A real man is a strong man, one who has identified his core values and has mastered himself. However, with the environment changing so fast around us, it s hard to keep up, let alone remain a beacon of stability and strength in the lives of those you love. This week I talk with Mike Dillard from Self-Made Man about the most powerful point of leverage a man can use, how to increase the value you provide to the world, and how you can finally become a self-made man.
00:14:28.280And so we'll go out on the weekends and go to the field, outdoor field here in Austin and play for six, seven, eight hours straight a day.
00:14:35.620Get a ton of exercise and get that competitive, you know, aspect of the sport into play and come home with a bunch of bruises and, you know, just feel awesome at the end of the day.
00:14:46.260So whatever you have fun doing is going to work.
00:14:50.040Yeah, I don't think as men we get enough of that.
00:14:52.620And then for you to be able to, for lack of a better term, and this works for me, is sometimes disguising my physical fitness and just being around the guys.
00:15:48.160And it starts with the tiniest little daily habit of setting that alarm in the morning, which we don't have to do as self-employed entrepreneurs.
00:15:57.640But if you want the result, it's something that you've got to do and you've got to create that habit.
00:16:01.940So for me, you know, first things first, if staying in shape or getting in peak physical condition is my number one priority, then that's the very first thing on my daily agenda.
00:16:11.460So, you know, 6.30 a.m., 7 o'clock alarm, off to do my physical fitness stuff, check that off before I can do anything else because that's what my focus is and that's my mission that I'm going to accomplish.
00:16:51.380And so what it does is it shocks you and you really shock yourself.
00:16:56.300And it's one of the single most effective behavior modification devices that you can use as a tool to change your behavior and change your habits.
00:17:05.060And so essentially what you want to do is wear this wristband and whenever you start to fall into a behavior that you're trying to break, let's just take smoking cigarettes as an extreme example.
00:17:15.900So if you're a smoker and you want to quit, as soon as you light up a cigarette, you're just going to tap on the top of the wristband and it's going to hit you with a mild shock.
00:17:21.720It's nothing like – it's nothing super painful.
00:17:24.440It just feels like someone pinched you.
00:17:26.160Every time you put that cigarette in your mouth and light up another one, you're going to shock yourself.
00:17:30.340And their success rate has been phenomenal.
00:17:33.340The average smoker, even if they've been smoking for a lifetime, completely quits within five days with, you know, with other types of behavior, whatever it may be.
00:17:42.280Let's say you are watching a lot of television where you're having negative thoughts.
00:17:46.000You know, you're getting down on yourself every time you start to say something that is, you know, really beating yourself down personally.
00:17:53.420You just shock yourself and it's going to interrupt these behavior patterns and rewire your brain to associate that behavior with pain.
00:18:01.120And before you know it, within three to five days, you're just going to stop doing it.
00:18:05.140And so I just got my piece in a couple of days ago.
00:18:21.840So I want to jump back because you talk about physical fitness as being one of the things that every man needs to really focus on.
00:18:28.760But you also talk about self-reliance and finance and career.
00:18:32.500My question is, why does the world seem to, even more so lately, rebel against financially independent or wealthy or even capitalism in general?
00:18:51.420I've seen American society specifically split where entrepreneurship has become actually much, much more popular with a certain segment of young people.
00:19:02.980You know, Elon Musk is one of the biggest icons in society now.
00:19:08.600You know, Donald Trump is now in the spotlight as well.
00:19:11.040And there's a whole group of people, specifically here in Austin.
00:19:15.220This is a town that's becoming a mini Silicon Valley hotbed for startups and entrepreneurship.
00:19:20.820So here it's something that is aspired to be in other cities.
00:19:25.880You know, we could take Chicago or Detroit, for example.
00:19:28.780It's definitely something that is looked down upon.
00:19:32.200And I really just think that is social conditioning over the previous two generations of people getting on food stamps, getting on welfare, training themselves and training their kids to become, you know, dependents, you know, from a social society perspective on the government.
00:19:48.120And they're being rewarded by the government for doing so because the government wants their votes.
00:19:57.180And we're seeing, unfortunately, the decay that that is having in the long run in order for the politicians' short-term gain.
00:20:05.220And so that's really what we have to fight against here.
00:20:07.520And I don't know if it's going to be possible if you're a fan or if you've read Atlas Shrugged and you look at that as really a prelude to what's going to happen in a prehistory lesson, if you will.
00:20:21.380So, you know, society and history works like any other, anything else, meaning it's a wave.
00:20:34.740And I don't know if you can interrupt that pattern.
00:20:37.020I really think that's a part of nature.
00:20:38.340And, unfortunately, I think we're going to be hitting the bottom here probably within the next five to ten years, you know, from an economic perspective with the markets, from a value perspective,
00:20:50.700where people are going to figure out that it's reached a point of pain now to where, okay, well, this free stuff doesn't work.
00:21:00.680And if you think of it almost from what took place right after the Great Depression, it spawned an entirely new generation of people who were strong, tough.
00:21:13.000They were just about doing the right things, putting food on their family's plates, working hard, building that, you know, having that work ethic.
00:21:18.140I think that's going to happen here again in the next generation.
00:21:21.520And so from a personal standpoint, concerned about really more about the changes that technology is going to bring about, you know, to our world over the next 10 to 15 years and what that's going to have on a society level, on an economic level.
00:21:36.740And I think about, you know, we both have kids.
00:21:40.520I've got a seven-year-old, a four-year-old, and a two-year-old.
00:21:43.820Wow, so, you know, one of the things that I think about is, you know, my son's Chase, what is he going to be doing in 15 to 20 years to earn his living?
00:21:54.460And society is going to look so completely different just from the technologies that are coming out during that period.
00:22:01.000Basically, any menial task is going to be taken care of by AI and robots, and that includes customer service.
00:22:07.320That includes driving cars, any kind of transportation, trucking, whatever you can think of 15 years from now, it's all going to be AI.
00:22:16.700And so what in the world is going to happen, and I don't think anyone has that answer, but, you know, from his perspective, the safest areas that you can be in, in my mind, are as an entrepreneur, because that basically means you're a creator, you pursue ideas that you have, unique solutions, you're a problem solver.
00:22:38.560And so there's a lot of flexibility that comes from that field, if you will, procuring some kind of incredible talent.
00:22:45.420There's always going to be a market for people who have incredible talents, whether you're a musician, an artist, whatever it may be.
00:22:50.940Something, obviously, in computers would be as well.
00:22:54.340And, you know, whatever that ends up being for him will be determined by his personality type and his interests as he grows up, obviously.
00:23:00.440And then making sure that you and I are in a financial position from a family perspective to where we've acquired and built up a level of net worth and wealth and diversification over the next 15, you know, 10 to 15 years to where if things are looking crazy and extremely different and unknown,
00:23:19.220we've at least built up something from a family perspective to where we're not going to have to worry, you know, as much as other people will about what they're going to do to earn a living.
00:23:27.820And so that's something that I think about a lot and that motivates me as well right now.
00:23:32.180How does a man who can see this coming or hears this and says, OK, I agree with that, preemptively address it, right, in a way, for lack of a better term?
00:23:42.460What are some things that a man who's ready to move forward, who wants to be an entrepreneur, what can he do to remove himself from some of that negative social conditioning and then set himself up for the future that's coming?
00:23:53.480Yeah, well, you made up a great point, which is, one, you need to remove yourself from that social conditioning.
00:23:58.080So being very aware of the type of stimulus that you allow into your life on a daily basis, whether that's what shows up in your Facebook feed or what you listen to on the radio or television, the shows that you watch, the friends that you have, whatever it may be,
00:24:12.060every single one of those forms of stimulus have an impact on a subconscious level, you know, about the thoughts that you're having.
00:24:17.880And you are a sponge or a computer that is being programmed to buy that input on a daily basis.
00:24:22.780So making sure that you get rid of all of the negative slash scarcity minded individuals and influences in your life is prerequisite, number one.
00:24:31.900And then number two, what I've what I tell people who want to become entrepreneurs and want to become financially independent,
00:24:37.860it's that you are essentially one skill away from that goal.
00:24:42.620You know, it took me about five or six years to figure out that success is not going to come from an opportunity of any kind.
00:24:50.640It's not going to come from a product of any kind or service.
00:25:29.380And I decided to go acquire the skill of copywriting slash salesmanship, which was something that I found I had a talent for.
00:25:37.140It took me about 18 months to really get good at learning how to sell online, learning copywriting.
00:25:44.120And I did that really by teaching myself and buying e-books and courses online, practicing every single day, writing out sales letters by hand every day for an hour, and just going at it to acquire that skill.
00:25:57.400And that's that window where I went from waiting tables at a P.F. Chang's, you know, making a couple hundred dollars a week to building a seven-figure business within the next 18 months.
00:26:09.500If you want to become financially free and change your life, you're one skill away from doing that.
00:26:13.240And you have to decide, okay, what skill do I want to master and become one of the best in the world at?
00:26:18.300It'll take you two to three years to do it if you dive in 100% and commit to that process.
00:26:24.500And by the end of that period, you're going to find that you have the ability to create an unlimited number of opportunities for yourself based on that skill set.
00:26:33.680And you can really determine, you know, the business model that suits you best in your financial goals at that point.
00:26:39.400Well, and I can tell that you're somebody who's actually living their own advice because I look at you from the outside and I see that you've had a ton of success in the financial arena.
00:27:46.800And, yeah, so my businesses have done quite well.
00:27:49.100And I think that's a skill that will always be in demand.
00:27:53.340If you have the ability to sell products, services and or ideas, you can really create any kind of future that you want.
00:28:00.280Are there some other skills that you've identified that successful people seem to have that overlap each other?
00:28:05.760You know, I think that the biggest common denominator that I've seen in all successful entrepreneurs is that they typically are coming from a place of pain and personal dissatisfaction because that's what's required to motivate you to go out and acquire these skills on top of your normal day job, you know, 18 hours a day.
00:28:24.960So to come home tired at six o'clock and then hit the books or the Internet for another four or five hours, that requires a lot of motivation.
00:28:32.040So that's one of the most common threads that I've seen.
00:28:34.680And the second one that I have seen, it is that ability to sell.
00:28:37.700I can't think of another entrepreneur that I personally know and have met over the last 10 years that did not acquire that ability.
00:28:45.800So if, you know, that's something that's new to you or foreign to you, but you want to change your life in that regard.
00:28:51.320Some of the best books or starting places that I recommend for folks is anything by Dan Kennedy.
00:28:56.860You know, one of the first books I read from him was Magnetic Marketing.
00:29:00.080Another one was The Ultimate Sales Letter, both by Dan Kennedy.
00:29:05.660And, you know, I think those are really two good places to start.
00:29:12.060And if those books get you excited and you're like, man, this is unbelievable and the light bulbs start to go off, you know that you're really headed down the right path.
00:29:20.480Yeah, we'll make links to that in the show notes so that the guys listening can make sure they have access to those things.
00:29:25.260How do you decide what gets your attention and then how do you keep focused?
00:29:29.680Because like we talked about, you've got your hand in so many different things and different avenues that have no correlation to each other.
00:29:39.900I don't know if I do it very well at this point.
00:29:41.600But, you know, I have three three primary projects right now.
00:29:46.540I have I have my entrepreneur training programs, which I guess I've done for the last 10 years.
00:29:52.000And really, that's just putting what I've learned and what I've executed successfully as an entrepreneurship in my businesses into a course form for other entrepreneurs to learn from.
00:30:01.120So that's really starting to be put into an automated fashion, if you will, this year, by the end of the year, meaning I'll still sell some of my courses, but I'm not going to actively pursue that side of my career anymore.
00:30:14.380I have self-made man, which is really a passion project at this point.
00:30:18.020It only requires a couple of hours a week for me.
00:30:19.920And and then my big goal and my big vision is getting into the hydroponic space.
00:30:25.560And so over the last six months, we've been developing a product, if you will, or a system for home use that you would have in your kitchen.
00:30:35.320It's about the size of a refrigerator and it will allow you to grow all of your organic produce, fruits and herbs that you would like for you and your family in a completely automated form.
00:30:44.840So it's got a lot of technology built into it and it'll produce about five thousand dollars.
00:30:49.920of organic produce a year for you and your family for about three hundred bucks.
00:31:03.220We're going to reduce food costs by 95 percent, which means we put organic, clean organic food within the financial, you know, feasibility of just about every single person in the country.
00:31:15.640And we reduce chemicals and pesticides by 100 percent.
00:31:49.240Yeah, I can see that in the last 15 or so episodes that you've done on your show.
00:31:54.120So are there some underlying, reoccurring lessons that you're learning from these mentors and these other guys that inspire you that we should also be considering as well?
00:32:05.580Well, you know, if I have to think of one common thread, because we've discussed, you know, like you, we've discussed a lot of topics from entrepreneurship to investing to health and fitness to relationships.
00:32:18.520It's what you put your time and attention to bears fruit.
00:32:22.680The biggest challenge for me is how do you how do you keep focus in all areas of your life?
00:32:27.060Because I could easily focus on my business seven days a week, 24 hours a day and do that at the expense of, you know, relationships and things like that.
00:32:35.840And so you can acquire massive shortcuts in every area of life by studying, you know, people like that and getting a glimpse into their world and area of mastery.
00:32:44.600And two, that really is what's required to get an amazing result.
00:32:50.480And so no time, no time or sleep for the weary.
00:32:53.320But, you know, your life is what you make it.
00:32:54.960And so it's just a matter of, you know, for me, I run my life by a very simple to do list.
00:33:00.620I use Evernote because it syncs across my devices.
00:33:03.540And I sit there and I make a simple list of the five things that I want to accomplish for the day.
00:33:07.880And I do that the night before, before I go to bed.
00:33:10.640So I wake up every day knowing exactly what I need to accomplish.
00:33:13.780And I call these these little tasks bricks, meaning some of them might be really big.
00:33:18.820Some of them might just be, you know, small little tasks that I need to get done for the day.
00:33:23.120But every single day I put five bricks down into my house and, you know, those get put into the wall.
00:33:29.540And at the end of two or three years, all of those bricks have added up to a mansion.
00:33:33.280And that really has is the process I've used over the last 10 years to build my businesses, build my life and to make sure that all of those little areas that need attention, get the attention that I want to provide them on a daily basis.
00:33:46.060And so it's a super simple methodology, but it's effective.
00:34:03.240That's actually one of the reoccurring threads that I hear is that a lot of the successful men that I'm talking with talk a lot about the process of success.
00:34:10.660Not just success overnight, but what it takes in your in your case, bricks to build that mansion is the process.
00:34:17.340So have you read the book, The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy?
00:34:20.980I've heard of it, but I have not read it yet.
00:34:25.820And he talks about the small, simple things that you do on a daily basis, day in and day out for years to create the type of life that you want to create.
00:34:33.420So it's very similar to what you're saying now.
00:34:35.460Yeah, I mean, I think it's a I think it's a common truth that you cannot escape.
00:34:41.160Well, Mike, one of the questions that you've asked on some of the episodes that I've heard you and one of the questions that I ask is, what do you think it means to be a man?
00:34:50.140You know, I'd have to say if I could sum it up into one word, it would be integrity.
00:34:54.040Doing what you say you're going to do, I think, is what really defines a man as a leader.
00:35:01.660You know, you don't have to have any particular level of status in life.
00:35:04.580You could you could be, you know, a blacksmith, if you will, or whatever it may be.
00:35:09.580But if you do your job and your task with integrity and honesty, I think that's a life well lived and something that unfortunately is very rare these days.
00:35:22.220And so it is something to aspire to to achieve and accomplish.
00:35:25.940And, you know, you're going to everybody's going to run into 20 opportunities a day to either have integrity or not have integrity.
00:35:31.840And so I think if you really focus on being true in that regard in every aspect of your life, whether it's with yourself and doing what you said you were going to do today, you know, or with the other people that you interact with.
00:35:44.880And I think that really is the defining characteristic for me, you know, when it comes to being, you know, the leader, the alpha, if you will, that you can be.
00:35:53.860Perfect. Thank you so much for sharing that.
00:35:56.220Mike, if people want to get a hold of you, learn more about what you're doing with Self-Made Man, any of the, you know, Mike Dillard mentoring, hydroponics, any of that stuff.
00:36:03.380How do we connect and reach out to you?
00:36:06.140And the easiest place is just MikeDillard.com, and I've got links to all of the projects that I'm currently, you know, working on right now, and that's the best way to stay in touch is to join the email list.
00:36:16.100And every time I release a new episode or, you know, we have new details about the hydroponics system coming out, I'll obviously be sending that out to all of my subscribers.
00:36:23.940And that would be the number one place.
00:36:29.380But I do appreciate you taking some time, carving time out of your day to talk with us and give us some insights in what it means to be a man and some of the things that we need to focus on.
00:36:40.140Now, we talked a lot about resources and books, and if you didn't catch all of those, be sure to head to orderofman.com slash 026 where you can pick up all of that information that we went through today.
00:36:50.760If you enjoyed the show and or learned something new, head over to orderofman.com slash iTunes.
00:36:55.980Show us some support for the show by leaving your rating and review.
00:36:59.660And also, a quick reminder, join our Facebook group.
00:37:01.880Again, facebook.com slash groups slash orderofman.
00:37:05.740Join in the conversation we're having about manliness and masculinity.
00:37:08.920We want to have as many guys there as possible, and we'd love to have you there.
00:37:12.600Now, next week, we'll be having a conversation with a man who helps young men transition into manhood.
00:37:17.100So, if you're feeling stuck or you feel like you're in a holding pattern and you just can't get your life going, you will certainly want to subscribe and tune into this episode next week.
00:37:27.200Guys, I look forward to talking with you then.
00:37:28.860But until then, take action and become the man you were meant to be.
00:37:33.040Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.
00:37:36.020If 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.