Order of Man

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.

00:00:10.460 You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong. This is your life. This is

00:00:17.080 who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.800 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on? My name is Ryan

00:00:27.160 Mickler, and I am the host and the founder of this podcast and the movement that is Order

00:00:31.240 of Man. I want to welcome you, whether you're here for the first time or been with us for

00:00:34.700 any amount of time, to what I and what millions of other men across the planet who are tuning

00:00:40.760 in each and every month of this podcast would consider the best resource for reclaiming

00:00:45.280 and restoring masculinity to its rightful place in society. And to that end, I am interviewing

00:00:51.660 the world's most successful men, scholars, athletes, warriors, New York Times bestselling

00:00:56.640 authors, entrepreneurs, basically any man who's got an interesting story and one that can help

00:01:01.840 us step up more fully in our lives the way we would like to as men. So we do the interview

00:01:06.880 show. We've got our Ask Me Anything show. And then you've got this show, your Friday field

00:01:10.940 notes, where you get to hear from me and some of my thoughts from throughout the week. And

00:01:15.020 what I wanted to talk with you about today is initiating our boys. Now, a couple of weeks

00:01:19.500 ago, I had taken my second son on our standard rite of passage or initiation, whatever you

00:01:27.260 may want to call it. And I had so many questions and emails and messages from you guys who wanted

00:01:33.720 to know what it is I do for my boys and what's included and the elements and how this all works

00:01:39.740 and goes down. And of course, why it's so important. And trust me, it is extremely, extremely important

00:01:45.100 that we initiate our boys into manhood. They're going to become males, but that doesn't mean

00:01:50.320 they're going to become men. There is a distinction. And I wholeheartedly believe that if our boys

00:01:56.460 are to become the men that we have a desire for them to be, then they have to be ushered

00:02:01.900 and initiated into that manhood. So I'm going to talk with you about that today. And what I'm

00:02:06.300 going to give you specifically is six, again, very specific strategies or elements of an initiation

00:02:14.180 or rite of passage that you can incorporate with your sons or boys in the community or whoever

00:02:19.620 that you may have a responsibility for in some sort of fatherhood capacity. I'm using quotes there,

00:02:25.960 fatherhood capacity. Before I get into that conversation, I do want to make a very, very

00:02:31.280 quick mention of my friends over at Origin Maine. Now I've talked a lot about these guys. And one thing I

00:02:38.780 wanted to say specifically is that jujitsu has been a very, very powerful thing for not only

00:02:44.160 me, but also for specifically my second son. He's pretty aggressive. He likes to get physical

00:02:51.400 and his desire and ability, but then also his strength and the things that he's learning in

00:02:57.320 jujitsu have been critical in his development to become a young man and eventually a man himself.

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00:04:06.940 All right, guys, let's get into this. Now you probably saw that I titled this, uh, initiate the

00:04:12.500 boys or they'll burn down the village. Now that is an African proverb. And I've heard it say it said a lot

00:04:18.980 of different ways, but I think the underlying message is the same that we need to initiate our boys,

00:04:25.060 that we need to call them into manhood, that we need to show them what manhood looks like,

00:04:29.740 and then also perform a series of ceremonies, I guess you'd say for lack of a better term,

00:04:36.160 that will help our young men realize that they're entering different stages of their life. It's been

00:04:41.440 said, and I don't know if I wholeheartedly agree with this. I'm going to have to think a little bit

00:04:46.240 more on this, but the concept is interesting that women just are, that they just naturally evolve

00:04:52.920 or progress into women. And being a man is something that needs to be stepped into. It needs

00:04:58.200 to be initiated. And then of course it needs to be handed down by the men. Now I fully believe

00:05:03.000 in that second component, which is why I do this for my boys. I did it for my oldest, who is now

00:05:08.840 11 years old. We've done two of these. Uh, and then I just about a week and a half ago did phase

00:05:16.140 one. And I'll tell you why it's called phase one, but phase one of our initiation with him.

00:05:22.360 And he's eight years old. A lot of guys had questions on when you should start this.

00:05:26.060 I mean, really you can start whenever, but for us, it seems to work as our boys turn eight years

00:05:32.180 old because they have the physical, mental, and emotional capacity to be able to understand some

00:05:37.680 of the things that we're doing and why it's so important we do this. So what I'll do is explain

00:05:42.360 a little bit about how our rite of passage worked a couple of weeks ago. And then I'm going to break

00:05:46.880 down six very important elements that each rite of passage or initiation or ceremony, whatever you

00:05:54.480 may want to call it should have in it. Now I will tell you, I cannot get extremely specific on some of

00:06:00.340 the elements because they're kept as closely guarded secrets between me and my sons. And I know that

00:06:06.760 sounds cryptic. I know that might even sound a little strange or weird to some of you,

00:06:11.240 but that is also a critical component and element of our initiation process. And I'm going to explain

00:06:17.480 in a bit why I think that component, the secrecy is actually very critical. So we'll get into that

00:06:23.260 as well. But let me tell you what I did. Basically just the gist of it is when my son turned eight in

00:06:29.720 December, we got a little behind of course, but I want to begin at age eight to usher him into manhood

00:06:37.560 and to explain to him what it means to be a man and how men show up and why it's so important and

00:06:43.180 what his role in society and his life are right now, what they will be over the coming years.

00:06:49.540 And then what they will be as he progresses and gets himself to where I am. So what we do as they

00:06:55.700 turn eight is we take them on an initiation. And in this case, it was a camp out between me and my

00:07:01.560 son. And we go through a series of challenges that are physical, mental, emotional challenges,

00:07:08.380 and they're all designed to push him a little harder than maybe he's gone in the past. And then

00:07:13.940 to give him some sort of honor or physical representation or manifestation of his completion

00:07:20.780 of phase one. And I say phase one, because there are multiple phases to this. And again,

00:07:26.800 I'll get more specific. So we went on a camp out, we did our tasks. We had some great dialogue and

00:07:32.920 some great discussions, talked about some things that maybe we haven't talked about in the past.

00:07:36.780 He asked some wonderful questions. He earned his very first rifle. We'll talk a little bit about that

00:07:41.760 element here in a minute as well. And we came down and he's, he's a different boy. Not completely.

00:07:48.560 You're not going to transform a child over a period of 24, 48 hours, but he is a new boy and I am a new

00:07:54.600 man. And that is the entire point of an initiation. The point of an initiation is for the old boy to die

00:08:04.240 in a way and for a new boy to be reborn. And in all of the studies and all of the research and all of

00:08:11.180 the documentation and all of the analysis that we've done throughout history on different cultures

00:08:17.760 and how they view manliness and masculinity, the overwhelming majority of these cultures throughout

00:08:23.180 all of history and throughout all of time and all of cultures have subscribed to some sort of

00:08:29.500 initiation process where the old version dies and the new one is born. I mean, you can even look at

00:08:35.920 this in the religious context and think to yourself, that is the idea of baptism is that the old

00:08:42.580 individual or the old soul or the, the sinner has died. And in his place, a new individual with a

00:08:50.160 clean slate has been reborn. And within the concept of the context of an initiation, it's the younger,

00:08:57.420 the weaker, and the dependent version of that child is dying. And now we have somebody, a boy in this

00:09:05.640 case, who is more capable, who is more independent of stepping into his role as a man in his life and

00:09:13.520 the lives of the people that he will eventually go on to serve. And I know inevitably with as many

00:09:18.480 people has listened to this podcast, that some of you think that this is overkill, that some of you

00:09:23.180 think this is too much, that some of you might think this is not necessary. But I also believe

00:09:28.380 that because we're not doing these types of things, this is part of the problem that we're seeing in

00:09:34.440 our young men. If you look at the rates or metrics for where men are falling, and specifically young

00:09:40.840 men are falling behind, they're falling behind in academics. The rise of the fatherless homes continues

00:09:48.400 to grow and grow and grow. Young men are getting into drugs, violence, suicide, depression. They're

00:09:56.820 not getting the jobs. They're not making as much money as they once were. There's all sorts of statistics

00:10:02.340 and data that show that our young men are facing a very real and serious threat to their well-being.

00:10:09.200 And I believe that a rite of passage through a qualified individual like a father or some sort

00:10:15.820 of male authority figure is a piece. Please understand me. It's a piece of the puzzle of helping

00:10:22.700 our young men transition from immature, dependent boy into mature, independent man. And that's what we

00:10:34.680 as a society should want. That's what we should celebrate. And when we dismiss the idea of

00:10:40.460 fathers or we dismiss the idea of initiations and even hazing in a lot of ways to some degree,

00:10:47.060 as long as it's not completely dangerous or destructive to an individual, these are things

00:10:52.640 that historically we have used in order to teach our youngsters what is appropriate and what is not

00:10:59.300 appropriate. And when we're too soft and too weak to take our children through these series of

00:11:05.380 initiations and rites of passages, then we never teach them how to be strong and how to develop the

00:11:12.020 capacity to lead a family or lead a business or lead society in general. And obviously we can see the

00:11:17.820 ramifications and results of this. We can see it in the leadership within our communities. We can

00:11:22.800 certainly see it within the leadership of our political climate. It's horrendous. And yet we

00:11:28.840 see these problems and then we dismiss what would actually take to solve it. My job here in the order

00:11:36.380 of man and specifically with this podcast is to give you the tools and the conversations and the

00:11:41.460 frameworks and the discussions to be better men yourself. And then also to turn around and offer

00:11:48.600 your hand and help our young men develop into self-sufficient contributing members of society.

00:11:56.460 And that's what this initiation process is all about. So what I'd like to do is break this down.

00:12:02.580 And as I was thinking about what I wanted to talk with you about today, I isolated six very specific

00:12:08.300 elements that I believe should be incorporated into a rite of passage. And if you have a son who's

00:12:15.120 approaching, I don't know, six, seven, eight years old, I think eight is the magic number because again,

00:12:21.000 that's where they're physically, mentally, and emotionally intelligent enough, if you will, to be

00:12:27.380 able to understand why and what it is that we're going to be doing and have the capacity to engage in

00:12:34.140 the initiation itself. So let's break this down. Guys, take some notes. If you're a father or in that

00:12:39.140 father, fatherhood, you know, role, um, take some notes and start thinking about how you can create

00:12:45.180 your own initiations, your own rites of passages. Now I will say, I'm not going to get hyper specific

00:12:51.360 in a lot of these areas because not only are some of these things secret, which I mentioned before,

00:12:56.360 but because I don't want you to take what I'm doing in my life and with my sons and copy it exactly.

00:13:03.160 I want you to put some initiation into this, some, some thought into this and, and really think about

00:13:10.180 what you specifically want to create for your boy. I can give you the framework, but specifically as a

00:13:16.340 father or in that capacity of some sort, it's your job to recognize what your child needs, not mine.

00:13:22.160 So I'm going to give you the framework. And then I would ask that you fill in the blanks with what you

00:13:26.840 feel like is appropriate as that child's father figure. And that's what we need to understand is that

00:13:33.140 you have the authority over that child. I do not. You have the authority, which I believe means

00:13:38.600 that you inherently possess some sort of knowledge and insider information into what this young child

00:13:46.760 needs to be able to become a man. All right, enough. Let's get into this. All right. Number one.

00:13:51.820 And I think this is the first step. It's often a difficult thing to do because our children are so

00:13:58.840 attached to this factor. And that is that it has to be away from mom. It has to be away from mom.

00:14:06.680 It has to be away from a sister. It has to be away from any feminine presence because up until this

00:14:14.440 point, again, if we're talking about phase one, and by the way, let me, let me explain that,

00:14:18.860 that phase one starts when they're eight phase two is 10 phase three is 12 phase four is 14 phase five

00:14:26.160 is 16 and then phase six is when they're 18. That's the last rite of passage or initiation that I'll be

00:14:32.060 taking my boys through. So every two years, that's what I mean when I'm talking about phases, but up

00:14:37.340 until phase one, they are completely attached and dependent on mom. They rely on her. They're yelling

00:14:45.160 her name throughout the house. Whenever they have a little scrape or a boo-boo, who do they run to?

00:14:49.140 They run to mom. We need to be able to explain to them that they are no longer, or at least working

00:14:55.720 towards becoming independent, not dependent. And that is the difference between a boy and a man,

00:15:00.720 a boy consumes. It's all he does. He consumes time, attention, resources, food, mom's attention,

00:15:09.140 my attention, our financials. I mean, that's all boys do. We are trying to transition from consumer to

00:15:18.240 man, which is a producer. And in order to do that, we need to begin to break dependency

00:15:24.360 on mom. That is the feminine. And there's nothing wrong with that. Please do not

00:15:30.420 misunderstand me. There's nothing wrong with mothers. There's nothing wrong with feminine.

00:15:36.060 There's nothing wrong, but boys need to learn to begin to let the feminine side go and begin to step

00:15:44.380 into the masculine. And in order to do that, they need to be exposed to masculine energy exclusively.

00:15:52.080 This is why you've heard me talk so much about competitive sports, all male competitive sports.

00:15:57.640 There's a time and a place for co-ed, but there's also a time and a place for all male activities.

00:16:04.400 And that's why I'm so critical of the Boy Scouts misguided and quite frankly, tragic decision

00:16:12.000 to open it up to not only boys, but girls as well. There needs to be environments where it's all

00:16:20.460 men and that's all that are receiving. So step number one is it needs to be away from mom and

00:16:25.840 it needs to be away from sister. And when mom asks what you're doing or why you're doing it or what's

00:16:30.740 included, frankly, that's not really her business. Okay. You can share this stuff within reason,

00:16:36.140 but this is an initiation between you and your son, not your wife. She's not involved. She's not

00:16:42.880 getting supplies. She's not helping you plan it. You as the man are planning it. And your boy is

00:16:48.540 actually participating to a large degree in the planning of this event itself. And the more that

00:16:54.540 you can begin to pull away from mother, just in this context, again, we go through phases, the better

00:17:01.120 off this event is going to be. So if she doesn't understand, that's okay. She doesn't need to

00:17:07.060 understand. She will probably never fully understand. And that's actually the point. There's supposed to

00:17:12.880 be things about being a man that a woman will never understand. And guess what? Vice versa. There's

00:17:17.880 things about being a woman that I don't think a man will ever understand. And it's okay. I know

00:17:23.620 society wants to make us the same. I know society wants to make us feel warm and comfortable. I know

00:17:28.780 society has a tendency of being hyperly cautious of making people feel left out. This isn't about

00:17:36.160 excluding anybody. It's about giving a young boy what he needs in an environment in which he needs it,

00:17:42.160 which is all male energy. Now, can you do this with other men? Yeah, I think you can. And I think

00:17:47.860 you probably should. But in this specifically initiation, I'm talking about doing it with just

00:17:52.460 you and one boy, not two, you and one boy. And that's it. So element number one has to be away

00:17:59.840 from mom, has to be away from feminine presence. Number two, it's got to challenge your boy physically,

00:18:08.740 mentally, and emotionally. And if it doesn't challenge in those three places, and I might

00:18:13.860 even add spiritually as well, if it doesn't challenge in those three or four places, then

00:18:19.000 to me, it doesn't qualify as an initiation. It qualifies as a camp out. It qualifies as a getaway

00:18:25.640 or a vacation or an adventure, but it doesn't qualify as an initiation or rite of passage.

00:18:31.780 They have to go through physically, mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually demanding situations

00:18:38.860 so that they can overcome those things through your guidance and instruction and direction

00:18:44.180 and come out the other end of this event as somebody new entirely, somebody that they didn't

00:18:50.500 even think they could be before. And so you're going to have to push your child a little further

00:18:55.200 than they've ever gone. There might be some tears shed. It might be uncomfortable. And I can hear

00:19:00.460 all the people, oh my goodness, tears shed. What are you guys doing? It's none of your business.

00:19:05.220 We are doing things that men do, which is face hardship and learn how to deal with it.

00:19:12.560 That's what the initiation is all about. So physically demanding, one thing we did is we went

00:19:17.180 on a hike that is, I would say it's a moderate hike for an adult. It's not very long. It's a moderate

00:19:24.640 hike for an adult, but for an eight-year-old, it's a pretty good hike and it's pretty steep.

00:19:30.740 Um, it's got some slick places and once they get to the top, I mean, it's just absolutely

00:19:37.100 incredible. And I filmed my son as he was climbing that last little stretch and he turned around and

00:19:43.280 he struggled, man. He really struggled on the way up, but he made it up. He carried his pack. He

00:19:48.060 wanted me to carry it at points. Nope. I'm not carrying your stuff. Okay. Maybe mom and maybe old

00:19:54.240 dad did that. But now that you're in phase one of initiation, you carry your own shit because you're

00:19:59.400 no, you're no longer dependent. We're moving to independence, which means nobody else carries

00:20:03.740 your rocks. You carry it yourself. So he carried his bag all the way up there and he cried a little

00:20:09.800 bit and he, he struggled. But when he got to the top, you should have seen just the look of

00:20:15.440 pride and excitement and just how good you could see that he felt about accomplishing something that

00:20:24.100 he didn't think he could do even 20, 30, 60 minutes ago. That was the physically demanding

00:20:30.660 portion of it. The emotionally and mentally demanding portion of it. I'm not really going

00:20:36.340 to get too much into, but there should be some sort of a task, some series of tasks, whether that's

00:20:42.520 teaching him how to shoot or having a difficult conversation. One conversation you may want to have

00:20:49.440 is the birds and bees. If you haven't already had that conversation. Now we have, but we address

00:20:54.540 that. Um, I also at, in this point, uh, began to critique him a little bit on some things that he

00:21:01.400 needed to improve and some things that he needed to do to be able to, to, to fix those and correct

00:21:07.960 those and rectify those behaviors moving forward. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about that

00:21:12.180 here in a minute. But what I'd like you to start doing is if you're taking notes is think about a

00:21:16.880 physically grueling, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually demanding situation. One thing you

00:21:23.320 could even do is consider having your child memorize, uh, a poem like Invictus, for example,

00:21:30.040 prior to, uh, your initiation. And then when you get into the middle of initiation, they have to be

00:21:36.420 able to recite that to check off what it is there that what tasks that they need to complete over,

00:21:42.240 over that series of days or hours or whatever it may be. So again, point number two,

00:21:46.860 is physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. If you want to add that component into it as well.

00:21:52.060 Um, number three is discussion. All right. These are opportunities to really talk with your child

00:21:59.740 about what it means to be a man, what their role is in society now and what their role in the future

00:22:07.160 will be. And there are roles. I know people like to say that traditional gender roles are bad and

00:22:12.880 socially constructed. Well, that's not true, right? They're biologically constructed. We are

00:22:17.820 made to be men. Women are made to be women. These might be reinforced societally, but they're

00:22:24.880 biologically hardwired into the way that we show up. And it's our job to extract and to magnify and

00:22:32.100 to funnel that masculine energy into our boy that, excuse me, that our boys have into something that

00:22:38.060 will benefit themselves, their families and the rest of society. These are not societally constructed

00:22:44.720 roles. These are biological roles. And we are to teach our boys how to use what's biologically

00:22:51.600 hardwired into us for productive outcomes for ourselves and those we have an obligation for.

00:22:56.640 So what I do is I went down to a little hardware store here in town and they have these little

00:23:03.760 animal figurines and I picked up a lion cub and I picked up a male lion and I just put them in my

00:23:12.100 pocket as we were hiking in between tasks. I said, you know, I really want to talk with you about what

00:23:18.060 your role in society right now and what you eventually and ultimately are striving to become.

00:23:23.220 And I pulled out these figurines and I showed him the lion cub and I said, essentially that this is

00:23:29.200 you right now. You are the lion cub. You're my son. You are dependent on mom and me and other adults.

00:23:39.160 You are reliant upon us to be able to provide for your way of life. And without us, you'd really

00:23:44.760 struggle. But ultimately, and I pulled out the male lion, I said, ultimately the objective is to get to

00:23:51.160 this stage. And when you get to this stage, it means that you are no longer reliant upon other

00:23:57.880 individuals, that you are a protector, a provider, a presider, that you are capable of doing what men

00:24:05.040 do. And your job in life right now as this, you know, quote unquote lion cub is to begin to move

00:24:13.420 towards this male lion. You are in training. It's not something that we're just casually going

00:24:20.520 through life and whatever happens, happens. No, you are in training. So when you go to school,

00:24:26.540 you're being trained. When you go, when we're, when we're playing sports, you are being trained.

00:24:31.020 When we're having conversations, you are being trained. And all of that training is to lead you

00:24:36.320 to who you have the potential to become as a man. And if we aren't deliberate and we aren't

00:24:42.700 intentional about how this training takes place, then you will be less productive and you won't

00:24:47.420 have the skills and the tools that you need at your disposal in order to accomplish big things in

00:24:53.080 your life and to help other people that you care about and have a responsibility for as well.

00:24:58.100 So I give them these figurines. Now, the beauty of giving this as a physical manifestation

00:25:02.320 and representation of what we're doing is we can always draw back on that. So when he's not behaving

00:25:07.940 in a manner consistent with our conversations, I can go tell him, Hey, you remember those figurines?

00:25:13.980 Why don't you grab those figurines and come down and we can talk about this. Now we can draw upon all

00:25:19.180 of these experiences and all of these conversations. And we can talk about if he's doing what he needs to

00:25:25.080 be doing. If he's going through his training correctly, or if he's falling behind physical

00:25:30.580 manifestations and representations of what you're doing are very, very important in the initiation

00:25:36.200 process, because it gives you something to draw back on when your child gets off course.

00:25:42.720 So point number three, again, is discussions. Again, I also said, maybe it's the birds and the bees.

00:25:49.720 If you haven't had that discussion, maybe it's your role in society and who you are now and who you are

00:25:54.440 to become. These are the types of discussions that you need to sit down, talk with, talk with them about

00:26:00.160 and have. And as a sub point of that, I guess you'd say, but I made it my own, my own point here is that

00:26:08.080 you need to critique your child. All right. There's certain things that you've recognized within your

00:26:15.300 boy that he is either doing or not doing that is behavior that needs to be corrected. And this is a

00:26:23.680 perfect opportunity for you to do it in a tactful way. I'm not saying beat the child up or anything and

00:26:28.740 put them down. I'm saying do it in a tactful way. You know, the odds are that while you're up there

00:26:34.000 with your son on the mountain or wherever it is, you're going to be doing your initiation or your

00:26:37.440 rite of passage, that there's a deep connection that your son is there and he's forged and he's

00:26:42.680 bonded with you and he's enjoying time. He should be enjoying it by the way, guys. But there's this

00:26:48.100 deep connection and this is a perfect opportunity free from distraction or other influence to tell your

00:26:53.680 child what he needs to hear so that he can then improve. Like if you can't critique your child

00:27:00.060 and you can't explain the way that they're being viewed or the behavior that they're engaging in

00:27:04.840 and how it's either constructive or destructive to themselves, I can't think of a better place to do

00:27:11.500 this. So I had a very real conversation with some behavior that my son needed to correct. And I've had to

00:27:19.900 remind him over the past couple of weeks in some instances where he fell and deviated from the

00:27:25.400 behavior I expect of him as a man. And we've been able to have that conversation. And very simply,

00:27:30.300 all I've had to say is remember our conversation on the mountain, remember our conversation on the

00:27:35.960 mountain. And it's amazing. As I said, those few words, how quickly he has altered his behavior

00:27:41.960 because we had this deep and powerful connection over a course of an evening in a couple of days.

00:27:49.140 So again, this is discussion. And then that sub point of it is a critique of how your child is

00:27:55.320 showing up. The next component of this, and I think I'm on, let's see. Oh, you know what? I think

00:28:02.300 there's seven points. I said six, but I think there's seven points. So I'm on four right now. No, five,

00:28:07.440 five. All right. I'm on track now. Is that there has to be some sort of secretive nature of this.

00:28:15.960 I'm not saying that we're trying to hide anything or we're not, you know, we don't want to tell

00:28:20.420 people. That's not the point of this. The point of having some sort of, we'll just call it a code

00:28:26.620 that is not to be shared outside of my relationship with my son. It forges us. It forges us. And people

00:28:34.980 have asked me quite a bit. They say things like, are you worried about your son growing up in this

00:28:40.100 environment with, you know, all these other outside influences? And of course, that's always a concern of

00:28:44.920 mine. But the answer, the solution to that is to make your voice the most relevant voice in his

00:28:51.360 life. If his mom's voice is the most relevant voice in his life, he's going to behave more feminine.

00:28:56.720 If his school teacher's voice is the loudest voice in his life or the most relevant, then he's going to

00:29:01.440 behave like that school teacher or a coach or whoever it happens to be. It's my job to be the most relevant

00:29:08.320 voice in my son's life. And part of the way that we do this is that we have codes, honor systems,

00:29:15.520 things that other people don't know or understand about the way that we engage, about our relationship,

00:29:21.740 about the way that we show up, about the way that we conduct ourselves. And then I can give him a

00:29:26.580 little wink and a little fist bump and say, Hey, remember that point that we talked about? We don't

00:29:30.820 talk about it, but you remember? And he's like, yeah, I do remember. Okay. I'm back on this track.

00:29:34.740 I think having codes and rituals and secrets between you and your son are very, very important.

00:29:42.560 And by the way, it doesn't need to be exclusive to your son. Maybe only men in your family know this,

00:29:49.740 you know, for example, with us, it's Mickler's only Mickler's men, I should say only Mickler men know

00:29:54.740 this. Nobody else knows this. And so these are different things that we do. These are acronyms that

00:30:00.260 we go through. These are lessons that we teach. And frankly, it's a code of conduct that we've created

00:30:04.180 for ourselves that nobody else knows. There's elements that I'm sure you'll incorporate into

00:30:08.560 yours, but it's secretive among us. And I think having that element of secrecy and code, if you

00:30:14.780 will, is a very critical component of this initiation. So that's number, you know, I lost

00:30:22.640 track here a little bit. I think, let me, let me look here. So we've got number one is, is being away

00:30:27.060 from mom. Number two is it has to be a physical, mental, emotional. So that's number two. Number

00:30:33.740 three is that it's gotta be, uh, have a discussion. Number four, critique number five secrets. And then

00:30:39.620 number six, good. I'm on track here. Sorry about that. Number six is that there's gotta be some sort

00:30:46.140 of a reward. And I wouldn't say reward. Maybe that's not the right way to say it, but there's gotta be

00:30:51.960 some sort of physical manifestation of the progress and the completion of this particular phase of his

00:31:02.480 training. So one thing that I do for my sons is before we go on our initiation or for phase one,

00:31:10.580 I give them a multi-tool that they can use in a series of tasks that they need to complete, uh,

00:31:17.740 on the mountain itself. And then they also earned their very first rifle. So my son, my second son

00:31:24.100 today, or excuse me on this, uh, rite of passage earned his very first 22 rifle. And that is a

00:31:29.860 physical manifestation of the completion of this portion of his training. So we went through the

00:31:36.080 four firearm safety rules. We shot, that was actually one of his tasks that he needed to shoot

00:31:41.660 and, and, and successfully complete a certain score. And then at the end he was awarded that

00:31:47.620 rifle for completing this portion of the training. I think there's gotta be some sort of physical

00:31:52.720 manifestation of firearm is a great thing. A knife is a great thing. Maybe there's something

00:31:57.880 that you guys do in your family. Maybe it's a bow or a guitar or who knows, it could be any number

00:32:04.700 of things, but there's gotta be some sort of physical representation of the completion of that

00:32:10.640 portion of his training. And the last point, so that's number six, this is number seven.

00:32:16.060 The last point that I want to share with you is that this is not a one-time deal guys. It's not

00:32:20.400 like, Hey, I took my son on an initiation and it's all done and I can bow out. Now he knows everything

00:32:25.240 that he needs to know about being a man and I can disengage and do whatever the hell I was doing before.

00:32:29.560 No, this is simply phase one of other phases that will occur at different points in his life.

00:32:37.780 And the things that you're going to do are going to gradually get tougher, more demanding,

00:32:42.740 a little bit harder because your sons at this point should be more capable. But if you're just

00:32:47.480 doing this as a one and done type thing, again, that's maybe an adventure or a camp out or a

00:32:53.080 vacation or a little bit of fun. But when we're talking about these initiations, this is part of

00:32:57.380 a process of developing over the course of 10 years, 10 years from eight to 18, what it looks

00:33:06.620 like to be a man. These conversations happen every day. These conversations happen before we go to bed.

00:33:13.160 These conversations happen when there's a difficult situation at home or at school. I'm having these

00:33:19.200 types of conversations. And then specifically we're carving out times again, eight, 10, 12, 14,

00:33:25.460 16, 16, and 18, where we're going through very specific phases of their initiation to becoming

00:33:32.660 Mickler men. And that is one other thing that I make sure I discuss with them in the discussion

00:33:37.580 portion of this. Number one, that being a man is earned. And number two, that being a Mickler is earned.

00:33:43.840 You've been borrowing my name. That's what it is. I've given my sons my name that they can borrow for now,

00:33:51.400 but ultimately it's up to them to earn it. And the way they earn it is through their behavior and

00:33:57.260 their conduct and also completing their initiations, the phases of their initiations.

00:34:04.160 So that's what I do. I know that's a lot of information right there. I know even a lot of

00:34:08.960 it is not specific. And probably some of you are thinking, can you just give me your agenda for what

00:34:15.060 you did? The answer is no, right? I gave you an outline. I want you to think about for yourself,

00:34:20.800 what you want to create for your child. Not what I would create for your child, but what you would

00:34:26.140 create for your child. We are proactive here. We are engaged here. The men who are tuning in part of

00:34:33.540 this organization, the order of man take initiative. They invest in themselves. They invest in the people

00:34:39.660 they care about. They put forth time and energy and effort and resources, and they are also

00:34:44.920 independent, which means that you don't need everything I have. You may need a framework.

00:34:50.680 You may need a reference point or a benchmark, but ultimately it's up to you as your child's father

00:34:57.280 to fill in the blanks with what needs to be filled in, in order to progress your boy from boy

00:35:03.880 to young man, to eventually a man of his own. Again, initiate the boys or they'll burn the village

00:35:11.740 down. And I truly believe that it's like real life. Lord of the flies. If we don't initiate our

00:35:17.820 boys and we don't teach them how to harness the raw masculine energy that's coursing through their

00:35:23.140 veins, they will be part of the statistics, the violence, the drug abuse, the depression,

00:35:28.480 the joblessness, the wandering, the failure to launch, and all of these other negative

00:35:33.760 variables and situations that we see in way too many young men in society today.

00:35:39.580 It's my job to fix that first within the walls of my home and hopefully equip you with the ability

00:35:44.600 to go out and do this for your sons. And if millions and millions and millions of men are doing

00:35:49.960 this across the planet, I think we see a lot of the world's greatest problems begin to dissipate and

00:35:55.720 dissolve because they're no longer issues. And if they are, they're resolved and handled the way a

00:36:00.580 man resolves and handles his problems. So with that said, guys, I will let you get going. I hope

00:36:07.880 that helps. If you feel like you've got a friend or a colleague or a brother, whoever, another man in

00:36:14.740 your life who you feel like could benefit from this episode of initiation and rites of passages,

00:36:20.720 then I would humbly ask that you share this with them. Uh, you don't hear me hawking a bunch of

00:36:25.500 products and everything else. I'm, I'm asking you to share. That's how you can give back. That's how

00:36:30.500 you can say, thank you. This has been valuable in my life. Leave an iTunes rating review, share this

00:36:35.980 episode. And ultimately this is the most important thing. Don't just listen to this and do nothing.

00:36:42.360 Take this information, apply it, apply specifically this conversation in your life and the life of

00:36:49.940 your child. It's our obligation as men to turn around every now and again, reach out our hand

00:36:57.440 and help pull the next generation up. That's what is required. And those of us who didn't have it like

00:37:02.940 myself growing up, know what it's like to not have it. I don't want my boys to be in that situation.

00:37:07.880 I don't want your boys to be in that situation. The boys need to be initiated and it's up to us as men

00:37:14.120 to do it. So go out there guys, plan those initiations and those rites of passages, get them done,

00:37:19.220 get them involved, take action, become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the

00:37:25.280 Order of Man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant

00:37:30.300 to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Initiate the Boys or They'll Burn the Village Down ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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