Order of Man - Learn to Let Go ｜ 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

00:00:05.000 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:00:10.420 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who

00:00:17.180 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.740 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Brian Michler.

00:00:27.740 I'm your host, and I'm the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement. Welcome here. I don't

00:00:32.920 know how long you've been with us. Maybe you've been listening in for over seven years now. Maybe

00:00:38.000 you've been listening for seven days or seven minutes or whatever, but regardless, glad that

00:00:43.180 you're here. This is your Friday field notes. I'm going to give you something that I would

00:00:46.700 have you consider chewing on. I think when I started Order of Man, it started with me walking

00:00:55.980 the path with you and trying to figure out this thing that we call masculinity and manliness and

00:01:02.980 manhood together. I think over the past several years, it became something that I almost in a way

00:01:12.340 was preaching to you that I had things figured out and maybe led you to believe in a way that I

00:01:22.240 knew more than I did or was doing better than I am. And I'm really evaluating that in my life over

00:01:28.820 the past little bit and thinking about what I want this movement to be and what it's been in the past

00:01:33.600 and what it turned into and also what it has the potential to become moving forward. And what I want

00:01:39.880 to reiterate and reestablish in this movement is that I am here walking the path with you.

00:01:46.220 Um, I've had some, some personal things that I've been dealing with, uh, some relational things I've

00:01:52.780 been dealing with and I'll explain some of those when the time is right, but I'm learning that I

00:02:00.800 don't have everything all figured out and I'm not as good or wonderful as I thought I was. So I've,

00:02:09.120 I've really evaluated over the past little while, what I need to do to work on and what I need to

00:02:15.500 improve and, and how I can walk shoulder to shoulder, brother to brother with you. It's amazing.

00:02:21.860 As I've talked with confidants and close friends and, and people I admire and respect in different

00:02:27.740 facets of life, as I've shared the things that I've been experiencing in my life, uh, how many things

00:02:35.180 they've been experiencing, not for the better that I had no idea about. And what I realized is that we,

00:02:42.180 as men don't talk about these issues, you know, all of us are running around and we put on the smile

00:02:48.540 and we put on the show and maybe we look good. Uh, maybe we try to present ourselves through,

00:02:54.700 uh, our, our financial acumen or success or even lack thereof. And we try to present ourselves in a

00:03:00.660 certain light and we want everybody else to believe that we have it figured out and that we're good.

00:03:05.620 And what I'm realizing personally, and what I'm realizing is I talk with my friends and confidants

00:03:11.440 that nobody's good. There are so many men who are struggling with different things in their life

00:03:18.740 and none of us are willing to talk about it. So I wanted to give you a thought today, uh,

00:03:25.220 something that I've been chewing on for the past little bit. And I, and I think it will help.

00:03:29.820 I hope it will help. If you guys have additional ideas that will help me or other people who tune in

00:03:33.540 and listen, then I would love to hear those things. And we have ways to communicate. Uh,

00:03:37.260 the Facebook group is a great way to do that. Facebook.com slash group slash order of man,

00:03:41.700 um, hitting me up on Instagram. I'm not as active as I once was over there, but, uh, you can hit me

00:03:46.940 up on Instagram and send me a message. I try to get back to those things. Uh, you could also consider

00:03:51.580 joining the iron council, which is our exclusive band of brothers, where it's, uh, more structured and

00:03:56.400 organized. We're holding each other accountable and trying to excel in our lives. Uh, that's going to be

00:04:01.760 opening up in mid September. So you can check that out at order of man.com slash iron council. But let

00:04:09.340 me share with you, uh, an idea, a concept that I don't have figured out and I'm not great at. In fact,

00:04:17.000 I'm horrible at it and I need to improve. And I don't even have the seven part formula or whatever

00:04:22.940 it might be to, to have you take notes. I I'm just riffing here, but the thing that I've really,

00:04:28.860 really struggled with in my life for as long as I can remember is letting go, learning to let go

00:04:36.340 is doing the work that I can do the physical work, the mental work, the emotional, the spiritual work,

00:04:42.940 doing the work that I can do and trusting that it will be okay. Trusting that it will be enough

00:04:50.600 trusting that, or even just coming to terms with the fact that there's nothing more you can do about

00:04:57.120 it. The world has a say, other people have a say, God has a say, and there's just not a whole lot that

00:05:06.780 we can do after we've done what we can do. And as a man who prides himself on being a high achiever,

00:05:16.840 somebody who wants to help and to serve other people, somebody who thinks they have a good path.

00:05:26.020 It's very difficult for me just to let go of the result. I, I feel like I can create it and will

00:05:33.500 it into existence. And in many ways I can, you know, if, if, if you're working out, for example,

00:05:40.160 and some of you may notice, some of you have commented. I look a little leaner. I look a little

00:05:45.180 better, maybe a little bit more vibrant, my skin, my hair, whatever. Uh, that's because I've been

00:05:50.020 very active in trying to build up my, my physical fitness to the level that it once was.

00:05:57.300 And when you do the work, you really don't have to, what I've noticed is worried too much about

00:06:03.560 the results because the results will speak for themselves. The problem is that we as a type

00:06:12.100 personalities and high achieving type men want our results. Like we want it to work out the way that

00:06:19.880 we want it to work. It's our plan. And if it deviates from that, then we try to manipulate.

00:06:27.260 We try to dominate. We try to coerce and strong arm and use the skills that we have,

00:06:35.600 not for the betterment of other people, but in a way to subjugate other people, to get them to 0.97

00:06:41.760 comply with us. And it doesn't work. And then it feels like we're banging our head against the wall

00:06:51.280 because we're not achieving the results that we feel like we deserve or that we can wail into

00:06:58.000 existence. And what I'm trying to learn and I'm trying to implement in my life is that sure,

00:07:03.380 we should have goals and we should have desires and ambitions and things that we want to accomplish.

00:07:07.440 And we should be thinking about our futures and planning those things. And then we should be

00:07:11.800 reverse engineering into the actions that are good. Now, will they produce favorable results?

00:07:20.240 More than likely they will, but not always at the tempo, the speed, the pace,

00:07:24.920 and not even always in the same direction. But those of us who want to control, I think,

00:07:32.760 and this is what I'm trying to do myself, is to trust that if we're doing good things,

00:07:40.240 good and righteous things, that good and righteous results will follow. Even though we may not know

00:07:46.960 what they are, even though it may not be in accordance what we think we should have or what

00:07:53.240 we deserve, but that if we're doing good and righteous things in our lives, that good and

00:07:58.580 righteous results will follow. So what are the good and righteous things? Well, it's the things

00:08:02.800 we've been talking about for seven years. And we all do them from time to time to varying degrees.

00:08:08.600 And you all know what they are. It's getting up early. It's putting the phone down. It's trying

00:08:14.380 to stay off social media as best you can, getting your body moving. Maybe it's a workout. Maybe it's

00:08:19.260 going for a walk. I've been going for a walk just about every day, maybe every day, but if not,

00:08:25.220 it's just about every day for the last 30 days. And it's not a long walk. It takes me 25 minutes

00:08:30.780 or so. And I take the dogs out and they stretch their legs and I stretch my legs and I pray and

00:08:36.820 I think about what I want to accomplish during the day. And I think about what I haven't accomplished

00:08:41.840 or what I need to be working on. And that's a great way to start the day. Another thing we can be

00:08:46.780 doing is planning. Another thing we can be doing is spending time with the people that we actually

00:08:50.120 care about and love and show them our love and help them feel loved. Work out. I said that. Eat

00:08:57.440 right. Feel your body correctly. Stop putting all the garbage and debris and filth and nonsense

00:09:02.840 into your body because it just doesn't do good things. It's not good and righteous. We know that. 0.61

00:09:09.900 And yet we still partake in it. Pursuing your career aspirations. Those are righteous things.

00:09:14.880 As long as you're working to serve other people, reading scripture, praying to God, meditating,

00:09:20.880 like we all know what they are. And, and I would challenge you as I've challenged myself over the

00:09:26.140 last 30 days, and I have room for improvement for sure, but I would challenge you to think about what

00:09:32.220 those activities are and just jot them down. Maybe it's five or six things that you want to do on a

00:09:37.000 daily basis. Jot those things down and then just make a commitment to hit those things,

00:09:41.800 those five or six things every single day. Now to go back to this concept of manipulation

00:09:50.360 and domination of other people. I know that I do that in my life and it isn't because I want to hurt

00:09:58.280 people. It isn't because I don't care about those people. In fact, I carry very much about those people

00:10:04.800 I interact with. I just feel like I know what's best and how arrogant is that? Not only arrogant

00:10:13.660 for myself, that I know what's best for my own life, which I don't because yes, I'm 41 years old,

00:10:20.320 but I still have a long way to go. But how arrogant is it for me to believe that I know what's best for

00:10:27.540 other people personally and professionally. Now there's situations where you're in charge of that to some

00:10:32.800 degree. I'm thinking about a parenting relationship, for example, as a father, you do have to think

00:10:38.140 about what's best for your children and you have to make decisions on their behalf. But outside of

00:10:45.340 that, I mean, I guess maybe an employee relationship to some degree, you need to give them opportunities

00:10:51.580 and let them grow and learn and develop so I could see that. But outside of that, you don't know.

00:10:57.960 I don't know. I don't know what's best for other people. I can give them advice. I can give them

00:11:02.200 direction. Better yet, I can ask great questions and help them come to conclusions on their own.

00:11:07.960 But what I've been realizing, and this is the point I wanted to share with you about learning to let go.

00:11:13.020 I've been really examining my own life and thinking about why is it that I feel the need to manipulate

00:11:19.180 and dominate other people in order to achieve this outcome? And the reality is, as much as I hate to

00:11:27.040 admit it, is that it's a self-esteem, self-worth, self-confidence issue. That there's so many

00:11:37.340 insecurities that I have in my own life that I'm not willing to really examine those and ask myself

00:11:46.040 how I can change and improve. And instead, I can look at what everybody else is doing or isn't doing

00:11:52.460 and say, you need to do this. You need to do that. You need to stop doing this. You'd be better if

00:11:57.740 here's a better plan. And it's exhausting. It's exhausting for me to attempt to, you know,

00:12:08.920 manipulate the strings of the puppet. And it's exhausting for those people.

00:12:13.860 You know, you don't, you don't like receiving unsolicited feedback. You don't like constantly

00:12:19.720 being pestered and poked at and preached to. And yet I do it because of some self-esteem issues

00:12:27.200 that I've had in my life. And, and I think based on the conversations I've had to go back to my

00:12:33.660 previous thoughts, there's a lot of us out there as men who have self-esteem issues

00:12:39.980 and we haven't come to terms with it, but I'm learning that as I examine those things as

00:12:48.920 brutally painful as it is, and it is brutal guys, it is brutal, but as brutally painful as it is,

00:12:59.020 it's really the only way to produce those good and righteous results, but also to let go of the

00:13:07.440 things that we can't control the things that are beyond our control, other people, external

00:13:14.280 circumstances, what God's will and plan is. I am an ant when it comes to the way that I can,

00:13:27.000 or have the ability to exert myself on this world. I mean, think about the ant for a second.

00:13:32.280 My son, a couple of, uh, about a month or so ago, got a little ant, an ant farm and the ants are

00:13:40.740 scurrying around and they're pulling these, these little grains of sand and they're so small. You

00:13:46.180 can barely see these grains of sand, but to the ant, they're huge. They're like half the size of

00:13:51.280 the ant. It would be like us picking up a, a two or 300 pound boulder or maybe even heavier.

00:13:57.700 But from our vantage point, they're just ants and you can barely even see that little grain of sand.

00:14:06.280 Well, guys, where are the ants? Right. I run around life and I think about what I'm doing and I think

00:14:12.820 I'm special and I think I'm important. And I think I'm making my quote unquote dent in the world.

00:14:18.000 And then I realize I'm an ant. I am nothing in the grand scheme of things. Now that doesn't mean

00:14:26.360 that I have no self-worth as a human, as a divine being. It just means that we're not as great and

00:14:33.800 grand as we think we are. We're ants. And the reason I share that with you is because we, we,

00:14:40.300 we don't have as much control as we think we do. And we need to learn to let go of easy for me to say

00:14:47.680 infinitely harder for me to do. I'm going through those battles in my life right now. How do I let

00:14:53.500 go? I don't have the exact answer for you. I'm just trying. I'm trying to let go of what other people

00:15:05.720 experience, trying to let go of what they think of me, trying to let go of wanting to exert myself,

00:15:12.920 this ant going against this, this, this cosmic divine experience. And in order to do that,

00:15:22.380 the only thing I can come up with right now is really to examine how I feel about myself.

00:15:27.220 And it isn't always pretty. It's rough, but it's a good exercise. And although I don't know where it

00:15:40.660 leads and have no control over where it leads, I know it will lead to a good and righteous place

00:15:46.500 because it's good and righteous behavior. So I'm going to continue to examine myself. I'm going to

00:15:53.040 continue to examine my self-esteem issues. You can go back and listen to the podcast. When I talk

00:15:59.520 about bridging the integrity gap, there's a lot of information in there that I need to go back and

00:16:03.760 review myself. Go back and listen, bridging the integrity gap. I've done quite a few podcasts on

00:16:11.340 that because I think that's going to help build up the self-worth and the self-confidence and help you

00:16:18.820 let go of the need to control, dominate, and manipulate everything. Like I feel the need to.

00:16:23.960 So guys, that's my message for you today. Again, I'm just giving you something to chew on.

00:16:28.680 I know in the past, it's like, here's 10 steps you can do to achieve ultimate success.

00:16:35.760 Podcast is going to be a little different moving forward. It's not going to be, let me tell you all

00:16:40.000 the wonderful things you should be doing and how I'm doing it. It's going to be like,

00:16:43.280 men, brother to brother, shoulder to shoulder, as iron sharpens iron, let's do this together.

00:16:50.500 I'm in the pit with you trying to figure this all out. So you're going to notice some changes.

00:16:56.420 I'm excited about those changes. I'm nervous about those changes. Who likes change? But I'm also

00:17:02.240 going to learn to let go of the result and what you might think of me for better or worse.

00:17:07.920 I hope that helps. I hope that gives you something to consider. I would challenge you again

00:17:12.340 to look at those five or six things that you want to incorporate in your life on a daily basis that

00:17:16.660 are good and righteous behaviors or behaviors that will lead to good and righteous results.

00:17:21.160 And I would challenge you to one other thing. Last week, I talked about checking in on your

00:17:25.660 brothers. I would challenge you to actually do that. If you haven't done that, do that.

00:17:33.360 If there's another guy that you're associated with, brother or father, a friend, colleague,

00:17:38.700 coworker, who's on your heart, who's in your mind, reach out to that guy and share your own

00:17:45.320 personal struggles. Because what that does is it helps you because you're sharing, but it also helps

00:17:50.320 that other guy because it gives him permission to share. And he might have something burning that he

00:17:54.900 needs to share. And if you give him the opportunity to do that, man, what a powerful way to serve as we

00:18:00.420 should. All right, guys, we'll be back next week for our interview. If you're just tuning in,

00:18:05.800 make sure you subscribe, whether it's on YouTube or wherever you're listening to podcasts, Spotify,

00:18:10.360 iTunes, whatever, and take a screenshot, share this with somebody else who needs to hear the message.

00:18:15.560 And I would also suggest that you take these lessons and you riff on them with somebody else.

00:18:20.020 If there's somebody in your corner and you're like, Hey, you know, I'd like to talk with you or,

00:18:23.100 or have some sort of accountability with you. Maybe these topics are the things that you guys can

00:18:27.040 address. And so hopefully we can give you a little, a little, a little fuel for the fire.

00:18:31.640 All right, guys, we'll be back next week. Until then, go out there,

00:18:33.860 take action and become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man

00:18:39.380 podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.

00:18:44.120 We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - September 02, 2022

Learn to Let Go ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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