Order of Man - ITT 011： Execution of Discipline ｜ Cody Duffney

00:00:00.040 Gentlemen, welcome to In the Trenches, an Order of Man podcast dedicated to interviewing

00:00:04.360 ordinary, everyday men like you and me who are currently in the battle of becoming better

00:00:08.840 men.

00:00:09.460 You'll hear the good, the bad, and the ugly from guys who are striving to become stronger

00:00:13.680 husbands, fathers, business owners, and community leaders.

00:00:17.580 It's our mission to deliver the stories that will inspire you to become the man you are

00:00:21.620 meant to be.

00:00:22.320 Your host for this podcast is a man who is not only in the trenches, but has drastically

00:00:26.920 changed his life for the better over the past two years.

00:00:29.260 Here's Mr. Bubba Downs.

00:00:32.740 What's up, guys?

00:00:33.620 Bubba here, back with In the Trenches.

00:00:35.220 Today, I'm joined by Cody Duffney.

00:00:36.780 What's up, brother?

00:00:38.200 Not much.

00:00:38.640 What's going on with you?

00:00:39.420 It's going, man.

00:00:40.160 It's going.

00:00:40.940 So tell me, man, what are you working on right now?

00:00:44.400 Working on right now, today is Sunday.

00:00:46.360 I've been doing the honey-do list.

00:00:48.100 So I've been cleaning, moving stuff, spraying for bugs, just doing normal weekend activities.

00:00:54.680 Yeah.

00:00:56.060 Right on.

00:00:56.580 So what are you working on in your life is kind of what I was alluding to there.

00:01:00.440 Oh, right now I'm working on career recovery, working on intercommunication with my spouse.

00:01:08.000 And I've done a lot of self-reflection over the past month and trying to make sure I'm

00:01:11.220 filling the gaps I've discovered in myself.

00:01:13.840 Yeah.

00:01:14.040 How'd you go about finding those gaps?

00:01:16.600 I was able to take a month off from my family through work.

00:01:20.100 So I spent a month away from my family and it gave me time to just simply sit there every night,

00:01:24.500 analyze what I thought I was doing wrong, what I thought I was doing right, and trying

00:01:28.740 to make the two meet more frequently.

00:01:31.480 So having the time away meant I didn't have to necessarily worry about the normal day-to-day

00:01:36.240 tasks that you'll see in your normal relationship because it was mostly a satellite relationship

00:01:41.680 for a month.

00:01:42.240 So whatever you're sitting there by yourself with your thoughts, man, what did that process

00:01:47.220 look like for you to find where you were lacking and where you were strong?

00:01:52.960 What did that process look like for you, man?

00:01:55.720 Well, as you know, based on our previous conversations, I was able to go through some really challenging

00:02:03.380 stuff at work and a lot of the overarching problems that led to failures at work were

00:02:09.020 also failures I could identify in my life.

00:02:10.940 So I had a pretty good base of mistakes I had made.

00:02:15.200 And as far as looking internally, my wife and I are really straightforward with one another.

00:02:21.040 So there's no pulling punches.

00:02:23.040 There's no sugarcoating. 0.98

00:02:24.120 She tells me where I fuck up and I fix it or I look at it. 0.98

00:02:27.160 So I took the time to really look back at previous conversations and try to not skip any 0.98

00:02:33.840 of the details there.

00:02:34.840 So if she said, hey, this happened, I didn't like what this result was, I had to figure

00:02:39.740 out, okay, this was a problem.

00:02:41.400 What was the underlying issue that caused it?

00:02:44.300 Does that issue cause more problems?

00:02:46.960 And kind of almost build like one of those conspiracy spiderwebs in my mind and trace

00:02:53.060 them all back.

00:02:53.680 So I had like four or five key details I was able to really fix and say, okay, these are

00:02:57.500 areas I definitely need to focus on.

00:02:58.900 And it will bring benefit to my personal life and my professional life.

00:03:03.760 When you were going through that spiderweb, man, what was one thing that really stuck out

00:03:07.920 to you that you needed to fix?

00:03:11.140 Uh, I want to say discipline, but not in that I don't have it.

00:03:18.200 I think that I rely on the idea of discipline too much without actually the execution of discipline.

00:03:24.500 So like I have discipline in a lot of areas of my life, but believing that the discipline

00:03:32.320 carries over to every aspect is a, is a falsity.

00:03:35.040 So I had to really look at it and say, okay, this discipline failure point is when I'm trying

00:03:40.200 to do this activity.

00:03:41.080 Like I commit to this, but I don't follow through in this way.

00:03:44.700 Um, and that was one that I think overall can have huge effects in almost every area because

00:03:51.140 no discipline at work is going to affect your home life.

00:03:53.900 But just when I'm home, it's going to affect your work life and they work hand in hand.

00:03:57.460 So that was one of the ones I'm really trying to be dedicated in isolating time to, uh, putting

00:04:04.520 effort into it.

00:04:05.520 And how are you going to do that?

00:04:08.180 Uh, structured time, uh, daily schedule, trying to really get into a routine in the morning

00:04:13.740 that allows me to plan the rest of my day.

00:04:15.620 So although I can't necessarily say I'm going to have this much work done by this hour because

00:04:20.680 the army doesn't allow for such strict guidelines in your timeline, I can at least say, well,

00:04:25.980 before six 30 in the morning, when I had to be at work and after 4 PM, when I leave, how

00:04:30.880 am I going to really use this time adequately?

00:04:32.820 And then when I get to work, it's kind of take an inventory of what has to happen throughout

00:04:39.280 the day or what there is throughout the week or what's up to them throughout the month or

00:04:42.380 quarter and figure out how many of those goals can I accomplish in that day?

00:04:46.160 And how many of those goals can I work towards in that day?

00:04:49.600 So that every day is really being as productive as possible.

00:04:52.380 Uh, one of the things that really led to, uh, the downfall of work was complacency.

00:04:57.300 The idea that you can just sit on your phone and mess around till the end of the day.

00:05:01.000 Well, work has to get done.

00:05:02.620 And if you're not trying to improve yourself at work, you're going to fail.

00:05:06.500 Like there's too many skills in everybody's job as pair that are perishable. 0.93

00:05:09.920 And some of those skills need to be worked on far more frequently to avoid them, uh, you

00:05:14.600 know, failing in your mind and failing in your practice.

00:05:18.960 So you, you, you bring up your work a lot, man.

00:05:21.220 So let's talk a little bit about that.

00:05:22.820 I know that you recently went through some, some challenges at work.

00:05:25.780 Is that something you're willing to talk to me about?

00:05:28.240 Of course.

00:05:29.420 Lay it out there for us, man.

00:05:32.040 Uh, so it started way back in probably June of last year.

00:05:35.640 I challenged myself to try a new unit.

00:05:38.900 Um, in the EOD community, we don't have a lot of special units, but there is one within

00:05:43.760 my battalion that did work with special forces.

00:05:46.720 And I had not done that yet.

00:05:48.240 I had done 10 years of conventional work, which meant their house response for calls that

00:05:55.100 EOD may need to respond to bomb squad.

00:05:56.520 They need to respond to, um, going through almost a year of training.

00:06:04.160 I, not even just myself, but my colleagues and my superiors, uh, realized that there were

00:06:10.180 a lot of areas I needed to work on, um, because I got overconfident in my skills, having seniority

00:06:17.720 and seniority does not mean you necessarily know what you're doing if you can't show it

00:06:21.860 to everybody else.

00:06:22.760 So I could talk a good game, but when it came to actual practice, when the chips were down,

00:06:26.520 especially when I was stressed out or being observed by certain people, I couldn't perform.

00:06:31.700 Uh, and along with, I had a couple other failures outside of my execution of my tasks. 0.99

00:06:38.820 Um, I had some integrity violations, things I had done that were, they were, they were stupid. 0.98

00:06:47.460 They were, I took chances. 0.97

00:06:48.680 I took risks that were never meant that never needed to be taken.

00:06:51.420 And had I been better about prioritizing my time, prioritizing my finances, my personal

00:06:57.520 life, my work life would not have an impact as it was.

00:07:01.280 So, um, when it was all said and done, I was relieved of my position.

00:07:05.680 Uh, I had to go through an appeals process.

00:07:09.180 I got pulled out of my company.

00:07:10.820 So I kind of sat on the bench for almost four months, uh, waiting for resolution, which is

00:07:16.880 a lot of time to sit there and chew on all the mistakes that led up to it.

00:07:21.280 And now I'm on a rebuilding process.

00:07:24.380 So I have people that have faith in me and are willing to look at the mistake as, okay,

00:07:29.860 you made a mistake, but can you recover from it?

00:07:32.320 Um, one of my peers and someone I actually looked up to recently said, you can really

00:07:39.420 tell how important someone can be. 0.99

00:07:42.760 Uh, if they're a general piece of crap, then we just let them sit on the side, let them 0.99

00:07:48.400 phase out. 0.99

00:07:49.060 They'll go away eventually.

00:07:50.660 But if they like you, if they have faith in you and they respect you and you make a

00:07:54.160 mistake, they will hammer you immediately and then help you recover.

00:07:58.280 So I feel like even though I went through a lot of really bad, uh, choices on my end

00:08:02.940 and repercussions in the long run, the fact that I have so many people that are willing

00:08:08.920 to work with me, help me analyze my mistakes and move forward meant that I was at least

00:08:12.900 on the right track.

00:08:13.760 So now I'm just need to show everyone that it was not, uh, ill placed in their faith in

00:08:18.800 me.

00:08:19.460 Right.

00:08:20.240 So I know that all this went down before you joined the iron council.

00:08:23.960 How, how is, how has that brotherhood helped you get through this?

00:08:28.280 Oh man, there is just endless resources in the council.

00:08:32.500 Um, everything from just like what they sell you on the, on the website, like you get to

00:08:37.380 read a lot more books and you're going to be given a structure to help build your life

00:08:43.220 off of.

00:08:44.400 Um, that alone was a good starting point for me because I needed to have more organization

00:08:48.780 mentally and, and, and my practice of life.

00:08:51.660 So that helped a lot.

00:08:52.960 And then when you get into the council, the people you get to meet, the, the advice you

00:08:56.460 receive, the experts in every field, there isn't a single problem that I haven't gone

00:09:00.580 through that someone can't relate to, if not, hasn't actually gone through itself.

00:09:05.320 Um, and one thing that I liked really helped me with the council was the fact that there

00:09:10.840 are a bunch of guys you can talk to that.

00:09:13.660 Um, when I bring the problems to the table in a group of men that are also wanting to

00:09:18.060 improve, they want to improve people around them as well.

00:09:21.120 So I didn't have to necessarily go to my wife with all of my problems because my wife is 1.00

00:09:24.840 not my therapist.

00:09:25.440 I love her to death, but she's going to look at it through a very, a very small glass of

00:09:30.300 how she sees the world.

00:09:31.360 Um, when I come to the council, I get to have it looked at by seven, eight, nine, 10 different

00:09:36.180 guys with different inputs and different experiences to help look for a better solution.

00:09:42.040 Um, and sometimes it just, it validates, like I had a solution in my mind, but I hadn't put

00:09:48.880 it into practice yet.

00:09:50.000 And then you hear five other guys like, yeah, that's going to work.

00:09:52.200 You should do that.

00:09:53.880 Um, and just the general sense of brotherhood, knowing that you can rely on people across the

00:10:00.180 world that want to help you succeed is incredible.

00:10:04.320 Um, and the problem that I had with the military life was everyone I talked to in the military

00:10:09.720 essentially is a clone of one another.

00:10:11.960 We're all fairly alpha personalities.

00:10:14.140 We're all pretty aggressive and we all kind of have a similar, uh, mental take on almost

00:10:18.760 any problems and what the solutions we're going to provide.

00:10:22.320 So not wanting to be within that bubble, I left and I found a new group that has really

00:10:27.880 expanded my mind, how I look at the world and has helped me to, uh, recover and then

00:10:33.940 improve overall.

00:10:34.640 It sounds like you've, you've overcome some pretty significant hurdles in your professional

00:10:39.160 life.

00:10:39.540 How about your home life, man?

00:10:40.480 How has that been working for you?

00:10:43.460 The home life is getting better, uh, mainly because just the effect of not being really good

00:10:51.540 at being able to shut the door at work, come home and be home life, uh, separate from the

00:10:58.380 work life.

00:10:59.400 Um, but once there was a little bit of stability at work, coming home became less stressful.

00:11:05.060 Uh, there's still things we're working through and working towards, but, um, my wife is really

00:11:10.840 supportive of me, which is incredible.

00:11:13.400 Uh, and she's a self-starter, self-driven. 0.93

00:11:15.560 Um, so all I really had to do since was make sure that I was doing my part to be part of

00:11:22.300 the household.

00:11:23.520 Um, and she holds my feet to the fire just as much as the guys in the council do.

00:11:29.520 But a lot of the, uh, skills that you learn in the council, I really bled over into my personal

00:11:37.560 life.

00:11:37.940 So her and I are now on the fire, are finally on the same page in terms of finances and how

00:11:43.400 we're going to get from where we are now to debt free.

00:11:46.600 And it's, it's a good goal to have.

00:11:49.320 It's a good starting point.

00:11:50.140 And I think that going forward from here, there's going to be a lot more we can go to

00:11:53.780 work towards.

00:11:54.480 So finances come first.

00:11:55.780 And then from there, we're going to believe that over and say, okay, what else can we fix?

00:11:59.560 And, uh, what problems do we both see that we can analyze, we can fix, and we can improve

00:12:05.020 going forward.

00:12:05.680 Yeah, that, that clear and open communication, man, that's such a huge factor.

00:12:10.400 Whenever you're, you're trying to get things running, when you're trying to get a machine

00:12:14.440 to run up, run smoothly.

00:12:16.840 All right.

00:12:17.380 So brother, what has been your biggest takeaway since you kind of started this, this journey

00:12:21.520 that I know whenever you and I first started talking, you, you loved your, your, your military

00:12:27.160 brotherhood, you know, like you'd already said, but you noticed that everybody was kind

00:12:31.100 of heading the same direction and you wanted to think beyond that next level.

00:12:36.180 What's been your biggest takeaway as you've been working towards that next level?

00:12:42.560 The biggest takeaway is definitely the, I always forget the quote of you are the sum of

00:12:48.420 the four or five people you surround yourself with.

00:12:50.320 And if you surround yourself with people who always agree with you, you're never going

00:12:55.900 to grow.

00:12:57.120 And that comes from your relationship with your partner to people you work with, your

00:13:00.540 friends.

00:13:01.960 So now that I have people around me that also want to grow and also want to improve, it

00:13:08.580 makes my journey not necessarily easier, but it validates it.

00:13:13.560 You know, there are guys that have accomplished so much more than I have that I can look to

00:13:17.460 and say, okay, they did it.

00:13:18.640 They made it work.

00:13:19.340 I can do that as well.

00:13:20.740 And it's not just because I could run faster or do more pushups or push more weight.

00:13:25.120 These guys put in the time when it came to really, you know, recovering and overcoming

00:13:31.080 addictions or conquering family problems.

00:13:34.460 Like these are issues that every man can connect with.

00:13:37.040 And now that I have a brotherhood of guys that do that every day, or at least work towards

00:13:41.720 it, it really helps to cement that the work that I'm doing will have a problem.

00:13:47.060 It will have an outcome and it's going to be beneficial overall.

00:13:49.820 All right.

00:13:50.340 So guys, you guys all know that every week you get a challenge for my guest.

00:13:53.740 So Duff, you get to challenge the guys in the order of man to do something for one solid

00:13:59.360 week.

00:13:59.840 What is it you're going to challenge these guys to do?

00:14:01.700 I challenge the guys to look inward and realize that you're not always going to be the strongest

00:14:09.740 one in your household.

00:14:11.580 And to, when you do that, realize that there are people around you who are also going to

00:14:17.180 be the lighthouse.

00:14:17.900 They're going to help guide you and don't fight that.

00:14:21.580 It's okay to have points of weakness in your life and it's okay to not always be strong,

00:14:26.300 but realize that part of being strong is also admitting when you're going to be weak.

00:14:32.540 And honoring that part of yourself, it's the only way to improve.

00:14:36.060 If you keep battling the fact that you think you have to be strong all the time, every day

00:14:41.360 in and out, then the people around you aren't going to have a chance to grow and you're going

00:14:46.860 to shut off parts of yourself that need to be dealt with.

00:14:50.220 So I challenge every guy to realize throughout this week that there are going to be points

00:14:53.580 of weakness to figure out how to overcome that weakness, but to honor it, to realize it,

00:14:59.360 to accept it, and to move forward with that without fighting it every step of the way.

00:15:04.440 There you go, guys.

00:15:05.340 There's your challenge for the week.

00:15:06.460 Let's see those in the Order of Man Facebook group with the hashtag in the trenches.

00:15:11.620 All right, brother.

00:15:12.300 So I got one more question for you, and this is one that I did not prepare you for.

00:15:15.500 What does it mean to be a man?

00:15:20.660 Being a man is showing integrity, it's showing discipline, and it's showing bravery, knowing

00:15:29.880 that you are being looked at all the time, whether it's from your children, your spouse, your

00:15:35.340 friends, and every action you have is going to impact their image of you, and the way people

00:15:42.440 feel about you is going to impact how you feel about yourself.

00:15:45.600 So doing the right thing, being the right guy, standing up for what you believe in, honoring

00:15:53.040 that there are injustices in this world, and you can do something to help them or combat them,

00:15:59.880 and generally just being a man, I mean, I can't say much more than that.

00:16:06.520 Right on, brother.

00:16:07.800 All right, Duff, man.

00:16:08.980 We're coming up on time, and I do appreciate you joining me today.

00:16:12.560 We'll catch you around, man.

00:16:14.220 I appreciate it.

00:16:14.780 Thank you very much.

00:16:15.480 Yes, sir.

00:16:17.880 If you've been inspired by this conversation, we encourage you to learn more about the steps,

00:16:21.960 tools, strategy, and resources these men are using inside of our exclusive brotherhood,

00:16:26.340 The Iron Council.

00:16:27.100 The Iron Council is a band of brothers dedicated to leveling up their lives and committed to

00:16:31.580 helping you do the same.

00:16:32.940 You can learn more at orderofman.com slash inthetrenches.

00:16:36.320 Until next week, take action and become the man you are meant to be.

00:16:40.020 Thank you.

00:16:45.580 Thank you.

00:16:46.720 Thank you.

Order of Man - May 16, 2018

ITT 011： Execution of Discipline ｜ Cody Duffney

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