Order of Man - February 13, 2026


Men Have Lost Initiation ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES


Episode Stats


Length

25 minutes

Words per minute

163.8799

Word count

4,221

Sentence count

370

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Hate speech

7

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I talk about what it means to be a man and why we don t have a clear line between boyhood and manhood in our culture today. I also talk about why men don t feel like men anymore and why this is a problem.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 And here's the hard truth. Nobody is coming to initiate you. Nobody's going to step up and do
00:00:04.040 this for you. Not your dad, not your coach, not the government, not society at large, not your
00:00:09.060 wife. If you missed the boat and many of us did, I did, then you have to initiate yourself. So what
00:00:15.060 does that actually look like? Well, it looks like stepping into voluntary hardship. It looks like
00:00:19.120 working out. It looks like pursuing things. It looks like taking risks. It looks like taking
00:00:23.200 on challenge. It looks like discipline when nobody around you is watching. What time do you get up?
00:00:28.560 It looks like choosing responsibility before you feel ready.
00:00:33.140 Men, there was a time when a boy knew when he became a man. It really wasn't ambiguous. It
00:00:41.900 wasn't self-declared like Michael Scott screaming, I declare bankruptcy. It wasn't based on his
00:00:48.980 age alone. It was earned. And across all cultures, whether it was the Spartan warriors or Native
00:00:57.500 American tribes or African tribes or even the early American frontier, boys were tested before they
00:01:05.960 became quote unquote men. They were taken into the wilderness. They endured hardship. They faced
00:01:12.800 fear. They carried responsibility. And when they came back, they were changed. They were welcomed
00:01:20.280 to the seat at the table of men. They weren't boys anymore. They were initiated. But today we don't have
00:01:30.540 any of that. Outside of military or sports, all of that has gone away. There's no clear line between
00:01:39.700 boyhood and manhood. There's no trial. There's no rites of passages. No older men calling younger men
00:01:48.800 forward. And instead we have extended adolescence. And that's the best way to describe it. We have
00:01:54.400 taken our youthful years of boys and we have just extended it perpetually. And this is why you have
00:02:02.600 30, 35, 40, 50 year old men who don't act like men. They're grown, but they're not men. They're acting
00:02:10.300 like boys. They're 35 year old boys, 40 year old boys, 50 year old boys. I know, you know, people like
00:02:17.240 this. I know plenty of women who know men like this. They're, they're, they're guys with beards and
00:02:23.700 mortgages, but no internal initiation. And I hear from men just about every single day who tell me and
00:02:33.500 express that they do not feel like men. They feel inferior. They feel inadequate. They feel unqualified
00:02:42.420 to step up into the role that the world and their families and society demands. And there's a cost
00:02:50.260 associated with this fact at this point that men are not being initiated because when that disappears,
00:02:58.080 when we have stripped that away from society, then the responsibility that we as men have,
00:03:03.300 it gets delayed. It gets pushed back. And that's why you see a lot of guys who are victims and
00:03:08.820 perpetually blaming all of their woes on somebody else. Discipline becomes optional because there's
00:03:18.080 no consequence to not being disciplined. A commitment that you have for other people and
00:03:24.440 yourself feels like it might just be negotiable. Hardship that you might face in life feels unfair.
00:03:31.080 I mean, how many guys have you heard complain about it's my right, my right, my right, my right to a
00:03:36.280 fair and decent wage, my, my right to housing, my right to healthcare. What, what right are you
00:03:42.300 talking about? Who, who, who gave you that right that you're talking about? You look at the animal
00:03:51.280 kingdom, there's no rights. And it's the same for us. There's no rights that you have other than what
00:03:57.200 is given to us by God. And God hasn't given us a right to food and housing. He hasn't given us a right
00:04:03.680 to healthcare. He hasn't given us a right to decent livable wages, but our founders decided
00:04:12.620 that we wanted to protect the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And that's
00:04:18.480 biblical. God has given us agency. He's given us freedom to make our own choices for better or worse.
00:04:24.900 And then our right, if anything, is to suffer the consequences, positive or negative of the choices
00:04:31.180 that we make. And the problem is that nobody has ever told a man that this is the weight of manhood.
00:04:38.360 So carry it. There's a legion of young men and old men who are walking around thinking that they are
00:04:46.620 owed something from everybody. I heard an interview with a guy who is on snap benefits, uh, just earlier
00:04:54.100 today. And he said, you know, these, these benefits are expiring and they're going away. And I don't know
00:04:59.660 how I'm going to make my living. And I don't know how I'm going to make my food. And if I'm going to
00:05:04.060 be required to work 20 hours a week, then what other benefits am I going to get? And this is a
00:05:08.980 pathetic loser. There's no other way to say it. This is a pathetic man who never learned what it means
00:05:15.300 to be a man. And it's easy to spot in those moments, but you're probably doing it too, to some
00:05:20.180 degree. We're waiting on big daddy government or mommy and daddy or our wife or whoever to solve all of
00:05:28.020 our problems. Well, what do I get out of it? I don't know. What are you going to create?
00:05:33.900 Because what culture tells people, men specifically to do, and there's a clear and deliberate reason 0.70
00:05:40.760 for this. And we can talk about it is to stay comfortable is to avoid any sort of risk to protect
00:05:49.140 your feelings, to search after happiness, to not offend anybody. Don't lead too assertively or too
00:05:56.340 boldly. It might come across as aggressive. I just had a woman message me on Instagram because 1.00
00:06:00.860 I had said something clear and decisively. I wasn't a jerk about it. I just said what I believe. And she
00:06:05.120 said, you're being aggressive. Why? I'm not being aggressive. She probably just doesn't know or isn't
00:06:13.280 familiar with the way a assertive, bold, masculine man communicates. And she interprets it as aggressiveness.
00:06:20.760 And what most men will do is they'll cower and they'll buckle and they'll fold because a woman said, you're being 0.59
00:06:27.440 too aggressive. I don't care about that. And you shouldn't care either. Now, should we determine for
00:06:33.460 ourselves whether we're being aggressive or not? Sure, but we can be assertive. But if anybody says to us that we're
00:06:39.240 being aggressive because they've never seen it before, that's not my problem. That's somebody else's problem.
00:06:43.620 And then we wonder as we're crying about men being too aggressive or too assertive or too bold or too
00:06:50.120 confrontational or too assertive that we wonder why we don't feel like men and why we feel lost.
00:07:02.340 You cannot expect a man to act like a man if he was never forged into one. And it's ironic when you hear
00:07:11.440 women and culture in general who will blast and chastise and mock and criticize and ridicule men 1.00
00:07:19.060 for being bold and assertive and courageous and taking risks and stepping into the fire when nobody
00:07:26.900 else will. And then at the same time, as you mock them and they cower and they buckle, then you'll say,
00:07:32.200 where have all the real men gone? You don't, you don't have the right if we're talking about rights to 0.98
00:07:39.320 say that. You don't get to undermine masculinity at every step and then ask where all the masculine
00:07:45.440 men are. You turn them mothers, single mothers, society, teachers, school teachers, the medical
00:07:52.280 community, entertainment. You don't get to undermine men and then complain about men not showing up the
00:07:59.780 way that you would want them to. You did this to yourself. Guys, there's a missing fire within men
00:08:05.700 and initiation into manhood has always involved three very, very specific things. And up until the
00:08:16.740 relative ease of modernity, have we stepped away from these things? So let's talk about it. All right.
00:08:21.400 Number one, when it comes to initiation throughout all of culture and all of human history, and there's
00:08:27.880 no exception to this rule, literally zero exception, a boy was removed from the comfort of his situation.
00:08:36.420 He was removed from his mother. He was removed from his tribe. He was removed from the village. He was
00:08:41.800 removed from resources that he didn't provide himself. He was literally ripped away. He was kidnapped and
00:08:48.820 pulled out of that environment. We removed discomfort. Okay. We've done that with, there's no level of
00:08:55.640 discomfort that people have anymore. We've removed physical challenge. There's no real risk in life.
00:09:02.060 There's no testing. And without that testing, there's no transformation. I made this analogy the
00:09:07.680 other day that if, if you have kids, you understand that kids just want to touch the stovetop, right?
00:09:13.560 They want to put their hand on the stovetop. It glows and it's red and it's enticing. And you tell them,
00:09:18.620 no, no, no, no. And still they want to put their hand on that stove. And once they do, they realize that
00:09:25.020 hurts. I'm not doing that again. And sometimes it takes being burned to learn, but let me run
00:09:30.180 something past you. Imagine that you had no nerve endings. Imagine that if you put, or your child put
00:09:37.620 their hand on the stove and they couldn't feel that it hurt. Would that mean that the stovetop was less
00:09:48.980 dangerous? No, because even if you couldn't feel it, it would still do damage to your hand.
00:09:57.420 So the point that I'm making is that the, the consequence, the, the sting, the hurt, the burn,
00:10:06.140 the pain, that's the benefit. What that's doing is telling you it's training you not to touch the
00:10:12.780 stovetop anymore. Without that, you'd still do it, but you wouldn't feel it, but you'd still get
00:10:17.360 burned. You'd still damage your skin and your body. And so as men, oftentimes we think, well,
00:10:24.980 I don't want to feel that way. I don't want to experience that. I don't want to go through that
00:10:27.960 hardship. I want to ease that suffering. And so we have big daddy government and social institutions 0.99
00:10:33.060 that come in and rescue us. But you know what? The benefit of pain is undeniable. You have to feel
00:10:43.360 pain without it. You would never learn. You would never grow. So if you're sad or sorry, or angry or
00:10:49.280 mad or frustrated or contentious, good, good to steal a, a quote from Jocko. Good. You should be in pain.
00:10:59.060 You should feel sorry. You should feel sad. You should feel mad. You should feel angry. Now,
00:11:03.760 the way we express that is up for conversation, but if you're not feeling that, then it doesn't
00:11:10.760 matter enough to you. And the pain has to be there. It's part of initiation. Too many young men have
00:11:16.700 never been initiated that way. Okay. Number two is there has to be trial. Now there was a task.
00:11:21.620 Typically what happened in ancient villages and tribes and, and culture is that the boy was stripped
00:11:30.300 away. Just talked about that. And then he was put into an environment where he had a trial. There was
00:11:34.620 a task. There was a hunt. There was a fast. Maybe, uh, maybe it was a battle. It was a journey in the
00:11:41.120 wilderness, something that forced a young man to confront the fear. But today we numb all of that fear.
00:11:50.520 We scroll, we do scroll, right? We game, uh, we watch porn. We get into alcohol and substance abuse.
00:12:00.380 We distract ourselves from the reality of our lives. And you don't become a man by avoiding fear.
00:12:06.360 You become a man by walking directly into it in the face of fear. It's not that you shouldn't have
00:12:12.460 fear. Of course, we all are fearful at times, but you're going to walk forward in spite of it.
00:12:17.520 And that's what helps you become a man. And then number three, and this is the last like main
00:12:22.540 component. There's a lot to it, but, and I've studied this for 10 years, there's some sort of
00:12:26.800 recognition. Okay. When a young man was stripped away from all that he knew and he was put into some
00:12:35.560 sort of obstacle trial or adversity. The third component is that there was recognition of who he
00:12:43.000 became. When he returned, the older men said, you're now one of us. And then what they traditionally
00:12:49.000 did is they marked that individual tattoo. Um, they, they, they burned him, maybe even circumcision 0.78
00:12:56.800 or pierced him. And there was some sort of recognition that he has now become a man and that
00:13:01.960 acknowledgement matters. It matters. Okay. Today men are either criticized or they're completely
00:13:08.200 ignored, but there's very little affirmation earned strength. How amazing would it feel
00:13:13.980 if your wife came to you tonight when you got home and said, Hey babe, I just want to tell you,
00:13:20.980 I appreciate you going to work. I appreciate you battling what you battle. I appreciate you
00:13:27.360 sacrificing for our family. And I want to acknowledge that we recognize your effort, your sacrifice,
00:13:33.640 your commitment, your dedication, that's recognition. Ladies, if you're listening and you're not doing
00:13:39.140 that for your husband, you should start doing that for your husband, not without warrant, but when he
00:13:44.380 actually does something good, you should acknowledge it because I'm telling you flat out. Women are praised. 1.00
00:13:51.180 They're pedestalized. They're, they're complimented. They're flirted with all the time.
00:13:56.980 You don't know what it's like to be a man who doesn't receive that acknowledgement and recognition.
00:14:06.420 You think because through your own lens, that that just happens because of who you are. It doesn't
00:14:11.380 happen for men. And it's your job as your husband's wife to acknowledge what he's doing. Now, guys, that's not
00:14:21.380 to say that we do things for acknowledgement. Two things can exist at once. She should acknowledge you.
00:14:26.540 And recognize your sacrifices and you should need it. You should do it because it's intrinsically who
00:14:32.760 you are. But acknowledgement and recognition is huge. So what happens as a result of us not having
00:14:43.060 initiation? Ask yourself this. Consider this. Do you feel like you're drifting? Do you feel like you're
00:14:54.500 chasing comfort? Do you feel like you're chasing validation from your woman or from, from your
00:15:01.600 clients or your boss or whoever your kids, whoever it might be? Do you chase women around hoping that 0.94
00:15:06.460 they'll choose you? Do you chase money? Do you chase status? But even though in spite of those
00:15:15.960 pursuits, you don't feel grounded, you don't feel grounded. I've been there. I've chased money.
00:15:22.840 I've chased women. I've chased validation. I've chased comfort. I do all of these things daily,
00:15:26.700 actually. And I have to fight against that. And I have been initiated the way that I'm talking about
00:15:33.080 today. But I can tell you when I don't pursue those things, I don't, well, pursue, pursuit is one
00:15:41.500 thing, but chase is different. We can talk about that another time. If I don't chase those things,
00:15:45.480 I feel more grounded because internally
00:15:48.420 I feel like I've proven my worth to myself. I don't need to prove it to a woman. I don't need 1.00
00:15:59.660 to prove it to a client or a colleague or a coworker or a boss or my kids. I don't need to prove it to
00:16:05.520 anybody. I feel internally like I've tested myself. An untested man is always, always seeking proof.
00:16:13.340 He's always seeking validation because he's always lacking. There's a gap between, I call this the
00:16:18.620 integrity gap. There's a gap between what he knows or wants himself to be and who he actually is.
00:16:25.040 And because that gap exists, instead of working towards bridging that gap, he reaches out to other
00:16:30.240 people and says, will you do this for me? Will you build this bridge for me? And nobody can build it
00:16:36.240 for you. They might try because they love you and care about you. They might try to pull you along or
00:16:42.980 rescue you or throw you a rope or do whatever they can. And they, they try diligently, but guys,
00:16:48.100 they can't build your bridge. You have to build that bridge. You have to, and here's the hard truth.
00:16:56.060 Nobody is coming to initiate you. Nobody's going to step up and do this for you. Not your dad,
00:17:01.080 not your coach, not the government, not society at large, not your wife. If you missed the boat and
00:17:07.480 many of us did, I did, then you have to initiate yourself. So what does that actually look like?
00:17:12.380 Well, it looks like stepping into voluntary hardship. It looks like working out. It looks like pursuing
00:17:19.560 things. It looks like taking risks. It looks like taking on challenge. It looks like discipline when
00:17:26.760 nobody around you is watching. What time do you get up? Even though nobody's going to ask you what
00:17:30.860 time you got up. It looks like choosing responsibility before you feel ready. How many
00:17:37.580 guys will say, well, that's above my pay grade when it comes to an opportunity at work. Okay. Then stay
00:17:42.860 stuck. That's fine. But don't cry when somebody else gets chosen for the opportunity that you
00:17:47.700 complained about you not getting. You didn't do the work. It looks like telling the truth when it
00:17:54.780 costs you. You know, even in the dating world, you think about it's like, how many dates have we gone
00:18:00.780 on where, you know, maybe there wasn't a connection and instead of just talking to the person and being
00:18:05.360 honest and respectful, you just ghost. Don't do that. Just talk to the person. Hey, there wasn't a
00:18:09.960 connection. Or maybe your wife is doing something and it bothers you and you're like, no, I'm fine. I'm
00:18:15.440 good. I'm fine. And then one day you blow up. That's not leadership. It's not initiation.
00:18:21.540 Initiation is saying, hey, babe, I've got a problem with the way that you talked to me last night.
00:18:26.080 And here's why it bothered me. And here's why it frustrates me. And here's how I would like to be
00:18:29.900 talked to. She would actually appreciate that, by the way, ironically.
00:18:33.960 Lack of initiation looks like staying when it's easier to leave.
00:18:47.920 It looks like lifting heavy objects physically and metaphorically. It looks like walking into
00:18:56.260 the arena, the battlefield of life and being exposed to critique and risk and frustration and all of
00:19:06.400 these things that you're going to inevitably face. But if you want initiation, then you need to commit
00:19:13.600 to your marriage fully and you need to do hard things. You need to raise your children deliberately.
00:19:19.100 You need to go out and build something. How many of you have ideas and thoughts and insights and
00:19:26.020 things that you want to accomplish? You need to build something from nothing.
00:19:30.840 You need to step up and lead when others hesitate and shrink away and pull away and hide and cower.
00:19:35.940 You need to step up. You need to train your body when you don't feel like it. Go to the gym. Hey,
00:19:41.500 I woke up this morning and I didn't feel like it. I don't care what you felt like. Go to the gym.
00:19:44.720 Go get it done. You need to join a band of men who are going to hold you accountable.
00:19:51.600 Brotherhood is actually modern initiation. You didn't go to the military. You didn't maybe play
00:19:57.120 sports after high school. Having a brotherhood of men who will hold you accountable is initiation.
00:20:04.620 The hardship that you choose if it's done voluntarily and voluntarily is important,
00:20:09.340 that's modern initiation. So if you're a man who's listening to this podcast and you're like,
00:20:14.300 man, I don't feel like a man. I didn't have a dad around. I didn't have anybody to teach me these
00:20:18.880 things. Good. So what? You're 25 years old. You're 30 years old. You're 40 years old. You're 50 years
00:20:24.240 old. You're still waiting for daddy to come save you? Volunteer. Step up. And this matters because
00:20:31.780 culture is confused about men right now. It really is. Some people will say masculinity is toxic.
00:20:39.360 A lot of people will say it's under attack. Some will say even masculinity is outdated
00:20:44.380 or unnecessary. But the real issue isn't masculinity. It's the absence of masculinity.
00:20:54.880 Disciplined. Dangerous. Grounded. These are the type of men who aren't toxic. They're stabilizing.
00:21:04.220 They protect. They're steady. They step up. And a culture, despite what social media might tell you,
00:21:13.840 desperately needs you to be initiated. So I've got a challenge for you today.
00:21:19.840 I want you, I want to ask you a couple of questions. I want you to write these down if you can,
00:21:23.420 if you're in a place where you can write it down. Number one, where have I avoided initiation?
00:21:30.640 Number two, where am I still acting like a boy? Is it in your marriage, your business, your life,
00:21:42.020 your fatherhood? Where am I still acting like a boy? Number three, where am I willing to be chosen
00:21:49.280 instead of choosing? Where am I be, where am I willing to be chosen instead of choosing?
00:21:54.380 And then the second part of that is to do something difficult this week.
00:22:01.580 Not reckless. Okay. Not, not dangerous, not performative, but, but something difficult,
00:22:08.140 a hard conversation, a hard decision, waking up when the alarm goes off,
00:22:14.480 having some discipline, joining a brotherhood, going to an event, starting that new project,
00:22:21.180 asking for a raise, starting a business, asking for a promotion. There's an endless list of things
00:22:26.540 that I know are on your minds and too many men aren't doing them because they're little boys. 0.69
00:22:35.340 They're, they're little children where they don't think they can ask out of life, what they want
00:22:40.580 life. And I heard this quote a long time ago, we'll give you exactly what you ask of it.
00:22:45.940 So if you're not happy with where you are, then maybe you ought to start asking some better
00:22:49.480 questions. Life is giving you exactly what you ask for guys. Initiation isn't about ego. It's
00:22:56.280 about integrating your entire life and becoming more of the man that you want to be. And more of
00:23:00.820 the man that the people in your life need you to be. It's about becoming someone who can carry the
00:23:05.400 burden and the mantle of masculinity without buckling, without folding, without crumbling.
00:23:15.100 Think about that metaphor for a minute. You got a pack on you and it's a hundred pounds.
00:23:18.900 How long can you carry that pack? Are you going to buckle? Are you going to fold? Are you going to
00:23:22.720 collapse because that weight is too much? Or are you just going to soldier on?
00:23:29.260 Are you going to carry that weight diligently and do your job and have responsibility? That's what
00:23:34.640 people need of you. The world doesn't need louder men. It's a bit ironic because I'm on social media
00:23:40.480 trying to be as loud as I can be to share these concepts and insights, but it doesn't need louder
00:23:44.480 men. It needs steadier men to step up in a very powerful way.
00:23:51.500 The steadiness that you need to have in your life, it's forged. It's not just gifted to you. It's
00:23:56.980 built through initiation. So I want you to choose the fire. And when you walk through it, you don't
00:24:03.640 need somebody else to declare that you're a man. You don't need somebody else to say what a man is.
00:24:08.840 Even me, you don't need me to say a real man should. You won't need any of that. You'll just
00:24:13.460 know. You'll know I'm a man. You'll know you're a man. And you'll have confidence and boldness and
00:24:21.120 courage as you lead your family, yourself and your business and your life, your community,
00:24:25.440 every aspect of it. Guys, I want all of us to be initiated. All of that has been stripped away.
00:24:31.520 Some of us self-imposed, some of us externally imposed, but we need to initiate each other.
00:24:37.140 We need to initiate ourselves and we need to be men in a world that is critically, critically lacking
00:24:44.100 men. If you want to know more about this, you can head to orderman.com and learn. You could
00:24:49.820 subscribe to the podcast, or if you're really ready to initiate yourself, then join the Iron Council
00:24:54.920 at orderman.com slash Iron Council. If you're not ready for that commitment, then come out and meet
00:25:00.420 with us in April for three days and we'll tell you what you need and we'll show you a way to be
00:25:06.640 initiated into manhood with hundreds of other guys. You can go to themensforge.com and check that out
00:25:13.420 April 23rd through the 26th. So you've got your marching orders. You need to initiate yourself because
00:25:17.860 nobody else is going to do it. Join us at orderman.com slash Iron Council or join us at
00:25:23.140 themensforge.com. Guys, I hope that helps. I hope that serves you. We will be back for our interview
00:25:30.120 next week. Until then, go out there, take action, and become a man you. Amen.
00:25:35.260 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take charge of your life and be
00:25:40.380 more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.