In this episode, Ryan talks about the dangers of seeking validation from other people and how to deal with it. He also talks about how important it is to be proud of who you are and what you do, rather than seeking approval from others.
00:00:00.000You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.
00:00:06.020When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.
00:00:10.460You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong.
00:00:15.500This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become.
00:00:19.760At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
00:00:24.720Hey, gentlemen. What is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler, and I am the host and the founder of this podcast and this movement, The Order of Man.
00:00:32.460I want to welcome you to The Order. This is a show dedicated to helping you become a better man, a better man in every facet of your life.
00:00:41.020So we've got interviews. You get to hear me on this show, The Friday Field Notes.
00:00:45.240We've got an Ask Me Anything show that comes out each Wednesday.
00:00:47.820Essentially, I just want to give you the tools and the guidance and the direction and the framework and the conversations that you need in order to improve your life.
00:00:56.500Be a better father, a better husband, a better community leader, a better business owner.
00:01:00.480Again, every single facet of your life.
00:01:02.940If you want to learn more because you're new and you're just joining us, which there are tens of thousands of new men joining us each and every week,
00:01:09.680then I would encourage you to check out orderofmen.com.
00:01:13.380I'd also encourage you to check out our Facebook group.
00:01:16.440I think we've got close to 50,000 members of that Facebook group and you can do that at facebook.com slash groups slash order of men.
00:01:24.700And then Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, wherever you are, wherever you're doing the social media thing, that's where we are.
00:01:30.560And I just want to jump right into this conversation today.
00:01:33.180Again, this is your Friday Field Notes and you get to hear some of my thoughts from throughout the week.
00:01:37.780And as I was thinking about what I wanted to talk with you about today, I was going through our Facebook group
00:01:43.200and I noticed that there's a lot of men inside of that Facebook group and just life in general who are continually seeking external validation for who they are and what they do,
00:01:54.120whether they're looking for it from me or other members of the Facebook group,
00:01:57.820or they're looking for it from their parents or their kids or their wives or their bosses.
00:02:02.540And I'm just here to tell you that trying to be proud in the eyes of other people is not inherently bad,
00:02:11.060but it poses some very real problems because I think a lot of the times when we do this,
00:02:16.320we actually achieve the exact opposite of what we should be striving for, which is making ourselves proud.
00:02:23.040Like if we can look in the mirror, the guy in the mirror with a sincere understanding that you are doing everything that you can do to be the best possible man that you can be,
00:02:36.480to be the type of father, husband, business owner, employee, entrepreneur, leader in the community, coach, mentor, whatever that looks like.
00:02:46.580If you can look that guy in the mirror and be proud of the man staring back, I think that is the ultimate objective because being proud in the eyes of other people is typically an inferior way of approaching your life.
00:03:00.520And there's all kinds of problems that we run into when we try to make others proud at the expense of making ourselves proud.
00:03:05.260I'm going to talk about that here in a minute, but it truly is a recipe for disaster and I think a life less than what you're capable of.
00:03:14.620So today I wanted to share some thoughts and some insights around that.
00:03:17.640Of course, give you some tips like I always do on the Friday field notes.
00:03:20.460But before I do, let's talk about some of these problems when you are seeking validation from other people.
00:03:26.680Number one, you've got to understand that if you're looking to be approved of or validated by some external resource, it's just not reliable because those external resources change for a variety of reasons.
00:03:39.700People leave, people come, people go, people change their minds and their opinions.
00:03:45.900And so if you're always chasing and that's exactly what it is, I see this so often in men who are desperate, desperate for attention, desperate to be validated, desperate to be approved.
00:03:58.340And I think a lot of this might have to do with, uh, maybe some issues and not getting enough love as a child or not getting enough attention even now as an adult.
00:04:09.300External validation is beyond your control.
00:04:12.080So if you're seeking for that, be prepared for disappointment, be prepared for a roller coaster, the ups and downs of people's whims and desires and wishes and changes and being wishy-washy.
00:04:26.740And I don't know how else to say that other than you've got to understand that internal validation being validated by yourself, knowing that when you got up this morning, that you accomplished everything you wanted to accomplish.
00:04:37.600And you're doing exactly what you need to do in order to accomplish those things.
00:04:47.380And at the end of the workout, I looked at my results and I knew, I knew that I didn't give everything I could have given that I could have got a half dozen or maybe even a dozen extra reps.
00:04:59.360And I didn't use that as an opportunity to beat myself up, but an opportunity to recognize there's got to be some things I do better here.
00:05:06.140And it wasn't about what my coach said to me or what everybody else got around me.
00:05:09.860It was that I knew I could have done better.
00:05:12.500So rather than looking for external validation, which is a problem again, because it's not reliable, seek for internal validation.
00:05:20.560Number two is you sell yourself short.
00:05:22.960Look, if you're relying upon somebody else's metric of success or what they define as being successful, I think quite frankly, you probably aren't living life to the full degree that you're capable of.
00:05:36.340Because most other people have low expectations, not only of themselves, but also of you.
00:05:43.080And so when you're trying to win over the approval of other people, you're basically operating at their metric, which may be a metric lower, a standard lower than you know that you're capable of.
00:05:56.800I've seen this in conversations with men, guys who really don't care, for example, about how much money they make just as long as they make more than the next guy or that they weren't the first one to quit some task or some assignment or that they just barely edged out the competition.
00:06:12.720I don't know about you, but from my perspective, that's not living the type of life that you're capable of living.
00:06:19.060If you're measuring yourself against somebody else who's producing inferior results and you just barely edge them out, how successful can you really be?
00:06:27.840Your metric, your framework or benchmark should be the highest standard by which you can think, by which you can operate.
00:06:40.420Do not operate under other people's standards because you're selling yourself short.
00:06:44.400The next one, guys, you overlook your unique talents and gifts and abilities.
00:06:53.100I compared myself to what other people were doing and how they did it and why they did it.
00:06:57.520And I should get involved in this experience and this hobby or this interest or this activity because this individual is doing it this way.
00:07:05.020And I thought that I was a loser because I wasn't achieving the level of success that I had in my mind that I wanted to achieve.
00:07:12.740And a big part of that, a big reason for that is that I was overlooking what I was inherently good at, what I was uniquely qualified in ways in which I could excel.
00:07:24.480When you do it like everybody else and you think you have to say the same things and write the same way and talk the same way and have the same interests and have the same hobbies, you are again selling yourself short.
00:07:36.980There are things about your experience, your culture, your background, your beliefs, your ideas, everything that you've done up until this point that have made you unique, that have made you an individual capable of doing something that the guy right next to you can't do because he hasn't had those same experiences and cultures and beliefs and ideas and life in general.
00:07:58.520So, don't compare yourself to other people.
00:08:05.140If something sounds meaningful and engaging and interesting to you, do it that way because you're going to have infinitely more success doing it that way than you ever are by trying to do it someone else's way so they can pat you on the head, give you a little kick in the back or the pants and say, good job, son, you did it.
00:08:21.460I don't care what other people say about what I did and didn't do.
00:08:28.240And the last problem that I wanted to share with you here, and then we'll get into some of these tactics, some of these strategies for you is that you are in a way living by other people's definitions of success.
00:09:00.820It's about doing what you want, why you want to do it, how you want to do it, when you want to do it, and it's different for every single person.
00:09:12.320I can simply define it for me, what I want to accomplish, what I want to do.
00:09:16.380And I don't want to live under anybody else's restrictions or thoughts about what I should and shouldn't be doing and how I should be doing it and what it actually means to be significant or successful in life.
00:09:28.940Again, this comes back to looking the man in the mirror and knowing that you're doing all you're capable of in a way that you're designed and over time built to do.
00:09:40.060Now, granted, there's probably a lot of other problems with trying to make other people proud and assuming that because they are, then you're successful.
00:09:47.580But those are the four that I identified.
00:09:49.040I want to get into these strategies and these tips because I think this is where it's going to be really helpful.
00:09:53.420And I see so many guys out there who are lacking this sense of confidence, the X factor, if you will.
00:10:00.680All of us have seen the guy who walks into the building and you don't even have to look at him, but you know, man, there's just something about this guy.
00:10:08.280And I would argue that if it's legitimate and you're feeling that way, that that individual is not worried about what you think.
00:10:16.940But the X factor is about being able to fulfill and uphold your obligations and your ideals and your responsibilities to no one but yourself.
00:10:28.380And using these strategies that I've had to learn, frankly, the hard way has really improved not only my levels of confidence, but my level of success on just about every metric that I have identified.
00:10:41.740Again, it's about what I identify for me and what you identify for you.
00:10:45.360So number one, make a plan, guys, make a plan the night before, make a plan for a project, have some sort of plan in place.
00:10:54.660If you're going at life haphazardly and the shotgun approach and hoping something that'll work and hoping that you're going to be successful or that you're going to accomplish what it is that you want to accomplish without having a strategy and a plan, what you're going to do is you're going to default to what everybody else says you should be doing.
00:11:11.440And again, we fall into those traps that I talked about earlier.
00:11:13.640You don't want to default into somebody else's standard.
00:11:16.820You want to create your own standard and you do that by having a plan.
00:11:20.780At the end of every single day, I get my notepad out and I write exactly what I'm going to be doing the next day.
00:11:27.540Now, does it always work out the way that I planned it?
00:11:30.620But having the plan in place is the thing that allows me to define and measure against what it is I want to accomplish.
00:11:37.640I was at my son's football practice the other day and I actually think I may have talked about this last week, but I asked my son what he got accomplished, what he got done.
00:11:46.520And initially, when we started talking about this, he said he didn't know, which is a problem because he didn't identify what he wanted to accomplish.
00:11:52.880Now, he didn't maybe know any better or maybe I didn't explain that to him, but the more that we talked about it, the more that he realized it would be in his best interest to have a goal and objective for his practices so that he had a very clear expectation for himself, not anybody else, for himself on what he needed to improve.
00:12:10.000So, guys, make a plan, have goals, have objectives, know what it is that you want to accomplish so that you can come back and measure.
00:12:45.700But a lot of the times it actually becomes a sabotaging experience because we are so afraid of doing the things that won't necessarily hurt or kill us, that aren't dangerous, but rather the things that make us feel uncomfortable.
00:13:22.340And yet I forced myself to go in there because I knew that was the very thing that would help me be proud of who I was.
00:13:29.960That would help me feel like I actually accomplished something.
00:13:32.820And when we avoid these things and we run away from these things, even if we manage to accomplish some small degree of success in another person's eyes, we know.
00:13:42.380We know deep down inside that we didn't do what we were capable of, that instead of facing the fear, we tuck tail and ran and we cowered in the face of the thing that wouldn't scare us.
00:13:53.960The thing that just made us a little bit uncomfortable.
00:13:57.880Take a, take a notepad out guys and write down everything that you want to do, especially the things that scare you.
00:14:04.800The things that make you feel uncomfortable, the things that you naturally maybe want to run away from and start checking those things off the list.
00:14:12.100When you do that and you accomplish something you previously didn't think you could do, or you had to overcome, that's how you make yourself proud.
00:14:29.380I understand that as a high achieving man, like a lot of you are.
00:14:32.780Yeah, it's very simple and very easy to move on to the next thing and to want bigger and better and greater and faster and more money and better relationships and all the things that we're after.
00:15:23.860Don't worry about what you did 20 years ago on the high school football team, but celebrate your victories and then move on after you've celebrated, after you've rewarded yourself, after you've recognized that you've done something great.
00:15:36.800And now you can step up and do something even greater.
00:15:40.260Next, embrace things that are meaningful to you.
00:17:02.920I think a lot of us go out there and think that if we can't accomplish the biggest, the best, the greatest, all at once, right now, when we very first start, that somehow we're failures or we're losers.
00:17:37.000It's about a mile and a half to the top.
00:17:38.700And as I started two and a half, three months ago, I went and ran this trail and I couldn't get a tenth of a mile without having to stop and walk for a distance before I could start running again.
00:17:53.140Well, just last week, I ran the entire thing.
00:17:58.720The next day, I committed to myself that not only was going to run a mile and a half up without stopping, I was going to run up and down without stopping.
00:18:31.600And that's why there's so many men out there who aren't proud of who they are and the way they show up because they're not showing up.
00:18:38.940They're hoping and they're wishing and they're praying that things will work out.
00:18:42.320And somehow, miraculously, they'll be good at something they try.
00:18:45.380Look, if you're good at something, the very first time you try it, you're not setting yourself up with high enough and lofty enough goals and ambitions and desires.
00:18:55.020The goal is to create something that's not within your reach right now that you can be working towards.
00:19:40.040Well, consciousness can mean a lot of different things.
00:19:42.340But the way that I'm defining and talking about it here is your ability as a man to look at yourself objectively and really study and ponder who you are, who you were, and who you have the potential to become.
00:19:58.800See, humans are one of, if not the only species on the planet that can understand their point in space and time and then consciously choose a new path simply because they want to.
00:20:12.340So, what we get to do when we understand our conscious selves is we get to look at who we are objectively.
00:20:19.140This is not to beat ourselves up and this is not to be overly prideful in what we've accomplished.
00:20:26.000It's to be objective, to detach ourselves from the outcome to some degree, to almost in a way be robotic about the performance and the results that will inevitably come.
00:20:36.680See, we get so emotionally attached to, well, I didn't do as good as I should have or I got into trouble or I really messed up in the past.
00:20:45.980And we're so emotionally attached to that and clinging on to that and holding on to that, that we can't ever let go of it and move forward.
00:21:01.520The more that you can do that, the more that you can objectively look at your life and recognize what you should be doing moving forward, what you need to add into your life, what you need to take away from your life,
00:21:13.900and really give yourself an objective analysis about where you are again in space and time and who you want to be in space and time in the future.
00:21:24.380I know that one might sound a little woo-woo, a little out there for the things that I normally talk about,
00:21:28.760but man, the more that you're aware of who you are and how you show up, the more likely it is that you can dictate how you're going to be moving forward.
00:21:37.300So guys, that's what I wanted to share with you today.
00:21:39.200I want you to make yourself proud, not me proud, not your parents, not your kids, not your spouse, not your friends, not perfect strangers on the interwebs,
00:21:47.420but I want you to be able to look at the man in the mirror and understand that you've done some great things,
00:21:53.440that you've accomplished some big things, that you are the best standard of success.
00:21:58.420Nobody else's standard, your standard.
00:22:00.440When you start making some plans before you engage in activities, when you do things every single day that push you outside of your comfort zone and expand your potential to do more,
00:22:12.660when you celebrate victories, when you embrace the oddities and the strangeness and the weirdness, quite frankly, that makes you, you and me, me.
00:22:22.340When you embrace the 1% Kaizen method and when you understand and you are aware of who you are and who you have the potential to become.
00:22:31.460And most importantly, you start working towards that.
00:22:36.180That's how you stand in front of the mirror and look at the guy staring back at you and find yourself proud of who you've become, who you are and who you're capable of being.
00:23:01.980We need you to be proud of yourself so that you can go out and you can serve you and your families and your businesses and your communities and everybody and everything that you're working to serve in the best way possible.
00:23:11.540And the way we do that is by becoming the men that we're capable of being.
00:23:23.700The more ratings and reviews that we get, the more awareness and attention and focus that we can bring to this critical mission of reclaiming what it means to be a man.
00:23:41.480Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.
00:23:44.660If you're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.