Order of Man

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

00:00:04.980 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:00:10.420 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who

00:00:17.200 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.780 you can call yourself a man. Alan, what's up, man? So great to have you on the podcast. I know this

00:00:28.200 has been a very long time in the works, and Kip bailed on us, and we were finally able to make

00:00:33.520 it happen. So I'm glad you're here. Glad to get the opportunity. Five years, I've been trying to

00:00:38.820 be a scab on the show, and it only took Kip jumping out. Yeah. Congrats, man. You made it.

00:00:46.840 I think if people knew, I think people sometimes perceive that this is a higher quality production

00:00:53.100 than it is, which maybe is a testament to what we're doing, but it's also... I think it's a good

00:00:59.840 learning experience because a lot of times people believe they have to have everything dialed in and

00:01:03.840 perfect and this production quality and everything has to be professional. And what I tell a lot of

00:01:08.340 guys is just get started. You can figure that out along the way. And that's what we've done very,

00:01:13.840 very well here with Order of Man, which is why we're still around almost a decade later.

00:01:17.660 Yeah. I think it's the content that makes people come back. It doesn't matter what your background

00:01:22.900 imagery or editing is like. In the end, if it's serving them, if they're getting what they want,

00:01:28.300 then they'll keep coming back for more. Yeah. Yeah. And hopefully that's what we're giving them.

00:01:33.040 I mean, we've got questions. I see you post a lot in the Facebook group and of course our exclusive

00:01:37.860 Brotherhood, the Iron Council. And I comment and I'm very active in there as well, more lately than I

00:01:43.540 have been in the past. And it's, man, so many guys are struggling with business, with interpersonal

00:01:49.780 communication, with relationships, every facet of life. And if we can give some guys a few things

00:01:55.960 to consider, then I feel like we're doing our job here. That's exactly it. Give them back from what

00:02:00.680 we've learned. It's how we grow. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Well, guys, so Kip can't make it this week.

00:02:07.100 As you guys know, if you've been listening to the podcast for any amount of time,

00:02:10.380 Kip is our typical co-host. And then we have Sean Villalobos fills in. We've had Drew Kachurik

00:02:18.000 fill in and Alan, we're having you fill in. I actually talk about you quite a bit on the podcast.

00:02:22.900 I hope you listen because I do. There's a few lessons that I've learned in particular from you

00:02:27.200 that have been instrumental in my growth and progress in life, not to mention all of the other

00:02:31.820 conversations and discussions that you and I have, but there's a few lessons that really stick out.

00:02:36.860 I'm excited for you to impart some of your wisdom on the guys today.

00:02:41.740 Thanks. Yeah. I enjoy getting to give back, getting to share some life lessons. I went through a

00:02:50.380 really bumpy beginning to my life and have gone through a couple of different phases,

00:02:54.600 both in fire and EMS and then in entrepreneurship and business and learn just so much. And

00:03:01.380 in the Iron Council, especially, it's such an opportunity to see other men reach past their

00:03:10.120 fears, finish failures that they've been having for years in their life and don't even recognize

00:03:15.140 that they're still having it. And when you watch somebody grow like that, and it doesn't just grow

00:03:22.560 them, it grows their family. And then people around them, what a great, it's just a great thing to see.

00:03:30.780 I mean, it's, it's like being up on a pulpit and seeing your parishioners do better. It's,

00:03:35.840 it's no different. Yeah, for sure. Well, let's jump into some questions. We don't

00:03:40.520 normally take questions from Instagram. We're going to try to get to those questions. I know

00:03:44.600 first and foremost, we're going to hit our brothers in the Iron Council. And then if we have time,

00:03:48.500 we'll get over to Instagram. And from there, we'll go to our Facebook group. Well, why don't you

00:03:51.920 lead us off with the first question from our exclusive brotherhood, the Iron Council?

00:03:56.660 Awesome. The guys were good to me. They decided to throw some entrepreneurial questions. Now,

00:04:00.460 that's one of my expertise. So first one comes from Craig Keel from Battle Team Romulus. He says,

00:04:08.140 what advice do you give to men wanting to start their own business, but not sure what business

00:04:17.200 that is yet? What would your recommendation to be for the first steps to taking venturing into

00:04:22.980 the world of self-employment? Yeah, I think a lot of people, Alan, I'm really glad we're leading off

00:04:29.360 of these entrepreneurial questions. I think a lot of people, and you might have some differing opinions

00:04:33.460 on this. I don't know. That's why this is going to be good. I think a lot of guys out there will

00:04:38.420 chase the money. So they'll look for opportunities where money is. They'll look for other ventures that

00:04:44.940 have been successful and they'll think, well, that's the vein I need to explore.

00:04:48.340 I'll give you a very interesting example. I live in Southern Utah in the town of St. George,

00:04:54.360 just outside of St. George. And there are so many soda shops in St. George, just popping up left and

00:05:01.000 right. And the first one that came in, I can't even remember what it is because I don't give a shit 0.99

00:05:05.060 about overpriced flavored soda, but apparently people do. So this first one comes in and they blow up. 0.97

00:05:13.100 Strangely to me, they blow up. I cannot wrap my head around standing or driving through a drive

00:05:20.240 through and sitting in this long ass line for overpriced flavored soda. It's weird, but it is,

00:05:26.620 I'm telling you, if anybody who's listening, it's crazy. If anybody who's listening to this from

00:05:33.660 Southern Utah, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. So you have these overpriced flavored soda

00:05:38.540 things popping up and it did really, really well. And then another one pops up and then another one

00:05:45.400 pops up and another one and another one and another one and another one. And there's probably

00:05:49.500 17 of them, different organizations, companies here in Southern Utah that sell overpriced sugar

00:05:56.860 water. I don't care about that, but apparently people do. I'm just telling you, people chase the

00:06:03.040 money and it's stupid. It's ridiculous. What I would suggest is find something that you like to do 1.00

00:06:11.400 first. Stop chasing the money because people are making millions and millions of dollars

00:06:17.300 selling sugar water to hundreds of thousands of people in Southern Utah. And they're making a

00:06:23.580 boatload off of it when you can just go to the convenience store and pick yourself up a Sprite

00:06:27.080 or a Mountain Dew or a Diet Coke, whatever your thing is, but they're doing it. So it tells me two

00:06:31.920 things. Number one, don't chase the money, chase the interest. What are you engaged in? What are you

00:06:37.000 interested in? What are you excited about? What motivates you? What propels you? What gets you up

00:06:42.360 every single morning? And then number two is be just engaged in that thing. Like people are making

00:06:50.000 money doing some weird shit. Alan, you do some weird shit. I do. I do. I have a weird business. 1.00

00:06:57.380 And I see what you do and I'm like, this guy's killing it, doing some crazy stuff. You're on our

00:07:03.520 calls in the Iron Council and you're working on, I'm not going to ruin the surprise here,

00:07:07.740 but you're working on your, not only your hobby, but your profession while you're on the calls.

00:07:12.540 It's weird to me. And I'm not saying that negatively. I'm saying it's, it's unique. It's

00:07:17.080 strange. It's interesting, but there's hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people who are

00:07:21.660 interested in exactly what you're interested in, and you're making a great living doing something

00:07:27.100 that you're very excited about. So what I would suggest, first and foremost, don't chase the

00:07:32.140 money. Don't look for what the market is going to offer. Look for what you're interested in. And

00:07:36.920 then we can find different ways to explore those avenues and veins. What do you think on that though,

00:07:41.360 Alan? Yeah, I think you definitely have to be interested in what you're doing. Maybe to some

00:07:47.080 extent the product itself. To me, the bigger thing has always been chasing the service that you can

00:07:54.640 provide. What can you do that people are willing to pay money for? If you've ever had somebody go up

00:08:00.520 to you, come up to you and say, Hey, I'll pay you for, to do this for me. You know, if you're good at

00:08:05.540 doing taxes and people say, I'll pay you to do my taxes or, you know, you make cupcakes really good.

00:08:11.660 I'll pay you for some cupcakes. Well, they're actually paying you because you're providing a

00:08:17.700 service. And that to me has always in all of my businesses been the way they got rolling was people

00:08:24.940 asked me to do stuff for them or make a product for them. Or I just heard people saying in my

00:08:30.200 community, man, I wish we had this, I guess, people in Utah are saying I wish we had more soda. So, you know,

00:08:37.880 the call is being answered there. It's what service can I provide? I make modification parts for kids

00:08:44.940 power wheel cars, the little cars they ride around in the yard on. That's my business. And it's flourished

00:08:51.400 into a large company because every product that I make, not just the launching of the business,

00:08:56.980 but every single product that I make, I'm not guessing at, let me make this because it'll make

00:09:02.640 me money. You know, I'm going to, I'm going to sell this product to people. I never do that. I listen

00:09:07.820 to what problems people are having and I make a better motor because the motors are breaking. I hear

00:09:14.260 the gears are breaking. I make a better gear. I hear the batteries are dying quick. So I make longer

00:09:19.520 runtime batteries. It's always in response to what people want. So that's what you want to do. Everybody

00:09:25.700 has a skill. Everybody has something about them that makes them a unique individual. And look,

00:09:32.660 it's not always going to be monetizable to make you a million dollars. If you bake the world's best

00:09:37.680 cookies, yeah, maybe you'll become, become famous Amos, but you do have to put a, you know, an

00:09:44.620 understanding on what that business can be worth. And, and nowadays we do have, especially if you're

00:09:50.300 making a product with the worldwide internet, we have so much more capability to ship nationally,

00:09:56.440 internationally, even. So what seemed like the small business can be bigger. Um, but we'll get

00:10:01.740 into, I think one of the other questions gets a little further. Just make sure the, that what you

00:10:06.260 can do as a service is going to provide enough for an income for you or keep it as a side hustle.

00:10:12.260 Nothing wrong with that either. Yeah, that's a good point. I wrote down knowing what is marketable

00:10:17.980 and what is just good or something you enjoy, right? So if you and your mom enjoy baking cookies

00:10:23.980 for the family, they might be delicious. They might be the best cookies that anybody has ever tasted.

00:10:29.700 Are you going to make a profitable, excuse me, profitable business out of it? Probably not.

00:10:36.440 So just make them for Thanksgiving, make them for Christmas, make them for the family,

00:10:40.360 give them to the neighbors. But you know, we also have to look for something that's going to be

00:10:43.920 marketable and profitable and people want. And also this is important just because you think

00:10:49.160 the cookies are good. Doesn't mean everybody else thinks the cookies are good. And that's the bias

00:10:54.220 people have. They're not good. Right. And that's how, you know, is if you try to sell something and

00:10:59.500 nobody's buying it, it's not as good as you think it is. People aren't dumb. That's what people say.

00:11:04.680 Oh, they're just, they don't know. They don't understand the value. No, they get it. It's not good.

00:11:08.540 That's it. So I think to his second part of his question, what do you do to

00:11:14.260 learn how to sell or learn how to grow the business? You learn how to sell,

00:11:18.880 you got to market it. You got to go out and sell something. And if you can't sell anything,

00:11:22.120 there's only one or two things that are happening. Nobody cares or you're not good at it.

00:11:28.200 So you got to figure out which one it is. I would lean more towards figuring out why you're not good

00:11:33.500 at selling the thing first. Cause I've had some horrible, horrible products that I've been

00:11:38.460 very excited to try because the marketing was good. So I would worry about how do I sell this?

00:11:45.900 How do I learn marketing? And then you can worry more about like, okay, is this a marketable product?

00:11:51.440 I think maybe both go hand in hand, but I think those are two important factors to consider.

00:11:57.100 Agreed. Absolutely. All right. Our next one comes from Evan Berwick,

00:12:02.980 also from the iron council and council, the brethren. What are the first three things you

00:12:09.620 would do if you started a brand new business? And if you couldn't use any of your current funding or

00:12:14.700 contacts? I like this question. Cause I've also contemplated like what would happen if you just

00:12:20.720 picked me up, plucked me out of Southern Utah today. And you put a blindfold on me, put earmuffs on me.

00:12:26.420 Like I couldn't hear anything. I couldn't see anything. And you know, 12 hours later,

00:12:29.860 you dropped me, parachuted me down to this random town. Like what would it take me to

00:12:35.220 entrench myself into the community? And then what would it take to build myself into a success

00:12:39.960 within that community? This is easy. It's really easy guys. Just go where the players are.

00:12:46.660 That's it. Just find out where the players are. So who are the players in the community?

00:12:51.880 Politicians and entrepreneurs. Those are the two people. Those are the players in the community.

00:12:56.240 And I would say maybe as a third clergy. So you have politicians, excuse me, entrepreneurs and

00:13:02.040 clergy. So where do the politicians hang out? Well, they hang out at city council. They hang

00:13:07.020 out at business ventures. They're trying to get on their soapbox and talk about what it is their

00:13:11.860 platform is. Where do the entrepreneurs hang out? Business luncheons, chamber of commerce, rotary,

00:13:18.340 charitable organizations. Where do clergy hang out? At church. This is not hard. So you can go to where

00:13:24.520 those individuals are. Insert yourself into the conversation. Now, if you're dropped into the

00:13:29.820 middle of this town and you don't know anything about what these people are about, you don't have

00:13:33.280 anything to offer just yet, then the best thing that you can do is just be curious. I don't need

00:13:38.520 to come in and sell you on anything. I just need to figure out what you're about. Hey, tell me about

00:13:42.460 what you're about. I just moved here. I'm interested in learning more about the people who move this town in

00:13:48.000 the right direction. What's your business? What's your platform? What's your thing? What's this?

00:13:52.800 The more you ask questions that way, the more successful you're going to be by inserting yourself

00:13:58.480 into the conversation. As a bonus, so we have politicians, entrepreneurs, clergy. As a bonus,

00:14:05.740 go where successful people are. Successful people are at the gym. They are. Alan, you're successful.

00:14:11.360 You're at the gym. I'm successful. I'm at the gym. That's where successful people hang out.

00:14:17.120 It could be the actual gym. It could be jujitsu. It could be CrossFit. It could be any number of

00:14:24.400 places, but successful people are at the gym. And guess when they're there? Really, really early

00:14:28.660 from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. They're not there at 10. They're not there in the evening. They're there from

00:14:34.740 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. When do you go to the gym, Alan? Maybe I'm wrong.

00:14:38.760 Well, I'm usually there around 2 p.m. Okay. Well, you're the exception then because I don't

00:14:44.920 think most successful people who are out there killing it and getting after it are going to be

00:14:49.840 there at 2 p.m. I'm not saying that about you. I'm just saying, generally speaking.

00:14:53.420 They're not there when I'm there. Right. The stay-at-home moms are there before they have to 1.00

00:15:00.060 go pick up their kids from school. So think about where you're going to position yourself,

00:15:05.400 where the successful people already are, and then just go ask questions. Just insert yourself

00:15:10.980 into the dialogue, the conversations, the events, everything else that's happening.

00:15:15.020 If you're at Rotary and somebody says, hey, we need to volunteer to do X, Y, and Z,

00:15:18.920 you're the guy. And you can come up with all the reasons. Oh, I don't know people. I don't know

00:15:22.380 this. I don't know that. Figure that shit out. That's easy. I don't know anybody. How am I going

00:15:27.180 to do sponsorships? You don't need to know anybody. If they need a person to help with sponsorships,

00:15:31.800 go do sponsorships. By the way, sponsorships is the right place to go because guess what else you

00:15:36.520 get to go do? You get to go to the bank and meet the branch manager. You get to go to all the

00:15:42.160 entrepreneurs in town and talk with them, not about you and your business, but introduce yourself

00:15:47.140 because you're doing the Rotary fundraiser for the year. That's how you do it. I can't think of a

00:15:53.680 better way to do it than that. Yeah, I agree. The answer I was going to say is the cliche of

00:15:59.200 who, not how. I never heard that when I started my main business, but that was exactly what I did.

00:16:06.460 I reached out to manufacturers of motors, gears, other things to find out. I'm not an engineer by

00:16:11.900 trade. So I reached out to them to get those contacts. I had to get the communications. Look,

00:16:18.640 if you can, in the question here, you can't use any of your current funding or contacts. So

00:16:23.380 if you're leaving a job and you have a non-compete clause that you sign, fine. Call other companies

00:16:30.080 that you can use as mentors or the manufacturers if you're in a product line. They're happy to help

00:16:37.960 talk you through, teach you things that you don't know, give suggestions. Call other people that do

00:16:43.640 the same business that you're looking to do but might be on the other side of the country and they're

00:16:48.780 not competition to you. A lot of business owners, they're really happy to share. They want to, you

00:16:54.360 know, they want to give back. So that's a big thing. Funding, I think you touched on funding really

00:17:00.160 well. Look, again, I started my business with $200. So, but it took a long time to grow because I did

00:17:06.740 that. If you can do it that way, great. Otherwise, funding comes from, like you said, meeting other

00:17:11.880 business owners, good old-fashioned bank loan, federal loan, investors. There's lots of website

00:17:18.380 to gain investors from. You just have to be smart and make a good business plan and then you can put

00:17:25.220 yourself out there for it. It's not really too hard. It's the fear of doing it that is stopping

00:17:31.460 more people than the actual process. Yeah, I agree. I'm interested, Alan, when you were talking about

00:17:38.480 funding and you started with $200, I've bankrolled Order of Man and other businesses as well.

00:17:44.760 And when I say bankroll, I'm talking about less than $1,000. Not that I came in with $100,000 to

00:17:49.880 grow this thing. I'm interested in what your thoughts are about brokering things because I

00:17:54.940 don't know if you did this, but sometimes people are concerned they don't have the capital to

00:18:00.080 purchase supplies or parts that you want to sell, for example. Or for me, it might've been

00:18:06.140 t-shirts. How am I going to buy 1,000 t-shirts? I don't have the capital to do that. I don't have

00:18:10.460 the place to do that. And so what you can do is you can broker these products. And so if you're

00:18:15.420 selling, let's say, hypothetically, a body kit for a certain kind of RC car, you may not be the one

00:18:24.080 that needs to sell it, but you can broker it and take a little bit off the top. And that's a great way

00:18:28.600 to create some additional revenue without having to have all the merchandise, without the overhead,

00:18:32.880 without the storage, for the place. For t-shirts, for example, when I started, I'd have to go out

00:18:38.380 and buy 1,000 t-shirts. I could just go through one of these companies that would sell them

00:18:42.820 one at a time. Now, look, I'm not going to make as much money doing that. So inevitably,

00:18:48.520 I'm going to move out of that if I want to grow a successful business. But that's a great way to

00:18:52.340 generate some revenue, get some product and merchandise out there and start getting your

00:18:55.940 feet wet without having the extra cost and burden of overhead, excessive cost, et cetera.

00:19:02.880 Yeah. Brokering is good. Yeah. You don't make as much profit, but it gets you rolling.

00:19:07.980 GoFundMe is another good way. What I did, this was before GoFundMe existed,

00:19:13.280 was I took pre-orders. So my $200 went to build a website and those first orders that came in

00:19:20.680 paid for the product that they needed and then a little profit on top. So I could start carrying

00:19:27.500 inventory because people buy from you a lot quicker if you keep it in stock.

00:19:31.200 So there's lots of different ways. You just have to think about it. And this goes back to the who,

00:19:37.340 not how. When you talk to somebody else that started a business, find out how they did it if

00:19:41.620 they didn't have any cash. Groups like the Iron Council are fabulous for it because you have specified

00:19:47.240 areas to speak to entrepreneurs or finance people. There's so many areas that they're all right there as a

00:19:56.500 resource at your fingertips. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. What's next?

00:20:02.040 Let's see. John McDermott from The Forge, one of our newer members. What are the key components to

00:20:10.540 creating, forging, and fostering your brand? Fostering and creating your brand. Number one,

00:20:17.720 know what you stand for, but I would also make sure that it's relevant to the conversations that you want

00:20:23.720 to be having because you can have a lot of stances on things and some things really don't matter.

00:20:27.820 So for example, if I'm doing laundry, I don't care whether it's Tide or I don't even know what the

00:20:32.620 other products are, but I don't care if it's Tide or some other product. I really don't. It doesn't

00:20:37.500 bother me at all. It's irrelevant to me. But if we're going to talk about what it means to be a man,

00:20:44.480 okay, that's relevant. Like what some people say compared to what other people say

00:20:49.640 actually matters to me. And it clearly, it matters to other people because not only have we started

00:20:54.920 our movement here with Order of Man, but we've springboarded dozens, if not hundreds of other

00:21:00.720 companies and organizations that are doing something similar because they saw what we did.

00:21:05.680 So clearly, it's an important message. And I think that's important to recognize. Is this something

00:21:11.300 people care about? Because if it's not, then whatever position you take, whatever stance you take,

00:21:17.480 and if you talk to your blue in the face, nobody listens in because nobody cares. So make sure 0.99

00:21:24.040 that it's something that you care about, but also making sure that it's something other people care

00:21:28.700 about. Next is making sure that you're communicating it in an interesting way. There's so many people,

00:21:36.720 let me give you an example. I get messages every single day, emails typically, from PR organizations

00:21:43.500 that are trying to hawk me on who I should have on my podcast for leadership. And they all sound the

00:21:51.380 same. They all look the same. They all speak the same. They all have the same boring points that every

00:21:57.660 other one of them introduces and puts in front of me. And I'm just not interested. Not because I don't

00:22:03.000 think they have something quality to share. They probably do, but they're not sharing it in a unique

00:22:08.460 and interesting, relevant way that's going to stand out from the pack. So for us with Order of

00:22:15.580 Man, I've taken some very hardline stances on a few topics. And when I take those hardline stances,

00:22:21.780 a lot of people get upset about it, but you know what? A lot of people get very excited about it

00:22:26.720 because finally, finally, somebody is saying what they've been thinking for years and years and years

00:22:33.780 and haven't either had the balls or the platform to share it themselves. That's how you know you're

00:22:39.220 hitting strides when people are like, thank you for saying that. I've been thinking that for years.

00:22:43.320 The more you hear that, the more you know you're on the right track.

00:22:48.000 And the third component is to continue to innovate. I just said, we help dozens, if not hundreds of

00:22:53.720 other organizations springboard into a platform similar to what we're creating here. If I'm not

00:22:59.240 continually innovating and thinking of new ways to attract interesting, unique, and new individuals,

00:23:04.520 then all those people are going to run circles around me. They're going to catch up and they're

00:23:08.200 going to lap me. So I need to be out ahead of the quote unquote competition by continuing to innovate

00:23:13.960 with products, events, communication, whatever it is we're offering, coaching, consulting,

00:23:24.420 et cetera, et cetera. If I can continue to innovate, then I'll always be out ahead of the pack.

00:23:29.000 And that's very important when it comes to creating your own brand.

00:23:33.080 Awesome. I think a lot of people think brand, they think like a logo, especially new business

00:23:39.000 people. They don't understand that there's more behind a brand than just a logo, that Starbucks

00:23:43.600 isn't just the Starbucks logo. And they think, well, coffee, but there's more to a brand than that.

00:23:49.040 It's your mission. And you should have a mission, if not a statement written out, even at least a

00:23:54.300 sentence and know what your company is doing. Other than just being there to sell and make you

00:24:00.160 money. That's how you know you're doing it wrong. If that's all you can think about is, well, my

00:24:04.700 mission is to make money. You're not think about the service that you're providing. My company on the

00:24:10.000 website, it says at the top, something like be your kid's hero, learn to repair things with them or

00:24:17.680 something. I don't even remember what's on the top of my own website. But the point is, that's the

00:24:23.320 mission. That's what you want your brand to be is what does your company represent through its

00:24:29.740 product, through the service that it provides. And then use that branding. The way you get that

00:24:35.660 branding out there is not advertise your logo. I mean, you want your logo out there for recognition,

00:24:40.900 but what's behind it. Talk about in your advertising that you're helping your kids or

00:24:47.600 that you're helping men to be better men. As you get more into that, you'll get, like Ryan was saying,

00:24:54.260 the feedback back that's going to help you tweak your mission and then therefore tweak the business

00:25:00.640 to go with that, to keep changing the service that you provide to be better for the people you

00:25:06.580 provide it for. That's a big component also when we're talking about the brand is not

00:25:12.640 getting hooked on selling just your thing, but always selling the service that you're providing.

00:25:20.380 Ryan, when you started the Order of Man, the Iron Council, you thought people would graduate out of

00:25:24.520 it, that they would go through it like a course and learn to be better sovereign men and leave.

00:25:29.520 But you've evolved it because you saw that what the mission became was to keep growing, that men are

00:25:37.160 always growing better. There is no complete. You're never sovereign and just stay sovereign. There's

00:25:42.380 always other levels to go to. So you've evolved the business to service people better in that end of

00:25:51.740 the brand of the business. The brand itself has changed because of that.

00:25:55.680 Yeah. It should always be evolving. You want to hear a great example of this

00:26:00.360 is Bud Light is a great example of this from a negative standpoint.

00:26:05.460 Yeah. Bud Light forgot. Budweiser forgot because they made a horrible hiring decision.

00:26:11.880 They forgot who their base was. And because they forgot who their base was and they weren't listening

00:26:17.060 to their customer base, they made a poor marketing decision. And let's call it for what it is. It was a

00:26:22.260 marketing decision. Bud Light doesn't care about transgenderism. Okay. But get that out of your

00:26:27.540 mind right now. What they care about is selling more beer. I don't give a shit about whether a dude 0.99

00:26:33.300 has a dick or not. They don't care. They want to sell more beer. And their play was, we think Dylan 1.00

00:26:39.920 Mulvaney can help us sell more beer. They were wrong. How many billions of dollars of market space did

00:26:47.580 they lose because they made a poor branding decision? And that's what that was. That was not a social

00:26:54.080 decision. It was a branding decision. And now you watch them and they're backpedaling. They're UFC.

00:27:01.060 This was the, this is a horrible decision on UFC's part. And Dana White will defend and everything else. 0.97

00:27:05.500 He's wrong. I love Dana White from what I see. The guy's incredible. He stands up. He's flat out wrong

00:27:11.620 on Bud Light and Budweiser. He made a horrible, horrible decision, but it's his organization.

00:27:17.460 He can make that decision. I'll probably still watch UFC. It's not that big a deal to me, but

00:27:21.300 that was a bad decision on Budweiser or Bud Light's part. And they're reaping the benefit of that.

00:27:29.220 That's a branding choice. And you can see how horribly it works out when you forget to cater to

00:27:35.260 your customer base and understand who your customer base is. And now they're like, oh shit, 1.00

00:27:39.920 we're not marketing to Dylan Mulvaney and the transgenders of the world. We're marketing the 1.00

00:27:45.440 guys who watch UFC. So they've made some pivots. I'm not willing, really willing to forgive at this

00:27:50.920 point, you know, but Dana White is, and you know, eventually, you know, maybe they'll crawl their 0.83

00:27:55.040 way back to where they were before, but that's a great example of what a brand can and should not do

00:28:00.900 when it comes to their, their marketing and branding. Exactly. Never lose focus on your customers.

00:28:06.400 It's, it's all about them in the end. Always. Hey, can I say one more thing about, um, about

00:28:12.520 the Bud Light thing? Cause I want to, I really want to drive this home. Wow. All right. You want

00:28:17.680 to get sued by Bud Light. All right, go ahead, man. No, I mean, I'm not defaming. I just said it's

00:28:21.680 a horrible decision. Yeah, I agree. Go ahead. So I, when I was in, uh, I went to, this was maybe a

00:28:31.020 month or two ago, right in the midst of all of this thing. I walked, I walked into a convenience

00:28:34.820 store and I saw a guy, he was this like rugged cowboy, like badass looking guy. And he, he went

00:28:45.540 to the beer aisle or the beer cooler or whatever. And he came back out with his 24 pack of Bud Light

00:28:51.100 and he walked to the counter and put it. And I immediately thought, what the hell is wrong with

00:28:55.060 this guy? Now I don't drink, I don't drink anymore. I used to drink a lot. I don't drink

00:28:58.820 anymore, but I thought, what the hell is wrong with this guy? That's how, you know, they missed

00:29:05.720 the mark. It's so widespread now that people see a guy and he looks a certain, I don't know that guy,

00:29:13.960 but he looks a certain way. He carries himself a certain way and he's got a 24 pack of Bud Light.

00:29:19.420 And I think what's wrong with that guy? Yeah. But if he was wearing a tutu, you would be okay

00:29:24.940 with it. A tutu or skinny jeans. I'd be like, yeah, that tracks for me. So I got it. I understand.

00:29:31.740 The amazing thing is there's an image there. A year or two years ago, before that all went down,

00:29:36.720 you would be fine with that image. Yeah. It would make sense. It would track to me

00:29:40.740 and it would be congruent and be like, yeah, that makes sense. That guy drinks Bud Light. Yep. Got it.

00:29:44.680 Check. And look guys, the companies that are the size of Budweiser can, can get away with the

00:29:50.400 mistake like that. We've seen other companies make those marketing errors. We've seen cars,

00:29:54.940 car manufacturers come out with some of the ugliest, most boring looking cars and they don't sell,

00:30:00.920 but they're big enough where they can take those losses. Most of us can't handle a loss like that.

00:30:06.780 So stick to your core competencies always and stick to your, your customers. Yep. All right. What's

00:30:13.840 next? Awesome. Jay Welsh, Battle Team Romulus. Many entrepreneurs struggle to delegate as they grow

00:30:20.380 and in effect become a lid for their business. Their mentality seems to be, if you want it done

00:30:26.460 right, do it yourself. What advice do you have for transitioning from working in the business to

00:30:32.200 working on the business? I want to ensure I'm spending my time and energy on the highest return

00:30:37.520 tasks so that the business will continue to grow. I'm not the guy to talk to on this, Alan. You know

00:30:43.740 this. You and I have had to get Ryan to hire more people for a while now. You and I have had countless

00:30:50.240 conversations. I will say, I think there's a difference and we need to understand this.

00:30:55.560 And I don't want to hear what you have to say here on this, Alan too, but there is a difference between

00:30:59.800 wanting to grow the business into what you're talking about and delegating and bringing the right

00:31:04.740 people and not growing, which is okay too. And I think that in the entrepreneurial space,

00:31:10.420 especially with guys listening to this podcast and the podcast category that sometimes this gets

00:31:15.840 lumped into, you're going to hear a lot of people talk about leverage and scaling and maximizing and

00:31:22.000 all of these things. And that's fine and great, but I want you to know you're not obligated to do that.

00:31:27.820 If you have a business and it's really, really good as a solo type business, and maybe you have

00:31:32.700 a few general contractors, maybe you have one or two people on staff and that's what you want to do,

00:31:39.620 by all means do that. Cause you might make multiple six figures a year. You might be able

00:31:46.120 to coach your sons and daughters sports teams and go to all their games and practices and go

00:31:51.300 on the vacations you want. And if that's what you want, don't think that you have to scale this thing

00:31:57.440 and leverage it to its full capacity, because maybe that's not what you're after. That's the only thing

00:32:02.720 I want to throw in there. And that's not necessarily the case for me, but it is something that I'm

00:32:07.580 constantly weighing. Do I continue to grow and evolve this thing into hiring dozens, if not

00:32:12.840 hundreds of employees and maximize and scale this thing? And how do I balance that with the lifestyle

00:32:19.300 that I've created that I actually quite enjoy at this point? So I'd love to hear what you have to say

00:32:25.040 on it, Alan.

00:32:26.080 Yeah. You know, I talk to entrepreneurs a lot about making sure that you're willing to work as hard as

00:32:31.720 it takes to obtain your vision. So that, that exactly is to your point, you know, to become a

00:32:38.720 millionaire, and I don't even know what the, the, the term millionaire, you know, what the, what does

00:32:43.800 that mean now? Do you have a million dollars in your bank account, million dollars in assets,

00:32:47.920 but to become wealthy, it's, it takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of

00:32:54.080 headache, heartache, risks, failures. You have to be willing to work that hard to do it. If you're

00:32:59.300 happy making 80 grand a year and it's paying for your lifestyle that you enjoy, do that, enjoy that.

00:33:06.520 But to fully grow your company, you have to have employees. If you want to get to that next level,

00:33:13.780 that's, that's your biggest step, especially for the people that are, um, hands-on people that they

00:33:18.580 provide a service, whether you're an accountant, a, uh, a woodworker, whatever you can only do as much

00:33:25.520 as you can provide in 40 hours or however many hours a week, you're going to work that that's

00:33:30.580 the maximum income you're ever going to make is that you working 40 hours a week or 70, whatever

00:33:36.900 you're willing to put in. So you have to realize an employee is a necessity to make more money so

00:33:43.040 that it can free you up to, as you know, they said work on the business, not in the business.

00:33:48.840 And, and that means you're out there marketing your business and then you have to let go. That's

00:33:56.060 always a hard thing is, you know, once you train that employee, an employee will never work as hard

00:34:02.400 as you do. It's not their business. Why should they be okay with that? They're going to do that job,

00:34:08.560 maybe 80% as good as you would do that job. Know that when you're hiring for that and you give them

00:34:14.900 the things to do that either you're not good at, so they'll do it at a higher percentage or that you

00:34:20.120 just don't enjoy doing so that you can do the parts of the business you do enjoy. And then keep

00:34:26.240 adding more employees. Don't, once you do one, it's actually easier to add more, but don't be afraid

00:34:32.460 to take that step. It's another fear factor issue, Ryan. It's, it's what do I need to do to grow bigger?

00:34:40.200 Well, I know I need to hire an employee. I've never met a single, singlepreneur. I think they call

00:34:44.780 them that didn't know that hiring an employee was the next step they needed to do, but since

00:34:49.740 they've never done it before, they're afraid to do it. And that's the only time we're ever afraid.

00:34:55.480 You're never afraid to hire your second employee. It's only the first one, everything you're doing

00:34:59.880 in your business. It's only the first time you do it. You'll be afraid of it.

00:35:03.260 So I've got a couple of thoughts, Alan. Number one, I, I'm going to take a little bit of issue. I don't

00:35:08.460 disagree with you, but I'm going to take a little bit of issue with one thing you said. You said,

00:35:12.640 they'll never work as hard as you. I don't disagree. I don't think they will because

00:35:16.540 they're not as invested as you, as you are rightfully. So that makes sense to me. I don't

00:35:20.940 take, I don't disagree. I think we need to be very careful of that narrative because that narrative

00:35:27.540 will keep us trapped. Cause you're going to say, well, they'll never work as hard as I do. So why

00:35:31.480 should I even like, that's the follow-up. Well, they'll never work as hard as me. And you know,

00:35:36.460 this is going to be a cost and a headache. That's the follow-up to that thought.

00:35:39.960 Um, here's what I'm thinking as you're saying this, they may not work as hard as you,

00:35:44.020 but they're 80% might be better than your, than your a hundred percent. Like for example, taxes,

00:35:49.420 I'm going to work as hard as I can on my business, but an accountant, a trained certified public

00:35:55.320 accountant, his 60% is going to be better than my a hundred. I'm okay with that. The other thing I

00:36:01.380 wrote down here is that I think this is very important from a tactical standpoint. Like if we're

00:36:06.780 struggling to hire and bring people in, cause I do have people contracted. I don't have,

00:36:11.620 I don't have a full-time employee currently, but I have people contracted and the, where it started

00:36:19.680 to make sense for me was, was this question. And I'll ask you guys, if I said to you, I want you to

00:36:26.640 give me $20 of your money, you give me $20 and in return, I'll give you 200. You give me 20 and

00:36:34.860 I'll exchange it for 200. How often would you make that trade with me? As often as you possibly

00:36:39.780 could. You do it an infinite number of times. And I think that's where you can start to look

00:36:45.660 at your business for bringing people on is if I could take somebody and I can pay them 20 or 30 or

00:36:51.160 $50 an hour. And in return, I'm going to recoup an hour and that's going to yield for me 500 or a

00:36:57.980 thousand or 5,000. I'm going to make that trade all day long. I think where a lot of entrepreneurs,

00:37:03.660 entrepreneurs get into trouble is when they don't have anything else to do. And so they're like,

00:37:10.160 well, I got to hire this person for $40 an hour. And so I'm going to pay them X amount of dollars a

00:37:15.200 week, but I don't really have anything else to do. Well, okay. That's probably the issue you need to

00:37:19.440 address. How would you spend your time if you weren't doing taxes? If you weren't doing bookkeeping,

00:37:24.760 if you weren't following up on invoices that needed to be paid, all this clerical administrative duty,

00:37:30.740 what would you be doing? And is it worth more of your time than what you would pay $30 an hour to

00:37:36.440 somebody else to do? Yeah, absolutely. You should always have more to do for your business. You should

00:37:45.020 always have something marketing that you can do to reach more people. Again, that's the

00:37:49.300 beauty of the global economy that we have nowadays. If you hire somebody to do work and they can

00:37:56.080 handle 60% of your work, you now have 60% more time to go bring in more clients so that hopefully

00:38:02.620 you need to hire a second person to do that work. And a CEO of a large corporation never sees the day

00:38:10.500 to day of a business. He just deals with new marketing, new products, new outreach. So that's

00:38:18.800 where you want to get to if you really want to scale your business. And you may enjoy the day-to-day

00:38:24.120 hands-on. So you go into the business every now and then and help out. That's what I do. I stop in

00:38:30.600 my shop maybe once a week and help the guys build and assemble. For the most part, I'm working outward

00:38:36.700 on the business, but I miss it. I miss doing the hands-on because I created it all. Yeah. And that

00:38:42.560 was my passion. Build it, you know, make it so you can do it on your terms. E-Myth is a really great

00:38:48.220 book for this. So a lot of times people think that just because they're good at a thing, they're going

00:38:53.880 to be good at the business side of it. And those are two different things that we need to understand

00:38:58.120 as entrepreneurs. Yeah. Awesome. All right. Zach Zanuck from Battle Team Gamma. What are your

00:39:06.240 favorite ways or things you're currently doing to get more comfortable being uncomfortable? Do you

00:39:12.060 have any recommendations for how we can recognize and create those controlled environments for

00:39:16.880 ourselves? He's talking about fear of rejection and how do you not deal with, you know, how do you

00:39:26.360 get comfortable with dealing with the fear on things? Well, you don't get to repetitively do

00:39:34.260 an uncomfortable thing. As I said earlier, once you do it once, you're comfortable with it. Nobody's

00:39:39.620 ever that excited for you that you jumped out of an airplane for the second time. Only the first time.

00:39:46.420 Yeah, that's a good point.

00:39:48.260 To keep myself trained with doing uncomfortable things, when I order food or go to a restaurant,

00:39:54.960 restaurant, I most of the time will look for something I've never heard of and order it and

00:40:01.420 try it. Worst case, I don't eat a whole lot. And maybe that's better for my diet. There's lots of

00:40:06.920 opportunities out there. Take a different path home. Just try, you know, drive when you're driving

00:40:11.900 home, try driving a different direction home. Watch a different type of TV show that, you know,

00:40:18.660 put on an old black and white show. Whether or not you enjoy the show doesn't matter. You're

00:40:25.120 becoming comfortable with doing uncomfortable things. Talk to somebody at the grocery store.

00:40:30.760 How dare we? You know, the guy buying the Bud Light, call him out. No, don't do that. Sounds

00:40:36.320 like he would have shot you.

00:40:38.280 You know, he did.

00:40:39.540 No, he would have said he was a cowboy.

00:40:40.840 Drinking. Yeah, but he's drinking Bud Light. So he's probably left his gun at home. He forgot his

00:40:45.540 gun at home.

00:40:47.880 Yeah. So, so literally look, opportunities for everything. You know, we're talking a lot of

00:40:53.200 business on this call today. So in, in the business and entrepreneur world, the opportunities are

00:40:59.940 always, always out there. You just have to open your mind to them and see them. You have to listen

00:41:06.140 for people saying, Hey, I wish this would be better. Or even in your own life, say, I wish

00:41:11.780 this would be better. That do the uncomfortable, take that next uncomfortable step and say, all

00:41:17.520 right, well, let me see how I can bring that product to fruition. I actually have a list

00:41:21.740 of products that are not even related to my business that people have said to me, man,

00:41:27.580 this would be a great thing. And I keep that list written down. So if I ever want to venture

00:41:32.700 out and do another business, I've got these product ideas ready to go because it'll serve

00:41:38.240 people. It'll be uncomfortable. I'll do it.

00:41:42.460 Yeah. I like what you said about even just something as simple and you said it in passing,

00:41:47.180 but I think it's crucial starting a conversation with somebody at the grocery store.

00:41:51.380 I wrote down a list here of, I think three or four things that people are most afraid of.

00:41:56.880 And here's what I wrote. Correct me if you think I'm wrong. Number one, having a conversation

00:42:01.900 with somebody. Number two, speaking in public. For a lot. Yeah. Number three, asking for something

00:42:11.180 like a discount, for example, asking for something you want or a date would be another one. Number

00:42:17.720 four, trying something new, just doing something new and willing to risk looking foolish. Those are 0.98

00:42:25.460 four things I think that people are very, very afraid of. And so how do you get comfortable with

00:42:30.840 those? Well, for talking with somebody, the best thing you can do is start a conversation.

00:42:34.980 Yesterday, I was, you talked about starting a conversation at the grocery store. I think

00:42:38.840 that's a great place to do it. It's low risk, right? If they think you're an idiot or don't

00:42:43.660 want to talk, they just leave. You're never going to see that person again. So low risk. 1.00

00:42:47.000 But I was skiing in Brian Head here in Southern Utah yesterday. And this woman was skiing down 1.00

00:42:53.120 and she was on this ski bike. I'd never seen one in like right there. I was like, oh, that's

00:42:59.740 interesting. I was very curious about it. So I just asked her a couple of questions and we had a

00:43:03.960 really good, I don't know, 30 second conversation about what it's about and if she likes it or doesn't

00:43:08.640 like it. And she was just trying it for the first time and her husband has done it for a while and

00:43:12.260 he's good at it and she's not. And we just had a good conversation. If you're scared of talking with

00:43:16.880 people, the way that you overcome talking with people is you talk with people. If we're talking

00:43:23.040 about speaking in public, I'm so afraid to speak in public. Look guys, do you have an opportunity

00:43:28.880 to present some new strategy or idea at work to five of your coworkers? Do that. If there's something

00:43:34.920 that you want to share about work or a family dynamic, do it over dinner with your five or six

00:43:40.940 family members. If you're in Rotary or one that really helped me become a better public speaker was

00:43:46.460 Business Network International, BNI. I went to the president and I would say, hey, if anybody ever

00:43:52.760 bails on doing it, because every week there was an opportunity for one or maybe two people to speak

00:43:58.060 and to share about their business. And I wasn't really comfortable doing this at the time, but I

00:44:02.660 went to the president and I said, hey, if anybody ever bails, like they get sick or they can't make it

00:44:08.400 or they forget or whatever, if anybody ever forgets or can't do their presentation, I just need a 60

00:44:14.780 second warning and I'll fill in. And they're like, really? I'm like, yep, anytime. And there was

00:44:20.720 probably five or six times where the speaker didn't show up or wasn't prepared or whatever.

00:44:28.520 And they said, hey, Ryan, will you present? Yep. I said, all I need is 60 seconds. And I would pick

00:44:34.060 one element of my business and I'd go share it. And sometimes I did really well. And sometimes I did

00:44:38.380 really poorly, but I had the balls to do it. The other one asking for a discount or asking for 0.97

00:44:42.800 something you want. Guys, if you want to get good at this, just go ask for a discount for the next

00:44:46.940 30 days, even a week, do it for a week. Wherever you go, wherever you go to spend money, just ask for

00:44:53.300 a discount. If you go to Starbucks, it's because we were talking about Starbucks this morning,

00:44:56.840 go in and say, hey, is there, you guys have any promotions or discounts running right now?

00:44:59.920 Or, hey, I'm a regular here. Is there any discount for a regular? Or, hey, I'm 60 years old. Do you

00:45:04.960 have a senior citizen discount? I don't care. Just ask for a discount wherever you go. 0.91

00:45:11.060 And by the way, as a business owner, I hate it that you make people do that.

00:45:14.980 You hate it to what?

00:45:16.540 I hate it that you ask people to do that. It's good for them. It's not good for the business owner.

00:45:21.140 Yeah, I know. But I'm not really too concerned with the business owner. I'm

00:45:24.320 concerned with the person because the business owner can always say no. People ask me for discounts

00:45:28.300 sometimes. I'm like, no. Yeah. And as a business owner, that's an uncomfortable conversation

00:45:32.440 to teach them to be comfortable being uncomfortable.

00:45:36.040 Totally. And then the last one, trying something new. Just go try something new.

00:45:39.640 Go to the gym. Go do jujitsu. Go take a firearms class. Go take an art class. Go take a cooking

00:45:44.580 class. Go whatever. Just do something new that you've never done before. Or if a buddy calls

00:45:51.820 you up and says, hey, we're going dirt biking this weekend. Do you want to go? Yes.

00:45:56.980 Well, but I've never been. I know. That's why you're going. So you can say that you've done

00:46:01.480 it and you can learn something. And who knows? Maybe you're going to find the hobby that you just

00:46:06.080 love. Don't just say yes enough with I'm busy. You can do this with it. No, just say yes.

00:46:12.060 I think if you incorporate those things, you'll have a lot of success in not really worrying about

00:46:17.180 doing something outside of your comfort zone. There's two catchphrases. You just mentioned

00:46:22.040 both of them, actually, that I've used as a trigger for myself personally. And the listeners

00:46:26.300 can do this, too. When you say I've never done that, that for me, when I say that, that's a trigger.

00:46:33.140 Oh, OK, let me try it. You know, if it takes an afternoon or an hour or whatever, I get to try

00:46:38.580 something different and experience something new on the planet. How awesome is that? That's what life

00:46:43.300 is about. And then if I say I don't like something, I have to catch myself and say, well, you know,

00:46:51.980 did I do that a couple of weeks ago and I didn't like doing that? Did I try? You know, have I eaten

00:46:56.280 that food recently? Or when I was a little kid, did I not like beans? So I'm, you know, 53 years

00:47:02.900 old now and saying I don't like beans. Well, maybe it's time to try them again. So when I say I don't

00:47:07.460 like that, I have to catch myself and think, have I actually ever tried it? Or am I just saying I don't

00:47:13.300 like that? And there is a I'm not interested in. That's OK. And sometimes you even do the I'm not

00:47:19.580 interested in because it doesn't take a lot of vesting of your time to do. I'm not interested in

00:47:25.300 running a marathon. And so I'm not going to go through all the training it takes to run a

00:47:31.260 marathon. But, you know, if somebody says, hey, we're, you know, doing a hundred yard dash

00:47:37.400 competition. Sure. I'll try that. Why not? Do uncomfortable. I'm writing down because you had

00:47:45.300 said I'm not interested in doing a marathon. That was the example that you used. We have to be honest

00:47:50.300 with ourselves. Are you not interested in doing a marathon? Like, is that really what you're not

00:47:55.160 interested in? Or are you not interested in being uncomfortable, pushing outside of your

00:48:00.080 comfort zone, willing to look foolish? I don't know the answer. Only ourselves individually 0.99

00:48:05.780 can answer that. I'm not interested, meaning you're not interested in the thing or is, are

00:48:11.620 you not interested in the risk associated with it? The fear of doing something new? Be honest

00:48:18.140 with yourself about what you're really not interested in.

00:48:20.920 Right. Exactly. Know yourself deeper and continue the conversation with yourself.

00:48:26.900 When you say I'm not interested or I don't like, or I've never done it, that that's not the end of

00:48:32.340 a conversation. That's the start of a conversation with yourself.

00:48:35.520 Yeah. All right. What's next? Let's take a couple more, Alan.

00:48:38.960 All right. We're going to move into Instagram now.

00:48:40.800 Oh, pay old school ass. How masterize my job when I work in home with two little kids. 0.99

00:48:49.260 I mean, how to be more productive.

00:48:52.020 What was the first part? How what I did? I just didn't catch it.

00:48:54.940 There's a little language barrier here. It's basically how to master masterize my job when

00:49:01.160 I work in home with two little kids. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, getting asked a lot since

00:49:08.300 COVID. Go ahead. Find that one. Yeah, I do this. Yeah. This can be a challenge. And I've done this

00:49:16.680 for nine years now, actually a little longer than nine years. I was doing my financial planning

00:49:21.120 practice as well. It's a challenge. It really is. The thing that got me the most, Alan, was

00:49:27.280 the guilt. I had guilt coming at me from both sides. So when I was working on my business,

00:49:33.100 I had guilt feeling like I wasn't there and present with my family. I could literally hear

00:49:37.360 them outside doing their thing. And I was guilty that I wasn't out there with them.

00:49:41.200 And then when I would go out there and I'd spend time with my kids or have lunch or do whatever that

00:49:45.260 I was doing, I could hear all my emails and all the things going on over here in my office.

00:49:49.600 And I was guilty that I wasn't there. So I had guilt coming from both sides because I wasn't

00:49:55.440 paying enough attention to one or the other. A couple of things. In Maine, it was a little bit

00:50:00.360 more simple because I was in a different part of the house. So that helped. And what I would say to

00:50:07.120 you is regardless of the size of your house, you have to have a dedicated space. If your office is in

00:50:15.180 the kitchen at the little table by the counter, failure. It's not going to work. I promise you it's

00:50:21.480 not going to work. If it's in the bedroom, you know, where, you know, the bed and the bathroom

00:50:26.360 and kids are coming in, your wife's coming in, it's not going to work. You have to have a dedicated

00:50:31.280 space. I would choose the basement in the back corner and I would get away from as far as you can,

00:50:36.280 the family and everything else that's going on. Second to that is making sure that you're

00:50:42.860 communicating effectively with your family because your kids want to be with you. Like you're there,

00:50:47.520 dad's home. I want to be with dad. That's awesome. There's nothing wrong with that.

00:50:52.540 That's beautiful. They want to spend time with you. They want to be with you. They care about you.

00:50:55.920 They love you. They're excited about your time together, but you have to be able to have

00:51:01.480 conversations with them about when is work time and when is family time. So if you're going to work,

00:51:07.020 for example, from nine to noon, then that time is dedicated to work time. If your wife comes in 0.89

00:51:14.460 and she says, Hey hon, will you take out the trash at 10 30? The answer is no.

00:51:20.280 If your kids come in and say, Hey dad, jump on the trampoline for 15 minutes. The answer has to be

00:51:24.580 no. And the way that you give that a better, softer delivery is you say, Hey hon, I can't take

00:51:32.060 out the trash right now, but I take lunch from noon to one. I'll come up there. You and I let's have

00:51:37.000 lunch together and I'll take the trash out before I go to work, go back to work at one. Or if the kids

00:51:42.340 are like, Hey dad, we want to jump on the trampoline. Hey guys, as you know, I'm working

00:51:46.420 from nine to noon during lunch. Mom and I are going to have lunch together for about 30, 40 minutes.

00:51:51.940 And I'll spend about 10 minutes with you jumping on the trampoline before I go back to work at one. 0.67

00:51:56.720 You have to treat this as a separate space and you have to communicate with them because they won't

00:52:01.960 understand if you're not communicating. They're like, well, what the hell dad's home. Like, why is he

00:52:06.340 playing with us? He hates us. He doesn't want to be with us. No, that's not the case, but you're failing

00:52:10.160 to communicate it effectively with them. And then the third component is you actually have to honor

00:52:16.440 the schedule. So if you tell your wife, Hey hon, I can't take the trash out. We agreed I'm working

00:52:22.860 from nine to one. And then from one to five, like we agreed on that. I can't take the trash out right

00:52:27.120 now, but I'll tell you what I'll do it. When I get done with work at five o'clock, you have to be done

00:52:32.340 at five o'clock. You have to not five 15, not, Hey hon, I got a few more emails and then I'll come

00:52:38.460 up. Nope. You have to be done at five o'clock. If it's going to be a few more emails, then tell her

00:52:43.140 five 30, but you have to be honest about it. And you have to make sure that you're adhering to the

00:52:49.040 system because now your words have weight. When you say, Hey hon, at five o'clock, I'll come to take

00:52:55.820 the trash out. And then I'm all yours for the evening. That means the phone goes away. The trash goes out

00:53:00.580 and everything gets taken care of that way tomorrow. And she says, Hey hon, will you load

00:53:04.060 the dishwasher at one 30 in the afternoon? And you say, no, she's not been out of shape

00:53:09.520 about it. She's like, Oh yeah, he'll do it this afternoon. Cause I know he will, because

00:53:12.660 this is what he does. So create a separate space. Point number one, point number two, communicate

00:53:18.580 the boundaries point number three, honor the boundaries. Yeah. You, you killed that really

00:53:23.200 well. Um, one of the things I've seen, uh, one of the other men in the iron council do

00:53:28.640 is he, he got a hang tag to put on the door that says I'm working right now. You know,

00:53:33.320 this is not a good time, especially when he was on calls. Uh, for me, my wife moved into

00:53:38.660 my home office after COVID and has never left. And she does a lot of phone calls with her

00:53:43.740 work. So we, again, boundaries and the communication will every day in the morning, go over what time

00:53:51.980 she has calls scheduled for. I'll go over what time that I may have calls scheduled for.

00:53:56.260 So we try not even to be in this, in the office at the same time. If, if she's on the phone,

00:54:00.920 I don't even want to be in there. Uh, and that lunchtime, it gets re-communicated. Sometimes

00:54:06.280 if someone posts it notes, whatever it takes to make it clear, she seems to hate it when I come

00:54:10.580 in the door singing and she's on a work call. So surprise, surprise. Yeah. I sing happy songs.

00:54:19.360 So yeah, communication and boundaries, two biggest things for that. And it can be done very

00:54:24.680 successfully and happily when you reciprocating kind of coming out of your, your workspace in a

00:54:31.960 happy mood and ready to deliver to your wife or kids so that they're like, all right, don't bother

00:54:37.340 dad when he's in there. Cause you get grumpy dad, but when he comes out, he'll be happy dad. If you

00:54:41.320 didn't bother him. So, you know, reward the good behavior with those boundaries.

00:54:46.300 I had a friend who would come home from work and he had this tree outside of his front yard

00:54:50.920 and it had this big limb that was probably, I don't know, six and a half feet off the ground.

00:54:55.580 And he would quite literally get home, pull into his driveway, go out, hang on the limb for, you

00:55:02.720 know, 10, 20, 30 seconds, and then go back inside. And he was telling me about this. I asked why he did

00:55:07.360 it. He says, because I'm leaving my, excuse me, I'm hanging my troubles at the door.

00:55:13.520 All right. Actually hanging his troubles.

00:55:16.340 That's what he would do. He would, that was his, his mechanism. That was his cue. I'm going to go

00:55:21.020 hang, release all this stuff. This is separate. This is compartmentalized to work. And now I'm 0.95

00:55:26.820 going to come home, engage with my family. And it was a pretty cool lesson, you know, and I think we

00:55:31.040 can do a better job, whether we're quite literally hanging from a limb or we just mentally prepare

00:55:35.200 ourselves. That's why I tell a lot of guys who have a commute. Let's say you have a, uh, an hour long

00:55:40.780 commute from work. If you're like me, I want to listen to a podcast or maybe the radio. I want to

00:55:46.260 catch up on what I might miss, or I'm super efficient when it comes to learning about any

00:55:51.120 self-development type stuff. But one thing that's helped me when I did have a commute is I would

00:55:56.480 listen for maybe 20 minutes, 30 minutes. And then the last half hour, no music, no podcast,

00:56:03.280 no noise. It was just me transitioning. Okay. I finished all these things at work. Oh, you know

00:56:10.200 what? I need to do that thing. Okay. Noted. Yep. I'm going to do that tomorrow. Clear it out. Okay.

00:56:15.320 Now switch into dad mode. Okay. Here's a question that I would ask myself, what can I do? And how

00:56:22.880 can I show up tonight to be the best dad that I can be or the best husband that I can be?

00:56:29.220 Cause we'll do it when we go to work, right? We're like, man, if I get this done and this done

00:56:32.460 and this done, that'll be a productive day. And I got this deadline and this task. And I got to talk

00:56:36.140 to my boss about this and I got to give this presentation and we plan out our day at work,

00:56:40.120 but we don't do it at home, man. I'm going to show up and I'm going to, I'm going to hug my kids.

00:56:46.000 First thing I'm going to give my, my wife, you know, the best welcome home kiss I've ever given

00:56:52.100 her. I'm going to grab her ass when I walk by and like embrace her fully. Um, then, then I'm going 1.00

00:56:56.580 to put all my stuff down. I'm going to wrestle with the kids and then I'm going to help my wife cook 1.00

00:57:00.880 dinner. And then we're all going to sit together as a family. And these are the questions I'm going to

00:57:04.060 ask while we're at dinner. Cause I want to hear about what they had to say. And then after dinner,

00:57:07.860 we're all going to go on a walk together. We're going to jump on the trampoline or we're going

00:57:10.940 to read a book or we're going to wrestle. And then when I'm done with that, I'm going to put

00:57:14.600 the kids down. And then when I put the kids down, then my wife and I are going to have a 0.93

00:57:18.640 conversation about our day. And then ideally I'd like to take her to the bedroom and have sex with 1.00

00:57:23.840 her. Uh, and like, but we don't plan it out that way. We do it with work, but we don't do it with 0.99

00:57:29.080 home, man. What if we did it with home laser specific on your vision, the, the more clarity you can bring

00:57:35.180 to a vision, but we, you're, you're right. We don't think about our vision throughout our day.

00:57:40.240 We think about it more globally, but the reality is like for me at the end of every task I'm doing,

00:57:46.800 when I'm done with an email, what I'm done with this podcast, I'll do the AAR. You talk about the

00:57:52.940 AARs all the time. Then I'll take a quick pause, a couple of seconds for breathing is all it takes.

00:57:58.240 Usually if the thing goes well, and what that does is that lets that end, that event end for me

00:58:03.880 by just blanking my mind out. Then I consciously think about what it is I've got to do next. If

00:58:09.940 you're driving home from work, or if you're finishing up in your home office, all right,

00:58:12.880 what's the next thing I have to do? What that does is that brings focus to what you're going to do next.

00:58:18.340 It, it helps you clear you of everything else that you might be on your mind. If you're thinking

00:58:22.760 about the next task, then I think about what's the outcome that I want. How do I want that task to go?

00:58:29.600 If it's especially in communications with other people, I want to think about what do I want

00:58:35.400 that interaction to be? And then the third part is, how do I need to show up to get that result?

00:58:43.320 Three things like, and look, this takes five seconds when you train yourself to do it constantly.

00:58:48.760 What do I want? Or how do I need to show up? That's actually on my keyboard on my main computer,

00:58:53.380 because probably the hardest part to do is to frame yourself the right way. Most of the time it's

00:59:01.320 polite, it's courteous, you know, in the business world, it's professional. Sometimes you got to get

00:59:05.920 a little angry. Sometimes you got to speak a little sterner, but select it, choose your emotion and

00:59:12.460 choose your action that you're going to take to get the vision that you want to happen. So you've got

00:59:19.640 focus, you've got a vision, and you've got a plan. That's what we talk about all the time. Do it on a,

00:59:26.500 not even just on a daily, on a between task level. And it's amazing. Once you turn that into a habit,

00:59:34.260 how much more you'll accomplish in your life, how much better life will go, because it's on your terms.

00:59:40.700 Yep, exactly. Awesome. Well, Alan, let's wrap this up today. We've been about an hour.

00:59:46.380 I'll wrap this up for us. Alan, since this is your first visit, I'm sure we'll do

00:59:49.460 more of having you on the Ask Me Anything. But guys, I hope that this has served you. I hope we've

00:59:55.120 given you some things to consider and some answers to chew on a little bit. Not that they are the

00:59:59.460 answers, but hopefully they'll give you something to think about as you try to solve your own problems.

01:00:05.540 And that's what you need to do. You know, solve your own issues. And hopefully we can give you

01:00:09.820 some things to consider as you do. Guys, a couple of things, announcements. Number one

01:00:14.780 is we have our uprising event. We have five spots available. That's May 2nd through the 5th. That's

01:00:21.220 a three and a half day experience here in Southern Utah. I'm going to be there. Alan's going to be

01:00:24.980 there. And we're going to have about three or four other cadre members who are going to be there.

01:00:29.040 We'd love to see you there. So please do that. Also, if you want to make sure that when we open up

01:00:35.300 our exclusive brotherhood, which we talked about a couple of times throughout this podcast,

01:00:39.120 we're going to open up in March, mid-March. So a little over a month. If you want to be ready for

01:00:44.280 that, I would encourage you to go check out the Battle Ready program. That's a 30-day email series.

01:00:49.980 So you're going to get 17 emails over a span of 30 days. And it's going to help you talk about the

01:00:55.600 focus and the planning and everything that Alan just shared and come up with a vision and something

01:00:59.920 very specific, including tactics that you can employ on a daily basis in order to accomplish

01:01:05.300 your most pressing objectives. So you can check that out at orderaman.com slash battle ready.

01:01:11.340 So it's orderaman.com slash battle ready and orderaman.com slash uprising. Alan, anything else

01:01:17.480 before we close it out today? It's grateful that you had me here. Guys, reach out. I'm on the

01:01:22.160 Order of Man Facebook page. So I'm happy to answer questions there. I constantly do. So look,

01:01:29.300 the more you communicate, and that's even what this call is about, is who not how. It's

01:01:35.120 knowing who to talk to, who to listen to, to further your life. So thank you for having

01:01:41.240 me, Ryan. Awesome. Thanks, brother. All right, guys, go out there, take action, and become

01:01:45.520 the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready

01:01:51.320 to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you

01:01:55.600 to join the Order at orderofman.com.

Planning Your Personal Life Like Your Professional Life, Do's and Don't of Creating a Brand, and Learning to Delegate Effectively ｜ ASK ME ANYTHING

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