships he's dealing with,

00:13:49.420 everything that you possibly can. And you're journaling on a daily basis. This is going to be a

00:13:54.280 powerful exercise in getting ideas out of your brain and onto paper so that you can look at it more

00:14:00.640 objectively. The data suggest that if you write down these types of things, they are more likely

00:14:07.680 to come to fruition, whether it's vision casting, goal planning. Andrew Huberman did a great podcast

00:14:14.040 last week, I believe, or maybe two weeks ago on the science of goal setting. What was interesting

00:14:19.260 is a lot of his work and what he talked about in that podcast aligned perfectly, almost identically

00:14:25.060 with what we've created with our 12-week battle planning system. If you've listened to that podcast,

00:14:29.280 you know it's strikingly similar to what we've created. The science and the data suggest that

00:14:35.140 if you write stuff down, it's more likely to happen. So now you're going to write things down.

00:14:41.000 How did your day go? What did you do well? What didn't go so well? What were the pain points and

00:14:46.500 the frustrations and the problems that you dealt with? How did you overcome them? How did you handle

00:14:50.860 yourself? If you got into an argument or a disagreement or an altercation with somebody,

00:14:54.820 replay that. Did you do that exactly how you wanted to do it? Probably not. But now you have

00:15:00.700 a chance to go back and look at it. So the next time you get into an argument with somebody,

00:15:04.560 and we all will, we're going to handle ourselves better than hopefully we did before. But we have

00:15:09.720 to look at it objectively. And a great method for doing that is to journal your thoughts, your ideas,

00:15:14.600 your pains, your frustrations, your joys, your sorrows, your sadness, your hopes, your desires,

00:15:18.760 your vision, and your goals. Write it all down on a daily basis. All right, guys. The last,

00:15:24.980 not the last, the next point is asking yourself what the future you would do. Okay? So if you're

00:15:32.180 in a difficult or hard to make choices presented to you, instead of just looking at it through the

00:15:39.660 current lens of your reality, start asking, what would the future Ryan do? What would the future

00:15:45.460 self do? What would I do if I was the man that I wanted to be? Or even differently posed? What would

00:15:51.900 a man that I look up to do? What would my father do? If he's a man that you, that you admire and

00:15:57.820 appreciate and respect, what would he do? Would he do it differently than you? Now, I'm not saying you

00:16:03.320 have to follow it to the T, but me, that might give you a perspective into how you can live your life

00:16:08.680 differently. It's like those, the saying, you know, what would Jesus do? Swap that out. What would Ryan do?

00:16:15.020 And by the way, what would Jesus do is another great example of a man that you could follow and

00:16:19.400 emulate. But outside of that, you can almost just say, what would Ryan do? What would the guy who I

00:16:25.080 just cast vision about, and I've been spending a year writing about this kind of man that I want

00:16:29.340 to become, what would that guy do? How would that guy handle this altercation? How would this guy

00:16:35.980 manage a demise of a relationship? How would that guy overcome losing a job? How would that guy deal

00:16:43.920 with financial hardship? How would that guy deal in this circumstance? If he was making this choice,

00:16:49.240 what choice would he make? And that's, again, going to allow you to see the decision-making process

00:16:54.960 through a different lens that you can't currently see through your own reality. Remember the phrase,

00:17:00.540 what would Steve do? What would Bill do? What would Joe do? What would Ryan do? What would this

00:17:06.460 individual do? The last thing I'm going to share with you today, guys, so this is point number four,

00:17:10.400 is that we need to begin to manipulate our environment. Now I know manipulate has a negative

00:17:16.100 connotation, but I'm using that word deliberately and intentionally because in a way we can create an

00:17:23.560 environment that we don't totally 100% resonate with just yet, but we can elevate the environment

00:17:30.820 around us to produce results that we desire. So a great example of that would be something simple,

00:17:38.840 like cleaning up your car. Your car might be a mess. It might be clutter and chaos and confusion

00:17:45.440 and trash everywhere. And you decide, I'm going to manipulate the environment by cleaning this up

00:17:50.620 because I know if I have this clean, then I'm going to think more highly of my car. I'm going to think

00:17:54.900 more highly of myself. I'm going to not be embarrassed to drive this around with other people. In fact,

00:18:00.140 I might be proud to drive other people around, which could potentially create opportunities that

00:18:04.720 didn't exist before. So you know, having your car cleaned is going to be good for you. Another

00:18:10.540 example of that might be elevating your attire. Okay. If you're wearing cargo shorts and oversized

00:18:16.340 graphic t-shirt and Crocs and socks with an old sweaty hat from 20 years ago, that's going to say

00:18:23.240 something to somebody else, but it's also saying something to you about yourself. You begin to believe

00:18:29.140 that about yourself. I'm not worth investing in. I'm not a big deal. I'm kind of just ordinary and

00:18:35.520 average. I don't need those fancy clothes because I'm not sophisticated. I'm a simple guy. Like all

00:18:41.080 these things that we say that actually undermine our own performance. And I'm not saying you need to go

00:18:46.220 out and buy a three-piece suit or do, you know, some of these, um, uh, these like two face suits that

00:18:52.220 Jordan Peterson's wearing. Cause that would look silly, right? Like in the, in a right context,

00:18:56.600 maybe, but for you and I, that would look silly. But if we can groom ourselves, if we can get up and

00:19:01.780 get ready and get changed and make ourselves presentable for the day and smell good and look

00:19:06.380 good. Uh, if we can change the upgrade, the, the, the material or the fit or the fabric of our

00:19:12.340 clothing, and we can exude a level of confidence, we're going to gain confidence from that too.

00:19:17.320 So I say manipulate because you're going to start to be the kind of man that you want to be.

00:19:22.720 When you look at a man, you see what he's wearing. You're inspired and motivated by a

00:19:26.360 person. You see what he's wearing. You're like, man, that guy looks sharp. You want to be like

00:19:29.960 that guy. So be like that guy, dress like him, learn the vocabulary, like him, speak like him,

00:19:36.720 talk about the same conversations. I'm not saying become that person. That's weird. It doesn't work,

00:19:40.640 but there's things that you can emulate. What's your office space say about you?

00:19:44.840 What's your household say about you? What does your environment say about you?

00:19:49.780 When you start documenting vision, casting, journaling, asking what you would do,

00:19:53.840 the future you would do, then you can begin to manipulate your environment in a way that brings

00:19:58.220 the gap between where you are and where you want to be closer through your actions. And the closer it

00:20:04.480 gets, the more steam that you pick up and the more efficient it becomes and the faster you're able to

00:20:09.780 produce the results that you desire. Guys, we have a lot of power within ourselves. We don't often

00:20:15.360 recognize or realize how powerful we are. And we should certainly look to outside examples,

00:20:20.040 whether it's Jesus or Joe, your neighbor, we should look to outside examples to help us lead

00:20:26.140 a good, moral, righteous, capable, fulfilling life. But don't overlook the importance and power

00:20:32.380 of being able to manifest and create this for yourself. This is not some woo-woo type nonsense.

00:20:38.420 This is stuff that actually works. Journal and do vision casting. Ask yourself what the future you

00:20:45.680 would do. If you were to look back 20 years, what decisions will you be happy that you made?

00:20:51.060 And then start manipulating your environment in a way that produces the kind of man that you want

00:20:55.200 to become. My hope is that that serves you and that we can all go out there and implement this advice.

00:21:00.700 We can all become better leaders in our homes, our businesses, our communities, and just better

00:21:05.460 men in general. If this resonated with you, please share it. Make sure you check out my sponsors and

00:21:11.480 friends over at Montana Knife Company. Use the code OOM10 for the discount. And then check out

00:21:16.780 the Iron Council. We open up the Iron Council, our fraternity, our brotherhood of men. And we open

00:21:22.260 that up on September 15th, orderofman.com slash ironcouncil. All right, guys, let's go out there,

00:21:28.620 take action, and become the men we are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man

00:21:33.020 podcast. If you're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be,

00:21:37.760 we invite you to join the Order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - September 08, 2023

How Your Future Self Can Guide You ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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