Order of Man - Leave Your Legacy ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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

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

00:00:10.440 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who

00:00:17.240 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 today? My name is Ryan Michler,

00:00:27.680 and I am the host and the founder of this podcast, The Order of Man, and this movement,

00:00:32.360 this movement to reclaim and restore what it means to be a man, and I'm so honored that you're joining

00:00:37.380 us today. This is the very first time that you've ever heard a Order of Man podcast, and it might be

00:00:42.900 because I'm looking at the download numbers, and quite frankly, I am blown away with the exponential

00:00:47.860 growth and increase in the traffic that we've had and the amount of men who are listening to this

00:00:52.220 podcast. I'm getting messages every day on Instagram and Facebook and emails and wherever

00:00:57.400 you're connected with us, just letting us know about your appreciation of what we're doing here,

00:01:02.440 and I'm glad. I'm honored to be hopefully leading this charge in an effective way, and I would say

00:01:07.960 that we are because, again, we're experiencing the growth in the podcast and the Facebook groups

00:01:12.180 and Instagram and wherever we're showing up and trying to show up and be available to you.

00:01:16.080 Now, guys, this is a show about becoming a better man, period. That's it. So whatever capacity of

00:01:21.960 life that you're trying to show up as, whether that's being a better husband, a better father,

00:01:27.000 a better community leader, a business owner, or just lead your life. Lead your life a little bit

00:01:31.780 better. Hopefully, we're giving you the tools and the resources and the guidance and direction

00:01:36.020 that you need in order to accomplish whatever those objectives are. Now, this is your Friday

00:01:42.060 Field Notes. If you're not familiar, we've got an interview show where I'm interviewing guys like

00:01:46.680 Jocko Willing, Tim Kennedy, Grant Cardone, Andy Frisilla, Bedros Koulian. I mean, I've got so

00:01:53.080 many wonderful guests when it comes to entrepreneurship and scholars, New York Times

00:01:57.860 bestselling authors, athletes, warriors, the list again goes on and on, but this is a little

00:02:03.220 different. This is your Friday Field Notes where you get to listen to me. And one of the questions

00:02:08.880 that I've got quite a bit over the past couple of weeks is about our legacy event. Now, if you're not

00:02:13.960 familiar with what this is, this was our first father-son event. And we did that a couple of

00:02:20.220 weeks ago in the mountains of Southern Utah, my home area, my neck of the woods, if you will.

00:02:24.960 And we had 20 guys from all over the country fly in with their sons to help usher these boys into

00:02:31.140 manhood and of course, teach them also what it means to be a man. We had such a great time,

00:02:36.960 tremendous success. We're going to be doing another event in the spring of 2019. So if you want to know

00:02:42.580 more about that, and again, that's going to tie into the show today, then head to orderofman.com

00:02:47.800 slash legacy orderofman.com slash legacy. You can put yourself on the waiting list. And then when we

00:02:54.860 release the dates on that, you'll have first access to that. There's only 20 spots and I can guarantee

00:02:59.100 you that we will sell out of that. We will fill those spots very, very quickly. So today, what I

00:03:03.820 thought I would do, because I think it's timely with that legacy event. And I know it's on a lot of

00:03:08.540 your minds is talk with you about leaving your legacy. And I think this is a huge component of

00:03:14.680 being a man, our ability to show up beyond just ourselves in our family members, lives, our kids,

00:03:20.960 our wives, our neighbors, our employees, our clients, whatever, again, facet that you're showing

00:03:27.860 up. It's really important that we as men learn to think and do and grow beyond ourselves. And part of

00:03:35.260 this is leaving a legacy. So today I'm going to recap a little bit about how the event went.

00:03:39.860 And I'm also going to give you a couple of challenges, if you will, a couple of challenges

00:03:45.160 or strategies, things that you can do with and in your life and in the lives of the people who

00:03:51.460 will be impacted by the decisions that you're going to be making. That is a legacy. So we'll get

00:03:56.680 right into it. Not a whole lot of announcements today. In fact, no announcements. Just want to get

00:04:00.260 right into this because I know it's so important. So like I said, the legacy event, we had a couple

00:04:05.140 of weeks ago, 20 guys flew in from all over the country. And my goal was to push the men and their

00:04:11.860 boys physically, mentally, emotionally. And of course we did all of the things that you would

00:04:16.660 consider quote unquote manly. We shot guns. We had a retired Navy SEAL along with his business partner

00:04:22.900 come in. Method Enterprises is the name of the tactical organization that was training us. So we did

00:04:28.360 AR9s, AR15s. We got out the long range rifles, such a good time there. We blew up some Tannerite.

00:04:35.820 Oh man, what else did we do? Bow and arrows. We did airsoft. We participated in some challenges that

00:04:43.160 were quite honestly, very challenging. We had boys set up tents without the physical assistance from

00:04:49.760 their fathers, just verbal guidance, which was a lot more challenging than I thought it would be.

00:04:54.020 And all of that stuff was great guys. All of that stuff was wonderful. And it was a great time to

00:04:59.140 bond with the fathers and the sons. But I think more than anything, the thing that I really took

00:05:05.240 away from our weekend was the firesides each and every night we gathered together as a band, a tribe

00:05:11.700 of men. And we had discussions on some very, very important topics. And there was two things in

00:05:18.000 particular, two firesides, two topics that really stood out with me. Now, as I hosted,

00:05:24.020 and we led the legacy event, I actually didn't lead too much of it. We had our events coordinator,

00:05:30.600 Chris Gatchko head up a lot of that because I actually participated in the event itself. So I

00:05:34.960 was on a team and we were competing against other teams. My two oldest boys came with me. And my biggest

00:05:41.600 takeaways were these two things. Number one, one of the nights during the fireside, I actually had

00:05:48.260 every single, we had all of the men go around and say just one thing, one simple thing that really

00:05:57.840 stood out that they admired, that they respected, that they appreciated about their son. And in addition

00:06:05.600 to that, we also had the fathers talk about one thing they would like to see in the relationship

00:06:10.500 between them and their son that would improve the relationship. And on the flip side, and this was

00:06:17.060 very, very, very powerful is we had the boys do the same thing. So the dads would go, then the boys

00:06:24.020 would share one thing they admired and one thing they appreciated and respected about their fathers

00:06:28.980 and one thing they would like to see by way of improvement in their relationship. And I'm telling

00:06:34.660 you what, we were having a great time up to that point and connecting and just doing the things that

00:06:40.040 we were doing. But it wasn't until that moment that the fathers and the sons really opened up,

00:06:47.000 really expressed some rawness, came to terms with the things that were going well, and frankly,

00:06:52.640 some of the things that they needed to work on to improve. And the biggest takeaway of that for me was

00:06:57.000 a general lack of deep and significant and meaningful conversations with the people who are important

00:07:05.960 to us. I think a lot of the times we just assume that things are good and the other party or individual

00:07:11.640 is taken care of and they have everything they need, or we know exactly what they need and what they

00:07:16.300 don't. But I think all too often, because we're not having these conversations, we are overlooking the

00:07:23.580 important parts of their life, the needs, the wants, the desires of the people that we're trying to leave

00:07:29.440 legacies for. And in this context, of course, I'm talking about sons, but it could be daughters.

00:07:33.540 It could be your spouse. It could be your employees. It could be your neighbors. It could

00:07:38.780 be other community members. It could be clients. We are trying to leave a legacy, hopefully. And the

00:07:46.680 thing that I want all of us to understand, and myself included, is that whether we're intentional,

00:07:52.080 whether we're deliberate or not about leaving a legacy, you cannot escape leaving a legacy.

00:07:59.060 You can either do it by default or you can be deliberate and you can be intentional about the

00:08:05.460 type of legacy that you're leaving. When I fast forward in my life, and hopefully I've got many,

00:08:10.820 many decades left, I want to be able to look back and know that the people who were in my life,

00:08:17.380 my kids, my wife, my friends, that they were impacted positively, that their life is better

00:08:23.380 because I was in it. And if I'm not deliberate and I'm not intentional about the way that I'm going

00:08:30.340 about doing this, and I'm not having the types of conversations that need to be had, and I'm not

00:08:34.460 scheduling these types of things, then I think the default is to produce a legacy less than we're

00:08:40.860 capable of. We are not reaching our full potential if we're not deliberate and intentional about what it

00:08:47.660 is we're leaving behind long after we're dead and gone. And so as I sat around the campfire and I

00:08:53.100 listened to these dads get real and raw with their boys, and I listened to the boys get real and raw

00:08:59.740 with their fathers, there was something that opened up inside of the relationship that I think probably

00:09:05.920 just wasn't quite there before. And if it was, I don't know that it was there to the degree

00:09:11.080 that it was through the exercise of sitting down and having conversations in a meaningful way without

00:09:18.160 the opportunity in a way, I guess, if you'll say that that way to be offended, to get upset,

00:09:26.000 to be defensive about defending your position. That just wasn't allowed. We didn't allow those types

00:09:32.560 of defenses to take place. And so it was very, very cool to see these boys and their fathers open up in

00:09:38.640 new ways. And the challenge that I would issue to you as you hopefully are deliberate, intentional

00:09:44.160 about your legacy is that you schedule time for these meaningful and significant conversations that

00:09:51.240 you usually just don't have. You know, we get inundated with the weather and work and this activity

00:09:57.840 and coaching this team and doing these sports. And it just gets so overwhelming that very rarely do we

00:10:05.020 as men take the time to have real deep, meaningful, significant conversations. And my challenge to you

00:10:13.280 as a father and a husband and a employee and a business owner and a community leader is to start

00:10:20.180 identifying people that you need to have serious conversations with and start having those

00:10:26.780 conversations. So that was one of the takeaways. Now, the other takeaway, and I can't even fully

00:10:33.700 articulate how powerful this was is on the last night, we had all of the fathers with their sons

00:10:40.960 go off into their own separate corner of the wilderness. They're our campsite. And we had them

00:10:47.280 write down their code of conduct. And the boys were to come up and give a lot of feedback as to what

00:10:53.360 these code of conducts look like. And as I explained what a code of conduct was, and of course we did this

00:10:57.500 on the first day and kind of articulated it over the course of three days so they could cap this

00:11:01.900 thing off with a code of conduct. I explained to them that the code of conduct is a document.

00:11:08.340 It's a statement or a series of statements that both the fathers and the sons will adhere to live

00:11:13.880 by. Because when we get into the heat of the moment and there's decisions that need to be made and

00:11:18.280 they're emotionally driven decisions or they're quick decisions that need to be made. If you haven't

00:11:23.260 decided how you will act prior to those decisions that need to be made, it's very likely that you'll make

00:11:29.600 an inaccurate choice, that you'll go down a path that if you had more time to think about it,

00:11:35.280 you probably wouldn't want to travel. And so these dads just came up with, and their boys came up with

00:11:41.140 just some unbelievable guiding statements into how they'll live their life. And what I thought I'd do

00:11:47.620 is share with you the code of conduct that me and my boys came up with. And my boys actually wrote

00:11:54.240 down all of these things. I helped them flush out some of these ideas and then articulated it a little

00:11:58.780 better. And we wrote these things down and I'm getting this thing framed and hanging it on the

00:12:02.740 wall and hanging out on the wall of my boys' rooms. But I want to read this to you because it is

00:12:06.360 powerful. And I think it gives you a little bit of an idea of some of the tangible conversations and

00:12:11.960 ideas and action strategies that we actually took away from this legacy experience. So here's our code

00:12:17.220 of conduct. We will be disciplined in whatever we pursue because discipline equals freedom. When faced

00:12:23.800 with difficult decisions and choices, we will always act with courage and bravery. We know it is our

00:12:29.880 responsibility to protect, provide, and preside, and we act accordingly. We understand if we are to

00:12:36.340 achieve our goals, we must work our hardest. We do our very best to keep ourselves physically,

00:12:42.720 mentally, and spiritually strong. We take responsibility for our thoughts, choices, and actions,

00:12:48.720 and learn from our mistakes. We respect ourselves, our surroundings, and others. We believe in being

00:12:55.100 honest and truthful in every way, even if it's hard. We think with our minds, feel with our hearts,

00:13:02.380 and follow our souls. And then me and my two oldest boys each signed that document. And again,

00:13:08.060 I'm going to frame that. But what a powerful way to walk away with a new frame of reference for the way

00:13:14.500 that we're going to be making decisions in our lives. And as I've gone about the past week and a

00:13:18.600 half now from that event, both me and my oldest and my second oldest have been able to refer back

00:13:25.200 to that document and then ask ourselves if we're living in accordance with it. And there's been times

00:13:30.500 even over the past week or so where I've fallen short, and there's been times where they've fallen

00:13:35.040 short. And because we know the expectation, the standard by which Michlers operate, now we can hold

00:13:41.840 ourselves to that. And it isn't some guesswork that I have to wonder if we're doing the right

00:13:46.620 thing, or they have to wonder if they're behaving the right way. It's all laid out right here. Now,

00:13:51.460 this document will change and it will grow and it will develop and evolve over time. But this is the

00:13:56.260 foundational document. This is the foundational conversation that as they get older and they

00:14:02.260 get into work and they start dating and they start getting jobs and going to college, that we can

00:14:07.240 continue to refer back to this code of conduct and ask ourselves objectively if we're living to this

00:14:13.860 code or if we're drifting. We're just going where the current of popular society takes us. The code of

00:14:20.940 conduct for me, I think, was the single biggest takeaway from the legacy event. So, I would encourage

00:14:27.440 you as challenge number two that I'm going to issue in this podcast to go sit down with your wife, 1.00

00:14:33.380 sit down with your kids. Even if it's in a work environment, you could do it there and really

00:14:39.140 start to flush out some ideas about how you will behave in the walls of your home and in your business

00:14:44.780 and your community. I don't have any exercises other than you all sit down, talk, have conversations

00:14:51.280 about what's important, have these very definitive type statements. It doesn't need to be a novel or a

00:14:56.980 chapter of a book. It should be one page that you can refer to very, very quickly and determine if

00:15:02.460 you're living your life in accordance with that code or not. So, again, the two challenges that

00:15:07.800 I gave you and I'm going to get to a few other things here is sit down and have some real

00:15:13.740 conversations with the people who will be impacted by the choices and the decisions that you're making

00:15:18.680 and then number two, sit down with those same individuals and start to flush out your own code

00:15:24.040 of conduct. So, those are the big takeaways from the event. Guys, if you want to know when another

00:15:28.820 event is, again, go to orderofman.com slash legacy. You can figure out a little bit more

00:15:34.220 about what we're up to. Hopefully, we'll have the recap video on there very, very soon. You can get

00:15:39.420 signed up to get an email when the next dates are released and please sign up for that because it

00:15:45.620 will go quick. No doubt in my mind that we're going to fill up those 20 spots very, very quickly.

00:15:50.620 So, again, it's orderofman.com slash legacy. Now, on, of course, the subject and the topic of

00:15:55.180 legacy, I want to talk with you about four very simple strategies and these aren't new guys. These

00:16:00.820 aren't things that I haven't discussed before, but again, we have to be deliberate. We have to be

00:16:05.280 intentional. We have to have some intentionality behind what we're doing or we're leaving a legacy

00:16:09.740 less than we're capable of. And again, when I look back upon my life and I look at my kids and I look

00:16:16.480 at them being adults and I look at my grandkids and I look at my community and I look at all of the

00:16:20.640 opportunities and the potential that I had to serve, I want to be able to look at those memories

00:16:26.060 with pride. I want to know that if I die or when I die, that there's going to be things that I taught

00:16:34.380 that are going to outlive me, hopefully generational, not just to my kids, but my grandkids and their kids

00:16:41.900 and their kids and so on. So, let me talk about these strategies real quick and I've got, I think,

00:16:46.980 one, maybe two more challenges here for you. So, you've got a lot of homework over the next week.

00:16:51.640 But the first thing I wanted to lay out for you is that you've got to know what type of legacy you're

00:16:55.500 going to leave. You can't get to some final destination unless you know where that final

00:17:00.340 destination is. And the more specific that you can be about the final destination, the more likely it

00:17:05.820 is that you'll achieve that outcome. So, what type of legacy do you want to live? What values do you

00:17:11.980 have? What conversations need to be had? What things are important to you? The way that we

00:17:17.120 approach our lives? And a lot of this should be laid out in the code of conduct that you're going

00:17:21.040 to be completing as well. But the exercise that I would suggest to you is that you consider writing

00:17:26.520 your own eulogy. So that if you were reading your own eulogy at your death, what would be said about

00:17:33.860 you? What type of husband were you? What type of father? What type of community leader? Were you

00:17:40.120 coaching? Were you sharing? Were you a good person? Were you honest? Were you charitable? Were you

00:17:46.240 empathetic? Were you strong? What are the things that are important to you? Sit down, guys. Carve out

00:17:51.960 a day this week and write out your eulogy. And you'll find that it's a difficult, if you do it

00:17:57.940 correctly, it's a difficult exercise. But I promise you that it's going to be enlightening. It's going to

00:18:03.420 serve you well. And I think this serves as the foundation, the very bedrock for the type of

00:18:11.380 legacy that you're going to leave. So number one, know what type of legacy that you are going to

00:18:16.780 leave. Number two is that you have to include other people in that vision. If you know what you

00:18:23.820 want, but nobody else knows what it is you're doing and why you're doing it and why it's important to

00:18:28.320 you, I don't think we're realizing our full potential. You can't go at this thing alone and

00:18:33.300 you can't make decisions in your life in a vacuum. The decisions that you're making, the choices,

00:18:39.820 the thoughts, the patterns, the behaviors, the actions that you're taking have an impact on other

00:18:44.680 people. Whether you realize it or not, you are impacting people positively or negatively. There's

00:18:50.300 no sitting the fence. There's no neutral zone here. You're going one way or the other. And if you're

00:18:55.240 going to make decisions that are going to affect those closest to you, then I think it's probably

00:19:00.460 safe to assume that you should include them not only in the decision-making process, but helping

00:19:06.940 them understand why. Because if you can help them understand why, and this is a characteristic of all

00:19:12.740 great leaders, they're going to have buy-in to that legacy. They're going to have buy-in to that vision

00:19:17.800 and they're going to help hold you accountable to living the way that you say you're going to live.

00:19:24.040 So just like I talked about with this code of conduct and sitting down with my sons and the

00:19:29.220 other dads that sat down with their sons, it was an opportunity for everybody involved to share in

00:19:34.640 that vision, to partake in that vision, to actually craft and illustrate that vision. And there might

00:19:40.060 be some things that you're not even aware of that aren't even on your radar. But when you involve

00:19:43.840 your kids and you involve your wife and employees and those you're trying to impact, you're going to

00:19:48.820 see things that you didn't see. You're going to see things from a new angle, a new perspective that

00:19:54.860 will help bring a little bit more clarity and crystallize that vision for you. So again, step

00:20:00.520 number one is knowing what type of legacy you want to leave. And I would encourage you to do the eulogy.

00:20:05.420 And then step number two is now that you have that, include others in the vision, include others in

00:20:10.860 the type of legacy that you're going to want to leave. Number three is we have to understand

00:20:15.320 that leaving a legacy is not a passive strategy. It can be, it certainly can be. And I know plenty

00:20:22.860 of men out there who are very passive in their approach to life. They're very passive in their

00:20:27.460 approach to being a husband and being a father and being an employer or being an employee. And again,

00:20:33.840 and I've said this already multiple times in this podcast, in this last little 20 minutes here,

00:20:37.600 that if you do it that way, if you take a passive role, you're not realizing your full potential.

00:20:46.980 Leaving a legacy is not passive or it shouldn't be. It should be active. You should take these

00:20:52.780 documents that you're looking at and you should have them on the walls and you should plaster them

00:20:56.640 as desktop wallpaper on your computer. And you should refer to them often, have these conversations

00:21:01.600 over and over and over again. So you begin to internalize what it is that you want for yourself

00:21:07.560 and the way that you want to be remembered when you're dead, gone and buried. It's not passive

00:21:13.340 guys. Anything worth having in our lives takes an active role on our part. It takes us being involved.

00:21:20.940 It takes us being engaged. It takes us taking action and it takes us doing the work required to

00:21:27.260 achieve the ultimate objective, which is the legacy that you've laid out for yourself. So number three,

00:21:32.440 not a passive strategy, but an active strategy. And the last point that I'll leave you with today.

00:21:38.060 And I talk about this all the time. I think every Friday field notes, I've probably addressed this or

00:21:42.760 at least skim the surface on the, on this idea. You have to review, you have to review. I already

00:21:49.300 talked about drifting guys. We get inundated with work and politics and news and all of these things

00:21:57.340 that just come into our lives that frankly, a lot of them are irrelevant. And yet we let those things

00:22:03.420 change and alter the course of our life. And it's very easy to do because these are little,

00:22:09.380 little corrections, you know, just, just one little change in, in a new initiative at work,

00:22:16.680 just one little change in somebody that has impacted your life. And then all of a sudden we look back

00:22:23.660 five, 10, 20 years. And through that little change, we got so far off the track that it's hard for us

00:22:31.020 to remember how to get back on because we don't even know what it means to be on that track in the

00:22:35.840 first place. So there has to be some sort of review process. You could do this every day.

00:22:41.280 You could do this every week. I certainly wouldn't go longer than any month, but ask yourself now that

00:22:46.920 you have this code of conduct, now that you have your eulogy, now that you're having the types of

00:22:53.660 conversations that I've already addressed, you now go back and look, am I still this type of man?

00:23:00.160 Am I still doing what I said I would do? Am I still committed to the path? Where do I need to

00:23:05.420 course correct? Where do I need to change? And where do I need to overcome drifting off course and,

00:23:10.300 and altering the course of my life and falling into this default mode? Guys, this stuff's really,

00:23:16.440 really important. There's a big component of being a man that goes well beyond the way that we show up.

00:23:23.800 And I think it starts with us. It certainly starts with us. Where's your mind? Where's your body?

00:23:28.420 Where's your spirituality? Where are these skills that you have? That's all starts with you. But the

00:23:33.320 reason that we develop those things is not only to serve ourselves, but to reach beyond ourselves

00:23:39.820 and to reach into the lives of our kids, our spouses, our colleagues, our neighbors, the people

00:23:47.380 we care about, to reach into their life and not change their life because we can't actively do

00:23:52.500 that, but to influence their lives. Your kids and your friends and your people are going to look to

00:24:00.380 you for guidance and direction and support. And they're going to look back at your life and they're

00:24:06.900 going to think about that fondly or negatively based upon how you lived yours guys. Leaving a legacy

00:24:15.760 is critical and it has to be intentional and it has to be deliberate. Every single one of us is

00:24:22.040 leaving it. What does the behavior, the thoughts, the ideas, the success of our future generations say

00:24:29.140 about us. I think that is in large part due to the way that we live our lives. So guys, you know what

00:24:36.160 to do. Know what type of legacy you're wanting to leave, including others in that vision, taking

00:24:42.260 active role, not a passive role in this thing, and then constantly having a review process. Now,

00:24:47.180 the three items that I gave you to walk away with and for you to complete, hopefully in the next week

00:24:51.480 before our Friday field notes of next week is to sit down and have conversations with your kids and

00:24:56.880 your spouses and those who are impacted by the decisions you're going to be making and have

00:25:00.840 real conversations. And I think, you know what it means to have a real conversation. That's number

00:25:05.420 one. Uh, number two, start writing your code of conduct, list all of those statements that are

00:25:10.840 important to you. Like I had read to you earlier. And number three, write your own eulogy. I think

00:25:15.900 through those practices and through those exercises, you'll be able to articulate a little more clearly

00:25:20.980 than you have in the past about what it means to leave your legacy. So guys, I will leave you

00:25:26.480 with that. If you want to know more about our legacy event, which another one will take place

00:25:31.100 in the spring of 2019, head to order of man.com slash legacy. Again, that's order of man.com slash

00:25:37.420 legacy. Drop your email in there. You'll be among the first to know when the spots become available

00:25:43.340 and you'll want to because those spots will fill up. So guys, I'll leave you there for the weekend.

00:25:48.500 Go out there, take action, leave your legacy and become the man you are meant to be.

00:25:55.220 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

00:25:59.860 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - September 28, 2018

Leave Your Legacy ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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