Order of Man - Men Without Direction Create Chaos ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

00:00:00.000 We are lost guys. You're lost. You're listening to this podcast because you're lost to some degree

00:00:05.520 or the other. We are living in a time where men have more freedom than they've ever had to explore

00:00:12.080 more than they ever have. And yet we have less direction than we ever have. Young men today

00:00:18.860 are much more likely to live at home longer than any generation in modern history. Male

00:00:25.880 participation in the workforce has increasingly declined. All right, guys, let me ask you a

00:00:33.080 question. What do Iran, Israel, Ukraine, and every major conflict happening right now all have in

00:00:42.360 common? I'm going to tell you, it's not politics. It's not religion. It's not even the resources

00:00:49.420 that people think we're after it's this that undisciplined misdirected and very often very

00:00:56.740 insecure men that are put in positions of power making decisions they aren't equipped to make

00:01:04.180 and before you tune this out and think oh that that's world leaders and we're going to talk about

00:01:10.440 politics and global conflicts so i don't want to deal with it you're wrong because i'm not just

00:01:17.040 talking about what's happening on the international stage. I'm talking about the same level of chaos

00:01:22.380 that we see happening inside of homes, inside of marriages, inside of businesses and friendships

00:01:32.260 and circles all across the country, just on a bit of a smaller scale. Because right now we're

00:01:39.220 watching global tensions escalate in so many different ways. Even just here at home, the level

00:01:47.820 of animosity and vitriol towards other human beings is unparalleled. I really do believe it's

00:01:53.320 unparalleled. There's conflicts in the Middle East. Those are intensifying. We're sending

00:01:58.440 troops to stage near Iran. Listen to this statistic. This is wild. I was doing some

00:02:06.180 research for this and came across this stat that military spending worldwide has surpassed 2.2

00:02:12.820 trillion dollars annually and that this one is even worse the u.s alone so us alone accounts for

00:02:22.420 nearly 40 percent of global military expenditure now i'm saying this as a veteran i'm saying this

00:02:30.580 as somebody who was in a combat zone in Ramadi, Iraq in 2005 through 2006. And I can tell you that

00:02:38.480 it is horrific what we are doing. And yet with all of the intelligence and all of the technology

00:02:44.500 and all the resources that we've ever had, we're still solving problems or at least attempting to

00:02:51.520 solve problems the same way we did thousands of years ago. And it's never worked. It's never

00:02:58.560 worked it's never come to resolution sure one side wins but it's never come to resolution

00:03:03.880 it's poorly led men reacting emotionally who are escalating conflict and people will say well you

00:03:13.520 know you're a you're a maga guy you're a trump guy i'm a pragmatic guy i'm a guy who doesn't

00:03:19.600 want to get america into foreign conflicts that have nothing to do with us i'm a let's protect

00:03:25.480 our people let's care about our people let's shut down the borders not totally isolationist but not

00:03:32.640 get involved in everybody's business either but i want to personalize this i don't want to talk

00:03:39.480 about the global stage i want to talk about you personally as a man as a father a husband a leader

00:03:46.940 of a business that you might own or a manager uh maybe you're in politics maybe you're just serving

00:03:53.460 in some ecclesiastical calling and here's the mistake that most guys make they look at the

00:04:00.080 global conflict that we see whether it's with Iran or Israel or Ukraine or any other conflict

00:04:05.960 that we might see and we often think well that's outside of my control and you're right you're

00:04:12.640 right it is outside of your control but what you miss is that you don't need that battlefield to

00:04:17.360 create the destruction that we're talking about and oftentimes it's easy to say the president this

00:04:22.040 the economy that, this world leader this, that world leader that. But you do this to yourself

00:04:28.520 the same way I do this to myself. And I've had very recent experiences where I've sabotaged and

00:04:34.280 undermined myself. Guys, you can destroy your marriage with poor leadership.

00:04:41.920 You can destroy the relationship that you have with your kids with inconsistency.

00:04:47.220 you can demolish and completely wreck your business with your ego you can crush yourself 0.87

00:04:56.760 with a lack of direction and most of us frankly don't even realize that we're doing it

00:05:04.800 chaos is a leadership problem so if there's chaos in your marriage or chaos in your business or

00:05:13.540 chaos in something that you can control it's a leadership issue if there's chaos globally it's

00:05:18.780 a leadership issue it always is chaos doesn't just happen we as men bring order to environments and

00:05:27.720 if there's no order in the environment it's not because it just happened it's because we created

00:05:32.620 the breeding ground for wildness for confusion for frustration for animosity for violence

00:05:41.660 chaos is what fills the void when leadership is absent when men are absent

00:05:47.780 and leadership doesn't just start with having authority it starts with having direction

00:05:54.360 and most men today they don't have any right think about your day you get up when you're told to get

00:06:03.920 up or when your wife expects you to get up you go into a job you may or may not know what you're

00:06:09.840 doing. Somebody else tells you what to do. You jump on your phone. My phone's over there. I don't

00:06:15.360 have it right with me right now, but you jump on your phone. You're like, how do I get to this

00:06:19.140 place? You don't even know how to get places. A phone tells you how to get there. I do this too.

00:06:24.140 I'm not pointing fingers. I do this too. And then everything about our lives is dictated by what

00:06:29.060 somebody else or some other business. And eventually what AI tells us we ought to be doing.

00:06:33.700 we have no independent direction it's the cultural narrative that men are are lost and we are we are

00:06:42.520 lost guys you're lost you're listening to this podcast because you're lost to some degree or

00:06:48.860 the other we are living in a time where men have more freedom than they've ever had to explore

00:06:55.660 more than they ever have and yet we have less direction than we ever have young men today are

00:07:03.760 much more likely to live at home longer than any generation in modern history

00:07:09.900 male participation in the workforce has increasingly declined over the past 50 years

00:07:17.420 rates of depression and anxiety and even suicide among men continue to climb why is that why is it

00:07:27.860 that men continue to suffer it's because we've removed the expectation we've moved the goal

00:07:36.460 post, but we never replaced it with a standard. When there's a standard, we thrive, right? Think

00:07:47.720 about sports. A lot of you listening have played sports in high school, maybe even college, maybe

00:07:53.200 even professionally. And there's rules, right? So if you're playing baseball, you get a set amount

00:08:01.920 of pitches in a certain strike zone. You got to run to first base, then to second base. And if

00:08:06.820 you get tagged out, you're out. If you turn left and you get tagged out on first base, you're out.

00:08:12.220 If you turn right, you're safe. There's rules to this. And when we have rules to our life, we thrive.

00:08:20.480 Those are the standards. But modernity has replaced it with do whatever you want. Just

00:08:26.260 make sure you feel good. Make it safe and comfortable and happy and stroke your ego and

00:08:30.840 feel good about yourself and the body positive movement and all that kind of bullshit 0.71

00:08:35.080 be whatever you want do whatever you want just make sure you're happy

00:08:40.700 okay well if that actually worked and let's just say we've implemented that in the states over the

00:08:46.820 past 40 to 50 years why is everybody more miserable than they were before why are we so horribly

00:08:52.540 miserable because nobody today is saying here's what's required of you

00:09:00.040 here's what i need of you here's the standard here's the way you're gonna show up and all of

00:09:07.100 a sudden we move from standard from legacy from tradition even into just be happy that doesn't 0.81

00:09:19.500 fucking work guys you can't just be happy because somebody told you to be happy and not only that 0.90

00:09:28.060 they're only telling you to be happy so that you don't be angry. But here's the hard truth of it. 0.99

00:09:33.960 When a man has little or even no direction, he doesn't become peaceful. You're not peaceful.

00:09:41.240 I know, I know a dozen, maybe even two dozen men right now who I can tell you who have retired

00:09:46.080 and of the men who have recently retired, the crew that already has a mission in place,

00:09:54.240 one guy that i think of and i'm just going to say his name because i i think he'd be okay with this

00:09:58.640 it's a good friend of mine his name is frank foreman he's a firefighter he's an emt he did

00:10:04.380 a lot for disaster management in california and he retired after decades of service to the state

00:10:10.140 of california he's in montana building a ranch every time i talk with this guy whether it's in

00:10:17.340 one of our calls or just as a as a personal call he's fixing fences he's castrating cows he's

00:10:24.820 branding cows he's i think one day he was uh looking for bear that were trying to attack some

00:10:31.140 of his livestock like this is a guy he's always doing something he's milking goats he's always

00:10:36.560 doing something and this is a guy who's happy he's happy he's happier than i've ever seen him

00:10:42.060 in his life because he has direction and purpose. And I have other guys who are retired who are

00:10:47.960 just frustrated and sad and miserable in a lot of ways because there is no direction.

00:10:56.740 Not doing anything doesn't bring a man peace. He becomes very dangerous in a negative sense

00:11:02.900 of the word. I've used that in a positive way, but I'm talking about the negative sense of the word.

00:11:06.840 and there's three types of directionless men so i'm going to break this down and uh tell you what

00:11:16.860 this looks like and i want you to categorize yourself maybe you aren't any of these maybe

00:11:21.000 you're all of these but number one is the passive man this is the guy who avoids responsibility

00:11:25.380 he tells himself i just want to be happy i just want peace but what he really means is i don't

00:11:33.300 want the pressure, right? I don't want the weight of responsibility. So what does a guy like that

00:11:39.920 do? He checks out. He doesn't lead his family. He avoids. He runs away from hard conversations. He

00:11:47.940 lets life happen to him. And what happens to a guy like that? Everything around him starts to

00:11:53.000 deteriorate because what he calls being peaceful is actually being neglectful he's avoidant

00:12:03.360 he's scared he's fearful he doesn't want to confront the reality of responsibility and so

00:12:11.200 he just neglects it all and he says oh i'm at peace i'm happy you're not happy we know better

00:12:15.820 i can't i can't find a single man on the face of this earth who just says i just want to be

00:12:22.220 happy the whole time and blissful and just like no problems at all i've never met a man like that

00:12:26.820 who lived for very long so that's number one the peaceful men uh or or well i say peaceful but maybe

00:12:35.240 passive is a better way to describe it number two is the drifting man okay now this guy's busy

00:12:39.700 right he's busting his tail he's running around he's always got something to do but he's like a

00:12:45.300 hamster you know when you were a kid and you had a little hamster or a gerbil or a mouse and you

00:12:50.460 put the little wheel in the cage and you watched it and you laughed at the mouse because it like

00:12:53.960 was spinning on the thing and it looks so eager and excited, but it literally got nowhere. That's

00:12:58.380 you. You're the drifting man. You're the mouse. And everybody's sitting there laughing at you

00:13:03.860 because you're so busy, but you're not doing anything. So we consume content, right? My

00:13:08.000 phone's over there. I keep reaching for it, but we consume content. We're like doom scroll on

00:13:13.460 social media. Uh, we start a bunch of shit that we never actually finish. We chase dopamine, 0.99

00:13:19.880 whether it's through pornography usage or women or gambling or living vicariously through sports

00:13:28.860 teams. We just want that dopamine hit. Maybe it's drugs. Maybe it's alcohol. It was alcohol for me

00:13:34.760 for a long time, but there's no purpose. And he may not be destructive on the surface, but give

00:13:41.580 it some time. Give it some time. I speak from experience. You know, it took me a couple of years

00:13:48.360 to take my self-sabotage and turn it into something that actually became destructive

00:13:55.900 for me and my family and potentially my business as well. A man without direction will eventually

00:14:03.960 sabotage himself because he's bored. That's it. You're bored. And so you'll go start shit

00:14:10.960 because you need something to do, but it's rarely healthy. All right. So number three is the 0.99

00:14:18.820 aggressive, but undisciplined man. This, this is a dangerous one. They're all dangerous, but this

00:14:24.980 one's rough because this is the guy who has energy. He has ambition. He has drive. He has

00:14:30.500 the desire to succeed, but he has no structure. There's no code. There's no discipline. There's

00:14:35.780 no brotherhood. There's no accountability. So what does this guy do? Well, he picks fights

00:14:40.160 that he doesn't need to pick he gets home and because he's so bored with his life he'll start

00:14:44.560 just picking fights with his wife over nothing literally nothing you know maybe the dishes

00:14:51.300 weren't done and he blows up for no reason because the dishes weren't done but her her kids are happy

00:14:58.100 but the dishes aren't done so well let me just get mad about that this is a guy i and i tended

00:15:05.160 to be this guy if i'm being honest and i don't i don't like it's not flattering to admit that but

00:15:10.780 this is me energy for days but i'd pick fights that i didn't need to pick and i destroyed

00:15:19.580 relationships and i hurt people and i made a mockery of of their contribution to my life

00:15:27.640 and i burned bridges and i made everything a battle and a competition and i escalated

00:15:35.100 every little scenario and every and I was so serious I never could laugh does that sound

00:15:40.680 familiar I mean this this is exactly what we see on the world stage whether it's Donald Trump or

00:15:48.020 Putin or whoever is still alive in Iran or Kim Jong-un or like I mean this is what we see

00:15:57.500 it's power without discipline and it leads to destruction

00:16:00.380 but how do we go from global to personal because we've been talking a bit about

00:16:07.000 the global stage the world stage but it applies to you as well

00:16:10.780 so when you look at global conflict i don't want you to see just countries that are battling with

00:16:16.860 each other i want you to see men trump being one of them men who can't regulate their emotions

00:16:24.500 Trump can do that. These so-called world leaders are senators, are politicians. They don't regulate

00:16:32.800 their emotions. They thrive on them. And they thrive on you buying into their emotional

00:16:36.960 performance. They can't delay gratification. They can't think long-term. They can't even

00:16:43.700 lead themselves, let alone lead others. And now they're trying to lead you and nations of people,

00:16:49.380 millions and millions of people but guys here's the principle i want you to understand that

00:16:55.040 direction in your life prevents the chaos i'm talking about not just on the world stage but

00:16:59.580 in your own home direction is what creates order every time you don't eliminate chaos by

00:17:08.560 burying your head in the sand and pretending that whatever's happening doesn't exist you

00:17:12.620 eliminate chaos by becoming the kind of man who is capable of dealing with it.

00:17:19.640 So here's an actionable framework. So how do you create direction in your life? Let me tell you

00:17:23.480 exactly how. I want you to have something tactical. That's part of the Friday field

00:17:28.260 notes that we put. So number one, define your mission. If I asked you right now,

00:17:33.600 what is your mission as a man? Could you answer that clearly?

00:17:38.360 not vaguely not like i want to be a good guy i don't have some good no not philosophically

00:17:45.060 but clearly what is your mission my mission specifically within this organization

00:17:52.900 is to give men the tools conversations and resources that they need to thrive

00:17:57.940 independently as men that's my mission no ambiguity no confusion no wishy-washiness

00:18:06.180 Nope. Whatever tool, resource, and conversation I can give you, that's what I'm going to bring to

00:18:10.380 you so that you can individually lead your life. If it's with my kids, it's to render myself

00:18:19.280 obsolete. Three words, render myself obsolete. It's very similar to what I want to do professionally.

00:18:27.700 Give them all the tools, resources, and conversations they need in order to thrive

00:18:31.600 as self-sustaining human beings and to render myself obsolete. Now, when I say that people

00:18:36.780 are like, well, you're always going to be important as a dad. Sure. I get it, but I'm

00:18:40.800 not into fluffy fairy tale watered down nonsense. I know, I hope I'm always going to be important,

00:18:49.100 but my job is to put myself out of work as a father. This is not ambiguous. It's not vague.

00:18:55.240 It's not philosophical in nature. It's very clear. It's very tactical.

00:19:01.600 If you don't define your mission, then you're going to default to distraction and frankly,

00:19:07.260 other people's mission. Number two, set non-negotiable standards, not goals, but standards.

00:19:15.480 Not, hey, I want to lose 40 pounds, but I'm going to go work out every day. See the difference?

00:19:20.120 I want to lose 40 pounds as a goal. I want to work out every day, or I will work out every day

00:19:24.580 as a standard. I train my body. That's a standard. How do you show up as a husband?

00:19:30.140 I engage and communicate physically mentally and emotionally with my wife I lead her how do you

00:19:37.240 lead your kids I ask good questions of my children I'm engaged and committed to their growth

00:19:43.480 physically mentally and emotionally how do you take care of your body we already talked about

00:19:47.160 that I work out every day how do you handle adversity when something goes wrong and it will

00:19:53.840 go wrong self-imposed or existential something will go wrong how do you handle it do you crumble

00:19:59.720 or do you step up and rise to the equation? Standards remove any sort of negotiation that

00:20:04.640 you might have with yourself. And men without standards create a lot of instability because

00:20:10.840 there's no track for them to run on. Just go wherever to and fro, like the current, like the

00:20:16.860 waves, wherever the waves in the ocean, tell them to go. Number three, you need to build discipline

00:20:22.640 around your emotion. You don't get to feel your way through leadership. Now you might feel a way

00:20:29.000 but the answer is rarely emotional because you lead despite how you feel if you're ruled by

00:20:38.620 emotion you will i promise you create chaos in every room that you walk into so when you're

00:20:44.340 feeling frustrated you don't need to let that frustration pour over to your people you need to

00:20:50.500 use the frustration to come up with a plan i talked with a young man just the other day he's on my

00:20:55.540 two oldest boys lacrosse team and he was moping off the field and his head was down and then he

00:21:01.660 said a swear word and I said hey come over here and he came over and I said hey you're a leader

00:21:06.400 on this team people are watching you your teammates are watching you and when you mope off the field

00:21:14.820 because you had a bad play or you missed something or you botched an assignment and you start swearing

00:21:20.580 and then you mope off the field what does that say about how they are to show up he's like no

00:21:26.660 people aren't what i'm like no people are watching you you're a leader act like it and i was very

00:21:32.040 impressed by this young man because during the break between first and second quarter he went

00:21:36.740 to his team and he said hey guys i'm sorry the way i showed up i'm sorry for the words i used

00:21:40.900 and i'm sorry sorry for performing the way that i did and he had a stellar second quarter because

00:21:46.460 he took ownership of it. You can feel what you're going to feel. I feel right now, actually today,

00:21:52.420 I'm feeling frustrated and I'm feeling deflated. I'm feeling a little bit sad if I'm being honest

00:21:57.540 because of some personal situations that I'm going through that I'm not going to get into

00:22:04.040 with you, but I'm feeling sad about it today. And I'm still recording a podcast and I'm still

00:22:11.620 making phone calls and I'm still honoring the commitments that I made because my sadness does

00:22:19.580 not dictate the way that I show up. I'm going to keep showing up. Number four, I want you to start

00:22:27.380 thinking long-term. Most destruction in your life comes from short-term thinking, short-term pleasure,

00:22:34.060 immediate gratification, maybe getting some sort of validation. That's a big one for me.

00:22:39.120 maybe it's just comfort and ease and just like I just want to feel good but leadership guys

00:22:44.880 requires long-term vision long-term thinking and that's what's missing in the world right now

00:22:50.400 everybody's out to get theirs in the short term but they don't think about how this is going to

00:22:54.680 affect them over years decades generations and I think that might be what's missing in your life

00:23:05.300 too. You're like, I just want to feel, I'm tired tonight. I don't care if you're tired tonight.

00:23:10.320 You got work to do. Well, I had a hard day. So what? So what? You had a hard day? You don't

00:23:18.640 even know what hard is. Neither do I. I don't care about how hard my day was. I still got to

00:23:24.220 show up for my kids. I still got to honor my commitments. I still have to do this podcast.

00:23:30.780 i don't care and you shouldn't care either about your hard day that's new wave thinking

00:23:42.160 a hard day i deserve some time off no you don't what you deserve is stepping into what you ought

00:23:49.160 to be doing because that's what's going to make you feel better about yourself not that you're

00:23:52.140 going to go sit my ties on the beach or sit in the hot tub all night you're going to feel worse

00:23:56.340 about yourself. So here's the question for you, and I'll wrap it up with this.

00:24:01.860 Where are you creating chaos in your life? Not intentionally. I don't think we do this

00:24:06.320 intentionally. I don't even think we do it maliciously. But where in your life are you

00:24:12.060 creating chaos through avoidance, through deceit, through inconsistency, through a lack of clarity

00:24:23.120 and direction, through emotional decision-making,

00:24:27.080 you are, right?

00:24:28.440 You are creating chaos

00:24:29.900 and you're also creating some structure,

00:24:32.640 but you're not doing that in every aspect of your life

00:24:35.600 because every man is creating structure and chaos.

00:24:40.480 Every man is producing and consuming.

00:24:43.140 That's not the issue.

00:24:44.400 The issue is, are you willing to acknowledge

00:24:47.180 where you're creating chaos

00:24:48.840 and bring order and structure to it?

00:24:52.040 So I'll close with this.

00:24:53.120 the world doesn't need more opinions it doesn't need more directionist leaders it doesn't need

00:25:04.880 more short-term thinking it doesn't need more noise it doesn't need chasing comfort it needs

00:25:12.800 men with direction it needs you the world needs you i hope you know that your wife needs you man

00:25:20.020 she really does your kids need you they need you to be there for them

00:25:26.980 they need men who know who they are they need men who know what they're building know what 0.99

00:25:34.840 they're standing for and those men who are acting accordingly because when men lead themselves well

00:25:40.820 what do they do they lead their families well when families are strong communities are strong

00:25:46.700 When communities are strong, nations don't fall apart and crumble.

00:25:54.940 Men without direction create chaos.

00:25:58.160 And if you have chaos in your life, it's because you have no direction in your life.

00:26:03.180 So the question is very simple.

00:26:06.340 Are you creating order or are you adding to the noise?

00:26:12.980 I'll leave that with you.

00:26:14.080 are you creating order or are you adding to the noise if you want to learn more check us out at

00:26:19.640 order of man.com or join us inside of our exclusive brotherhood the iron council at

00:26:24.200 order of man.com iron council and band with us and we'll create order together because if there's

00:26:30.920 two men or 200 men or 2 000 men we can make a huge difference in this world that's what i'm after

00:26:39.200 i think that's what you're after too you wouldn't be listening if that weren't the case

00:26:43.280 All right, guys, we'll be back next week for our interview.

00:26:46.480 Until then, go out there, take action, create order, not chaos,

00:26:51.280 and become a man you are meant to be.

00:26:53.400 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.

00:26:56.380 You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be?

00:27:00.360 We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - March 27, 2026

Men Without Direction Create Chaos ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript