Order of Man - Lead By Example ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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

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

00:00:17.120 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.660 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler. I'm your

00:00:27.860 host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement. Glad you're here today. I really

00:00:32.940 don't care if you've been listening for a long time or a very short period of time. I want you

00:00:37.200 to be here. This is a movement to help you become a better man. I'm on the path, same as you. I excel

00:00:42.820 in certain areas, same as you, and I fall behind in certain areas, same as you. Guys, we're all in

00:00:48.400 this together. We want to provide you with the tools, resources, conversations that you need

00:00:52.720 to thrive. We have this podcast where we interview successful men, scholars, athletes, warriors,

00:00:59.180 New York Times, bestselling authors. I mean, you name it. Athletes. I think I may have already said

00:01:04.120 that one, but if we have somebody who has a message and is successful in their own right,

00:01:09.640 what we're going to do is take those people, bring them on, extract their hard-earned wisdom,

00:01:13.180 and share that with you so that we can learn from their mistakes and learn from them what makes them

00:01:18.480 tick and what makes them a success. This is your Friday field notes. Some thoughts that I have

00:01:22.580 from throughout the week. I do want to mention something that I don't normally talk about a

00:01:26.600 whole lot. We have a sister organization. It's called the Revitalized Womanhood, and it's got a

00:01:31.960 podcast. Gina Tremor runs it, and she's got the Sisterhood, which is similar to our exclusive

00:01:37.260 brotherhood, the Iron Council. I know we have a lot of men who obviously listen to this podcast,

00:01:41.600 but one thing I get a lot from those men is looking for something for their wife or their girlfriend,

00:01:48.640 significant other. Often I'm asked, and I just had a comment on YouTube with this question,

00:01:54.280 is where is the women's equivalent of what we're doing here with Order of Man, and that is 1.00

00:01:59.340 Revitalized Womanhood. I think it's beneficial to help your wife find something similar to what

00:02:07.440 we're doing here. Obviously, men and women communicate differently, and it's great that

00:02:10.640 we can work together and we should want to work with our spouses, but there's also a need for men to 1.00

00:02:14.700 be with men, to learn from, to grow with, to be accountable to. And it's also true that women

00:02:20.820 need that sisterhood. They need that camaraderie. They need that accountability. They need to be

00:02:25.100 able to have some conversations amongst themselves so that we come back together, a more whole,

00:02:30.820 more complete, realized version of our potential, and then we can serve each other and walk forward

00:02:35.900 how we want to walk in life. So if you want to check that out, or if you're a woman who's listening,

00:02:39.820 make sure to check it out at revitalizedwomanhood.com. They've got a podcast. Gina Trimmer does a 0.67

00:02:45.040 fantastic job with it. And I think it'd be in the woman in your life's best interest to check it out

00:02:51.800 and see what it's all about. So that's my share with you today. Guys, I do want to talk about

00:02:56.320 something that gets brought up quite often, and we're addressing this in our exclusive brotherhood,

00:03:00.820 the Iron Council, which is the men's iteration inversion. And for the month of June, we're talking

00:03:06.160 about leadership under crisis. And specifically, we're studying Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated

00:03:11.540 adventure across the Antarctic. And we're talking about leading through disaster. So I thought I'd

00:03:17.080 kick that off by doing a podcast with regards to leading by example, because we all have scenarios

00:03:22.600 and situations where we've had leaders who don't lead by example. They try to manage, they try to

00:03:27.040 coerce and manipulate and strong arm us into doing things, but we would never follow that person

00:03:31.620 voluntarily. And as a man, I believe it's part of our job to lead, to lead ourselves first and

00:03:37.480 foremost, and then to lead the people that we care about. Our people, as I often say, that's your

00:03:41.680 family, friends, colleagues, coworkers, neighbors, community members, those types of people.

00:03:47.780 So we're going to address leading by example, because too often, we don't see men leading by

00:03:53.300 example. They're telling others what to do, but they're not willing to do it themselves. And look,

00:03:57.260 I'm not here to tell you that I have never done that. Certainly, there's been aspects of my

00:04:01.360 life specifically over the past year where I've fallen short in this department. And it's no

00:04:05.980 wonder that when that reality is presented that you lose the ability to influence and have some

00:04:13.100 authority in people's lives. But we want that. We want to be doing right by them and we want to be

00:04:17.420 serving them. And isn't that what leadership is? It's a level of service. You're there to serve those

00:04:22.280 people, not serve yourself, not prop yourself up or put yourself on a pedestal you don't belong,

00:04:27.440 but to help others get to a place they could not have imagined going on their own.

00:04:31.020 And that requires you to lead by example. So let's break this down. Number one is we do have

00:04:35.300 to be humble. Now, a lot of people will say vulnerability, authentic, and I'm trying to

00:04:40.020 expand my horizon, my understanding of what those words mean. But I choose to encompass this all in

00:04:46.980 humility. If you're arrogant, if you have an ego, if you're prideful, excessive pride, you're not being

00:04:54.360 humble. And therefore, you're not going to share your shortcomings, your deficiencies,

00:04:58.060 your areas that you need improvement on. And if you're not willing to do that because you think

00:05:02.880 you have it all figured out, or you've managed to pull the wool over your eyes long enough

00:05:06.060 to make you think that you have it figured out, then you can't grow. And if you can't grow,

00:05:10.640 you can't help other people grow. You've gone stagnant. You've gone cold. You become complacent.

00:05:15.340 And that's no way to lead people. So the first thing that we need to do is we need to take a deep

00:05:19.500 inventory. If we want to lead by example, a deep inventory of our own lives in some key areas,

00:05:25.780 not every aspect of our lives, but in some key, key areas that are going to naturally spill over

00:05:32.040 into other areas of our life. So number one is just getting right with ourself. And specifically,

00:05:37.740 I'm talking about your spiritual, your mental, your emotional health. How is that? Are you quick

00:05:43.860 to anger? Are you quick to judgment? Are you a pessimist? You always see problems, but not solutions.

00:05:49.920 Are you dragging other people down? Do you not really realize what your purpose of being on this world

00:05:54.500 is? Do you not have a mission and something that you can focus on? Are you not focused? Are you

00:06:00.220 easily distracted? These are all mental, spiritual, and emotional deficiencies that need to be worked

00:06:06.260 on and need to be shored up. Now, I might not get into the weeds today of how to do that because

00:06:10.820 we've been talking for eight years about how to do that. I just want to give you a 30,000 foot overview

00:06:15.760 on some things that you should be considering. And we also do this in our iron council.

00:06:19.980 And this is one of what we call the quadrants is the calibration quadrant, getting right with

00:06:25.160 yourself physically, mentally, excuse me, not physically, spiritual, mental, and emotional.

00:06:30.400 The next is the relationships that you have with others. So this is your connection quadrant.

00:06:37.020 Do you have a deep and meaningful connection with your significant other? Do you have a deep

00:06:40.740 and meaningful connection with your kids? Are you able to influence other people to do good things,

00:06:44.940 to move the needle in their own lives? What's the relationship you have with your colleagues

00:06:48.760 and coworkers? Do you know your neighbors? Do you know your friends? Do you have a band of brothers?

00:06:52.380 Are these things important to you? And if you do have those things, how would you measure the health

00:06:58.080 of the relationship you have, for example, with your spouse? Or how would you measure the strength of

00:07:03.240 the relationship that you have with your kids? And be honest. This is an honest assessment because

00:07:07.240 this is the time where you need to be humble. Okay. Number three. So that's the connection quadrant.

00:07:11.400 Number three, condition, physical health. I'm talking about strength, endurance, cardiovascular

00:07:17.500 strength, sleep, recovery, nutrition, all of these things that we know without a shadow of a doubt

00:07:25.020 that are going to make us better, more capable, stronger men. I saw a gentleman walk into the

00:07:30.380 convenience store today, and he was a very large man. And I'm not saying that in a healthy way. He was

00:07:34.540 a very large man. And I try not to be judgmental. I don't know what he has going on in his life. I

00:07:41.100 don't know if there's some sort of medical condition or mental health issue that he's dealing with. I

00:07:45.280 don't know. So I'm not trying to be judgmental. It's something I'm working on. Again, humility.

00:07:51.080 But what I do know is that if that guy was a hundred pounds less, he would live a much more fulfilled

00:07:57.200 life than he is now. Again, not my place to judge because I don't know his full story, but I know that in

00:08:02.240 my life, I've been overweight, up to 50 pounds overweight. And I can tell you unequivocally that

00:08:07.640 being lighter, leaner, stronger, healthier leads to a better life. You're more capable of leading

00:08:16.600 people. You're more capable of the energy required to sustain growth and focus towards desired

00:08:21.700 objectives. You're able to get people out of situations that you wouldn't normally be able to.

00:08:27.200 It's always better. So you need to take a look at it. Jump on the scale tonight. I know you don't

00:08:32.000 want to. I get it. You don't want to quantify how bad it's actually gotten. But if you want to lead

00:08:37.060 by example, you need to exhibit some humility, which means that you need to know where you're

00:08:41.880 starting from. It's not the end point. It's just the start point. That's the condition quadrant.

00:08:47.360 And the last is your contribution quadrant. And this is you being a valuable member of society.

00:08:55.080 This might pertain to voluntary service. This might pertain to your career aspirations,

00:09:00.520 but it's the way that we add value and enrich other people's lives for the betterment of their

00:09:06.940 lives and the betterment of society as a whole. People have given to you. Hopefully this podcast

00:09:11.960 has been valuable to you. Your parents hopefully have served you. There's been friends in your life

00:09:15.980 who have cared about you. And if we really want to be the kind of men we're capable of being,

00:09:20.080 then it is necessary, 100% and completely necessary that we figure out how to be men of value.

00:09:27.920 So that's the contribution quadrant. Guys, the more you focus on this, the more humble you're

00:09:32.680 going to be because you're always going to be working on improving something. And the other

00:09:36.880 side of this is that we need to be able to articulate our own struggles and our own challenges

00:09:42.060 with other people. Yes, even the people that you're trying to lead. There is a common misconception that

00:09:47.460 as a leader, you should not be talking about some of these things. And yes, there's a time and a place

00:09:52.220 where you should not, but you should be talking with people about where you fall short. You should

00:09:57.560 be talking about where you've failed with your, with your people. And if you do that, you're going

00:10:04.140 to build influence with them because they're going to see a man who not only failed in that way,

00:10:08.500 but figured out a way to overcome it. And that's inspiring. That's motivating to people. All of us

00:10:13.740 have a BS meter and that BS meter gets sent more and more sensitive every single day. The more we're

00:10:18.780 introduced to BS, the more we acknowledge that there's more and more BS in the world. It's set

00:10:24.500 to high. It's set to sensitive. So you can't be that guy. You can't be the guy who's pretending

00:10:30.620 like his crap don't stink. And he's walking around with his chest puffed out. And it's a lot of false

00:10:34.880 bravado, hoping and praying that somebody doesn't ever figure you out and you can actually get them to

00:10:40.920 do what you want them to do. It doesn't work. Okay. Now people are looking for confidence. Sure.

00:10:46.700 But confidence is earned. As I talked about in a podcast, about two to three weeks ago,

00:10:51.880 confidence is earned through the, the, the display or the, uh, the practice of taking courage or,

00:11:00.120 or exhibiting courage, taking decisive action, making bold choices, taking courageous risks.

00:11:07.800 The more you do that, the more confidence you're going to earn and you won't feel the need to

00:11:11.480 fake anybody out. You can honestly talk about where you're short without attaching it to your

00:11:17.000 worth. And isn't that what we do, man, I failed in this one aspect of life. So I'm a horrible human

00:11:21.660 being. No, you're not a horrible human being. You just fell short in that aspect of life.

00:11:26.380 And people who are humble, men who are humble are willing to acknowledge where they fall short

00:11:31.640 without thinking that they're a pile of garbage, that they still do have worth,

00:11:36.140 that there's unlocked potential inside of them to do something wonderful and great.

00:11:40.640 And I would suggest to you that if you can't do that, if you can only look at your problems

00:11:46.520 and, and associate and tie that into your sense of worth, then you're going to have a really,

00:11:52.540 really difficult time being humble. And if you have a difficult time being humble,

00:11:56.560 you're going to have a very, very difficult time leading other people.

00:12:00.240 So acknowledge your deficiencies, recognize your shortcomings, pour over and analyze where you

00:12:08.980 struggle and be honest and open with that, about that with other people. So all of you can learn

00:12:14.740 together. Number two is we must accept the weight of leadership. It's, it's not something to be taken

00:12:21.700 casually. It's not something to be taken flippantly. It's not just some title that you earn that has no

00:12:27.020 weight or significance other than maybe a few thousand extra dollars a year on your paycheck.

00:12:31.220 That's not what it is. Guys, we are called to be leaders. You have a family, you have a neighborhood,

00:12:38.520 you have community members, you have boys, maybe that you're coaching on their baseball team.

00:12:43.260 You have people that are working for you. That's heavy and it should be heavy and you should carry it

00:12:49.880 like the weight that it is. And so we don't take rocks out of the backpack because we can't handle

00:12:57.000 the leadership role that we serve or have a desire to serve. No, we go out and we train and we exercise

00:13:03.240 and we build muscle and we develop the capacity to carry as many rocks as possible, not at our own

00:13:09.060 expense. Cause if you make it at your own expense and you get, for example, if we're using the hiking

00:13:12.980 metaphor, you get dehydrated and you go down, you're not going to serve anybody. So yes, you still have to

00:13:18.660 take care of yourself. And that's part of what I talked about earlier with humility, but also you need

00:13:22.980 to be able to lead and you need to recognize that it's a heavy, heavy burden at times. We did an

00:13:28.080 event probably two and a half to three years ago and we titled it or had the motto is bear the burden,

00:13:35.080 bear the burden, bear the burden of responsibility that comes with leadership. And I'll tell you why,

00:13:41.440 because it's rewarding. Well, before that, even it's the right thing to do and doing the right thing

00:13:47.540 is intrinsically and inherently valuable, but outside of that, it feels good. You will be

00:13:53.420 rewarded through dopamine and other hormones injected and infused in your body to, to reinforce

00:13:58.320 the idea that you should be leading, that you should be taking care of other people, that you

00:14:03.740 should be adding value to their life. Can you imagine what that would look like if every turn

00:14:08.220 where you ran into people at the grocery store and they listened to your podcast, or, you know,

00:14:12.640 maybe you ran into them in the, in the parking lot of the grocery store and you jumpstarted their car

00:14:17.600 because they, their battery died. Like, these are all things that we can do to serve other people

00:14:22.160 and lead effectively to make their day better, to make their lives better, but also to make your life

00:14:27.640 better, but recognize it for what it is. It's not something to be taken casually. It's not just

00:14:33.200 something that comes and goes. Somebody bestowed that upon you. You either giving, given that authority

00:14:38.440 through some other authority, like work promotion, or somebody decided to give you their influence.

00:14:44.980 They gifted that to you, treat it with the reverence that it deserves. I haven't always done this when

00:14:53.220 people trust me or, or they give me their influence. I haven't always treated that with

00:14:58.120 the respect that it deserves, but it does deserve respect. Somebody bestowed that leadership upon you

00:15:04.300 and you better realize that they did it for a reason. And now it's your responsibility to do

00:15:09.660 everything that you can to train yourself and make yourself capable of leading them. Well,

00:15:13.620 number three guys, and I think we kind of already hit on this. So maybe I'm just beating a dead horse

00:15:18.040 is to evaluate your own performance, but you have to do it honestly. So we talked about the four

00:15:23.220 quadrants that you need to address, but you should also be doing this after performances. And when I say

00:15:28.180 performances, what I'm talking about in this context is anytime you have interaction,

00:15:32.080 a sale, a sales call, a meeting, a conversation, a podcast, an email that you sent out. Anytime that

00:15:39.400 you're interacting with other people, you want to evaluate your performance. How did I do? What

00:15:44.700 could I have done differently? What did I learn from that experience? Where did I struggle? What areas

00:15:49.460 can I shore up to ensure that what we were trying to get done actually gets done the next time? And

00:15:54.140 that's the last question is what am I going to be doing better next time in the situation? So if you give a

00:16:01.300 presentation, for example, to a group of employees, or maybe there's 500 or a thousand or 10,000 people

00:16:06.640 you're talking to from the stage, you should evaluate that because you can't lead people well,

00:16:13.480 unless you're willing to see that maybe you're not doing as good a job as you could. And isn't that all

00:16:19.080 of us? Like can't all of us in every department do better than we currently are? And yet too often,

00:16:25.160 I've done it too. We ask people to do things that we're not willing to do ourselves.

00:16:29.400 That's not treating people's influence they've gifted you with the respect and reverence it

00:16:35.160 deserves. And this has been valuable for me because as I'm tempted at times to slack off,

00:16:44.060 to be lazy, to engage in behavior that isn't really going to serve me or anybody else well,

00:16:50.240 I can remember the weight of leadership. And then I can use that to evaluate what I'm about to do.

00:16:57.540 Should I do this thing? Should I engage in this activity? Should I engage in this conversation?

00:17:03.960 Should I behave this way? Let me do this litmus test. Yes. I'm trying to serve other people.

00:17:08.440 It's important. Okay. No, I shouldn't. Or yes, I should. But always look at it and ask yourself,

00:17:13.420 is this the behavior that is in alignment with the kind of leader that you'd want to be?

00:17:19.380 And also in the alignment with the kind of leader you would follow? Would you follow you as a term I've

00:17:25.920 heard? If you were your own boss, and we are in a lot of ways, but for the sake of this, you're hired

00:17:33.060 with a company and it's a guy that looks like you, that talks like you, that acts like you, that behaves

00:17:37.500 like you. He is your clone. Would you follow that guy? And if you would, why? That's important to know.

00:17:43.700 And if you wouldn't, we need to pull that out. We need to extract that and figure out what's going

00:17:49.660 on right there because that's why possibly people aren't following you. Number four is it's very

00:17:56.940 important. And I found this out when I started the podcast. I used to believe that leaders were,

00:18:02.240 it was an I type mentality. Like I'm the leader, I'm the boss, I'm the best at this thing. Listen to me,

00:18:08.680 my way or the highway, do it my way. This is the best way. And it was very me centric and it was

00:18:15.400 less focused on other people. And you can tell when somebody's like this, listen to their language.

00:18:21.200 Just listen to their language. And as a general rule of thumb, you should be careful, very, very

00:18:26.960 careful in following people who use the terms I, me, mine a lot because they're self-focused. It's all

00:18:37.440 about them and it's not about the other party. But a great leader, listen to their language.

00:18:45.020 Us, we, our, those are leaders that I want to follow. If I knew nothing else about a leader,

00:18:52.700 if he refused to use inclusive language and instead isolation type language and put himself on an

00:18:59.460 island above and beyond what anybody else was on, that's a red flag for me. On the other hand,

00:19:05.700 if I hear a leader who uses inclusive language, we, us, our, the team, we're doing this together.

00:19:13.840 We got this. Or when they're congratulating people, the only time it doesn't apply is when you're giving

00:19:19.580 credit to other people for failures. That's the only time it doesn't apply. That should not be a

00:19:24.080 we and us and our, that should be a me, mine, I. I failed. I dropped the ball. I didn't get you

00:19:32.480 the tools you needed. I didn't get you the support you needed. I didn't realize that it would take

00:19:36.160 longer than it actually did or that the timetable would be longer than I initially realized.

00:19:41.920 When a leader uses I, me, and mine in that context, that's a green flag. So guys, use this us

00:19:48.780 mentality. You're on a team. It's not you and other people against the world. It's your family

00:19:56.480 or your business or your team. And the more you can create a culture and foster that culture of

00:20:03.080 community and belonging and team, the more likely people are going to follow you for the long haul.

00:20:08.080 It's always us, we, and ours. Number five, guys, continual improvement.

00:20:15.160 There's, there, there, people don't expect you to be perfect. They don't. Your wife doesn't expect 0.87

00:20:20.880 you to be perfect. She'd like it, but she, she's not unrealistic. She knows you're not perfect. She

00:20:27.040 knows there are going to be challenges. She's no, she knows, she knows you probably better than you

00:20:30.560 know you in a lot of ways. She knows when you're lazy. She knows when you're mad. She knows when

00:20:34.200 you're glad. She knows when you don't want to do something. She knows when you do want to do

00:20:37.520 something. She knows you got to have this continual level of improvement. You got to figure out ways to

00:20:43.660 continue to get better. You're not going to get perfect. Just like I said, she doesn't know,

00:20:47.560 or she, she knows that you're not perfect, but you can improve. You can be fitter today than you

00:20:54.760 were yesterday. You can have a little more money in the bank account today than you did yesterday.

00:20:59.380 You can react to a challenging situation at work today a little differently than maybe you did

00:21:05.240 yesterday. That's all we're asking. That's all you should be asking for yourself. It's not that

00:21:09.740 you're going to be perfect today. It's that you're going to get better and you're going to improve and

00:21:13.360 you're going to do after action reviews and you're going to be humble. And you're going to look at all

00:21:16.280 these things that we've already talked about. And you're going to use that as fuel to improve your

00:21:20.800 life better every single day. And by the way, when you mess up, that's an opportunity for improvement.

00:21:27.340 If you own it, you acknowledge it, you ask yourself how you can fix it. You don't convince people that

00:21:34.640 you're going to fix it. You just fix it and you do it consistently. And that rebuilds the trust that

00:21:40.460 you have with other people. That's what leaders do. And so when it comes to the us mentality,

00:21:45.000 I talked about a minute ago, have hope that you don't have to have it figured out and you don't

00:21:49.900 need to put yourself somewhere than your followers are. Again, that could be your family, friends,

00:21:53.400 colleagues, coworkers, whoever. But if you say, Hey, let's do this together. Instead of me being

00:21:58.420 out front leading you, let's do it together. Shoulder to shoulder. Let's go work towards that

00:22:02.320 objective. Let's go, go to the gym. Let's have that conversation. Let's do that thing. Doing it

00:22:07.780 together is always better. You guys, the last point I have for you today is making sure that you have

00:22:12.760 effective communication with regards to leading by example, because frankly, it's not enough just

00:22:18.100 to say you're doing something. You actually, in a lot of instances and cases, you actually have to

00:22:23.080 articulate it, especially with kids. You might be doing everything right. And they're formulating

00:22:28.580 the wrong connections because they're kids and adults do this as well. And you're not communicating

00:22:33.240 and effectively it's okay. You're not bragging. It's one thing you don't want to do, but you can't

00:22:37.840 tell people what you're doing and you can't tell people what is important because you want to be

00:22:42.140 influential and nobody else is going to market you. Nobody else is going to pitch you. So have

00:22:47.320 some faith in yourself and give yourself some credit that you're worthy of following and then

00:22:53.280 making sure that you're articulating that. Another way that we need to make sure that we're communicating

00:22:57.020 effectively is we're not going to beat people down. We're not going to hurt them. We're not going

00:23:01.440 to undermine them. We're not going to devalue them. Even if they make a mistake. Yeah. Maybe they cost

00:23:06.200 your business a couple hundred bucks, a couple thousand dollars. Are they a good employee? Yeah. Other than

00:23:10.540 that. Okay. So give them the benefit of the doubt. What happened? You know, I have people in my life,

00:23:15.940 maybe it was my ex-wife or close business associates or people in my life who maybe let

00:23:20.040 me down for a specific reason. And I can't really think of a reason right offhand, but I was disappointed

00:23:24.520 in their own performance. And I would say I would really get after those people. But what was

00:23:31.160 interesting is I realized I didn't need to because they were already beating themselves up. Number one. 0.99

00:23:36.540 And number two, this was so out of the ordinary for them that it was a bit of an anomaly. And

00:23:42.520 instead of getting after them for failing or for messing up or doing something that I didn't like,

00:23:46.140 maybe what I should have done instead was say, Hey, what happened? Everything okay? I remember one

00:23:51.180 time I had this employee. This was when I was in retail management and she called me and said that

00:23:59.160 she couldn't make it into work. And I was so bent out of shape. The schedule was all out of whack and

00:24:03.520 maybe I was having a bad day or whatever it might've been. And she's a great employee, by the

00:24:07.860 way. And she said, I can't make it into work today. And I reamed her for it. It's like,

00:24:12.640 why you need to be here on the schedule and now you need to find somebody else. And I can't believe

00:24:16.080 you're leaving us hanging high and dry. And I really laid into her. And then I asked her,

00:24:21.120 what, like, why, why are you, what do you have? That's like more important than what we're doing

00:24:24.340 here or grandma died. And what an asshole I was because I decided to jump down her throat instead 0.92

00:24:31.840 of actually exhibiting some care and empathy towards her because it was so far removed from

00:24:36.940 her current and usual behavior. That was ineffective communication. And guess what I did? I undermined

00:24:43.700 the relationship that we had. I undermined her performance at work and I undermined my own

00:24:50.460 leadership and influence ability with her. Now it can be rebuilt. And in fact, next week,

00:24:55.220 we have a podcast with Dr. Henry Cloud, who a lot of, you know, very popular. So Dr. Henry Cloud,

00:25:01.640 he's got a new book called trust. And he talks a lot about how you can build trust, how you can rebuild

00:25:06.500 it, when to give it, when not to give it. It's really, really important conversation. So you can

00:25:11.020 rebuild it, but we don't want to rebuild it. We don't want to have to take one step forward and two

00:25:15.600 steps back. We want to always be moving forward. So we communicate. I think the first rule

00:25:20.380 of communication is empathy. It's empathy. It's being able to look at an audience or a person

00:25:25.320 and try to figure out, is this person enjoying their time? Are they getting what they need from

00:25:30.760 this conversation? Am I being a good listener? Am I showing that I do care about them? And you

00:25:35.780 actually do have to care. You can't fake that one. Do I care about them? Do I want to hear about

00:25:41.160 what makes them tick? Am I curious about them in their life? And again, whether that's a party of one

00:25:47.040 or a party of 10,000, your ability to be empathetic in your communication style is what's going to set

00:25:52.880 you apart as a leader. I was not empathetic on that phone call. I was short and angry and not

00:26:00.720 helpful. I had another situation. I wrote about this in the book, The Masculinity Manifesto,

00:26:04.980 where we had this great athlete. He was pitching a baseball game and he's an incredible athlete.

00:26:11.040 He's a great pitcher. And I brought him in to close out the game and he struggled. Oh my goodness.

00:26:15.420 He struggled so hard. He was throwing balls everywhere. And I think he walked a couple

00:26:20.020 of batters and maybe gave up some runs. And I don't remember if we won or lost that game.

00:26:25.520 What I do remember is him almost being in tears because I made him feel like dog shit for doing

00:26:32.540 a poor job. And instead of communicating with him that way and beating him down, what I should have done

00:26:39.180 is I should have called a timeout and I walked out there and I put my arm around him and I said,

00:26:44.180 man, what's going on? You all right? Everything good? Had a hard day? You stressed? Nervous? It was a big

00:26:51.840 game? What's going on? Talk to me. And granted, we only have a little bit of time when you're on the

00:26:56.700 mound doing that, but there's definitely a more empathetic way to do it. And I think had I done

00:27:01.400 that, I don't know if his performance would have changed immediately, but it was like six, seventh grade

00:27:08.020 baseball. It's so unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but you know what? He would have walked

00:27:13.740 away from that with a new level of respect and trust between him and I, which would improve his

00:27:18.880 life. It would improve his season with me as his coach and it would make him better. This is something

00:27:25.880 that we don't talk about a lot as men being empathetic because we think it's feminine, like being

00:27:30.420 kind and empathetic and understanding and even feeling for people is not feminine. It's not 0.92

00:27:37.340 exclusively feminine. This is what good leaders do. They know their people. They care about their 0.78

00:27:43.280 people. They want to see them win. When they don't, they want to figure out why and what they can do to

00:27:47.760 help them improve. And that's all effective communication. Guys, I really think we can do a

00:27:53.620 better job here. And when I say we, because that was point number four is the us mentality. I'm talking

00:27:58.700 about me too. And I hope, I really do hope that you've heard it in the podcast over the past six,

00:28:04.220 eight, nine months. I hope that you've heard a change in my voice. I hope that you've seen that

00:28:09.960 I care about what we're doing here. And I didn't always communicate it as effectively as I otherwise

00:28:15.940 could have. Anger, bitterness, frustration, contention, or animosity, judgment towards others.

00:28:23.820 I want to be empathetic. I want to be kind. I want to help people. I want to serve people.

00:28:28.700 And we do that by leading by example. So let's recap here. Number one, being humble. Talked a

00:28:33.980 little bit about vulnerability. Talked a little bit about being courageous and bold and taking

00:28:38.280 actions and exhibiting courage. Number two is recognizing the weight of leadership. That it's

00:28:43.320 not just some passive thing that is insignificant. It is significant. It's very, very important.

00:28:50.020 Number three is evaluating your own performance and what you can do to shore it up. Number four

00:28:55.880 is the us mentality versus the me and mine and my, me and mine and my, yes, mentality and I. It's the us,

00:29:04.620 we, our mentality. Number five, continual improvement in your life. No one's perfect. No one expects you

00:29:11.700 to be perfect, but the people who are following you do expect you to improve every day. And number six

00:29:16.940 is effective communication with the key foundational trait of empathy. Okay. Let me know guys. If you

00:29:26.120 have more thoughts, more considerations, more ideas about how to lead by example, please let me know

00:29:31.060 what they are so we can all share and work together. A couple of things as we part today, number one,

00:29:35.760 check out our exclusive brotherhood, the iron council. It opens up mid June. So that's what a

00:29:41.300 week and a half, two weeks tops, mid June. And then also for those ladies who are listening and

00:29:46.480 for the men who have ladies in their lives that are looking for something similar to what we're

00:29:49.360 doing here and check out revitalized womanhood.com, including her podcast and her, uh, I was going

00:29:56.260 to say brotherhood. It's not a brotherhood. It's her sisterhood. It's the ladies getting together. 0.99

00:30:00.740 It's valuable, just as valuable as the iron council. All right, guys, that's all we've got. Let's go out

00:30:06.540 there. Take action from the man we are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man

00:30:11.220 podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.

00:30:16.220 We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - June 02, 2023

Lead By Example ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript