Order of Man - Presence is Powerful

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

00:00:04.920 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:00:10.260 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who

00:00:16.940 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.400 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler. I'm your

00:00:27.680 host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast. And of course, this movement that is literally

00:00:32.340 spanning the entire nation, the entire country, and the entire world. We're excited about the

00:00:37.200 growth. And it's pretty exciting, like I said, to see the curve of our growth and to see how

00:00:45.440 many people we're reaching. And it isn't really about the growth necessarily. It's about the

00:00:49.120 amount of men that we're serving. And as we serve more men to help them become better fathers,

00:00:53.520 husbands, business owners, community leaders, then I think in turn, that's going to change

00:00:57.420 communities. That's going to change neighborhoods. It's going to change states and countries and

00:01:02.460 eventually the world. And I envision a time where we're reaching millions and millions of

00:01:07.740 men across the world who are all stepping up in powerful ways, showing up for their family

00:01:13.140 and their friends and their people and working hard and standing up for what's right and true

00:01:18.280 and good. And that's what we're doing here in this podcast. So we do interviews. I've had

00:01:23.600 Terry Cruz and Matthew McConaughey and Tim Tebow and Jocko Willink and so many other incredible men

00:01:28.760 on the podcast. We field your questions on Wednesday. And then of course, today is your

00:01:33.560 Friday field notes where I'm sorry, you get to hear from me and some things I've been thinking

00:01:38.460 about from throughout the week. And today I've been thinking a lot about presence actually over

00:01:43.060 the past couple of weeks, I've been thinking a lot about being present in the moment. It is a,

00:01:48.420 it is a skill that not all of us can and or have developed very well. But it's a skill that I'm

00:01:54.720 trying to improve upon. And I've noticed that as I'm more present in the moment, not wrapped up in

00:01:59.560 the past and not too overly concerned with the future, that there's a new sense of joy and

00:02:04.740 fulfillment in what might seem to the casual onlooker as seemingly insignificant moments in

00:02:12.120 time and life. And they're not, they're not. Everything is significant. This conversation,

00:02:18.020 you listening to this, the conversation that you might have with your wife or your girlfriend,

00:02:22.340 the conversation you're having with your children, watching their, their sports games,

00:02:26.520 going on a hike, going on a walk, going on a bike ride, even doing emails that maybe seem mundane

00:02:31.340 and monotonous. There is no insignificance to any of that, but it requires us to be present in the

00:02:37.140 moment and fully engaged. And that I think leads to a life of joy and fulfillment. So before I get

00:02:42.700 into some specifics on this, I do want to let you know that if you like what we talk about here in

00:02:47.100 the Friday field notes, and you want more information, or you want to dive deeper, or you want to work

00:02:52.100 with other men who are improving their own lives in very much the same way you have a desire to,

00:02:57.080 then check out the iron council. That's our exclusive brotherhood. And I'm happy to tell you that we

00:03:01.940 will be open in about two and a half weeks as of the release of this podcast. So go to orderman.com

00:03:08.820 slash iron council, get signed up so you can be notified when we open in the middle of June. Again,

00:03:14.520 that's orderman.com slash iron council. All right, guys, let's get into this. The reason I brought this

00:03:19.260 up is last weekend, I took my kids on a local hike and it's not a very difficult hike. It might be

00:03:25.500 maybe a mile, maybe a mile and a half up and then a mile and a half down. And at the end of this hike,

00:03:31.140 there's some pools that we can play around in and we found some frogs and tadpoles and just,

00:03:35.720 you know, really had a good time. And if you've been listening to this podcast for any amount of

00:03:41.240 time, you know that the last year of my life has probably been the, not even probably, it has been

00:03:47.300 the most challenging time in my life due to some personal circumstances and situation. And I'm really

00:03:54.900 not going to get into it today because I feel like we're beating a dead horse at this point. If you are

00:03:59.340 curious about what I'm talking about, you can go check out previous podcasts, but needless to say,

00:04:05.200 it's been a very difficult time. And I've had people ask me about joy and happiness. And I used

00:04:10.760 to scoff at those ideas because I didn't believe that that was the goal of life to be joyous or to

00:04:15.200 be happy, to be disciplined, to be fulfilled. Sure. But happy and joyous. No. So I found in my life

00:04:22.520 that I was lacking a lot of joy. I was lacking a lot of happiness. I wasn't smiling as much. I wasn't

00:04:28.080 laughing as much. I wasn't as light. I wasn't as fun as maybe I was the one once was when I was

00:04:33.960 younger. And there haven't been a lot of joyous days in my life over the past year. Now I'm not

00:04:42.000 complaining to you. I'm not whining to you. I'm telling you this because that hike that I went on

00:04:46.760 with my kids was one of joy and happiness. And again, I know it seems small. It might sound trivial

00:04:54.180 to the casual observer, but it wasn't, it was a really good day. And I spent the next couple of

00:05:00.820 days wondering why in the midst of some hard circumstances for myself and a lack of joy in my

00:05:07.260 life, why that was such a good day. I came to the conclusion, at least partially that the reason

00:05:12.780 that was a good day is because I was fully present in the moment. I tend to be somebody who is focused

00:05:18.180 and driven and determined and goal oriented. And I want to get shit done. Like a lot of you

00:05:24.620 listening to this podcast, you want to get it done. You want to lead your families. Well,

00:05:29.040 you want to grow your business. You want to start a business. You want to pay off debt. You want to

00:05:32.460 build wealth. You want to have all the things. And I think those are worthy goals. Those are worthy

00:05:37.800 ambitions and desires. But if you're anything like me, what that ends up doing is it creates a lot of

00:05:43.640 anxiety. It creates a lot of frustration, even at times, or even feelings of inadequacy because

00:05:50.020 we're not along the track as far as we'd like to be. And I've realized that I don't want that

00:05:56.900 anxiety in my life. It's not to say I won't be driven. I don't think you could take that out of

00:06:02.620 me if you tried. I think that will always be in my DNA etched into my soul like it will for many of

00:06:08.200 you. So I don't think we ever can really remove that. But I don't want that much in my life.

00:06:16.740 I don't want that anxiety. I don't want that constant grind. I do want to be happy. And I do

00:06:22.860 want to find joy and fulfillment and meaning and satisfaction in my life. So it's a constant

00:06:27.860 balancing act. I'm sure you guys are well aware. But one thing I've found is that over the past several

00:06:33.420 weeks, as I've tried to find more joy and happiness in my life, that the key to that for me and

00:06:37.500 unlocking that has been to be present in the moment, to let go of what has happened in the

00:06:43.820 past, to not overly concern ourselves with the future and just to be fully immersed in the

00:06:52.940 experience that we're in right now. I want you to consider for a second, you listening to this

00:06:56.880 podcast, how many other things are you doing right now? You might be listening to this podcast. You

00:07:01.080 might be at the gym. You might be mowing your lawn. You might be, who knows? Maybe somebody's

00:07:04.920 talking to you right now, or maybe somebody would like to talk to you right now, but you're

00:07:08.440 in, in this podcast and how many other things in our lives are going on. We hear about multitasking

00:07:14.440 all the time. And it's like, do this and do that and do this at this time. And this at this time.

00:07:18.180 And look, I get it. We're getting shit done, right? But at what cost, what is the expense? Well,

00:07:23.400 our own sanity and our own wellbeing. And I'm learning to be present. If I'm here with you guys on this

00:07:29.020 podcast, I'm not checking texts. I'm not dinking around. I'm not doing other things. I'm prepared.

00:07:32.440 I've got my notes here. If I'm with my kids, I try to be as present as possible. Put the phone

00:07:37.580 down. Don't be distracted by other things. Be engaged with them. Ask them questions, laugh,

00:07:42.220 joke, play, and have a good time with them. It's been really powerful in my life. So rather than

00:07:48.620 yap at you about all this stuff, what I'd like to do is share with you some strategies, how you can be

00:07:52.580 more present in your life so that you can have the joy and the fulfillment and the wonder and the

00:07:57.000 connection with other people that I know, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you want in your

00:08:01.700 life. So number one is we really need to learn to be as efficient and effective in other avenues of

00:08:09.260 our lives. One of the things that I struggle with is patience and well, patience. When, when people

00:08:20.160 come to me and ask for my attention, that could be one of you, or it could be, um, you know, a loved

00:08:28.700 one. It could be, it could be my kids who want to play. Uh, and they ask for my attention. If I

00:08:35.400 am not efficient and effective in getting my work done outside of those conversations, I've noticed

00:08:42.560 that that anxiety and worry and concern spills over into other facets of my life. And that's where I

00:08:50.780 grow impatient. I grow impatient because I'm not getting the work done over here. And because I'm not

00:08:55.740 getting the work done over here, then it bleeds over into other facets of my life, like my home

00:09:00.580 life, for example. But I've noticed that when I kick ass at work, I, the day before I've got a plan,

00:09:07.500 I come into the office, I've got my list. I crank out my list. I'm super effective. I'm super efficient.

00:09:12.600 I don't let distractions get ahold of me. And I just crank through my day at five, six o'clock,

00:09:17.260 whenever I happen to check out for the day, I I'm home and I don't have anything else to worry

00:09:23.560 about. I'm not worrying about work. I'm not worrying about those unanswered emails. I'm not

00:09:27.860 worried about my boss crawling down my throat because I didn't hit the deadline. We're not

00:09:32.480 worried about those things because we know, we know we did everything that we could to make that

00:09:38.560 work day, for example, as effective and efficient as possible. And what that does is that, that

00:09:43.920 unlocks the handcuffs that you put on yourself, the emotional mental handcuffs that we put on ourselves

00:09:49.440 so that we can be fully immersed and present for the people that we love. That's your wife.

00:09:53.780 That's your kids. That's your friends. That's your neighbors. That's your community members,

00:09:57.640 whoever it is that you're working to serve. You're more effective in serving them. If you learn to be

00:10:02.820 effective and efficient at work so you can check out number two, you have to learn how to set boundaries.

00:10:09.640 We've got to learn how to set boundaries. We've got to have yeses and we've got to have nos. We've got to

00:10:14.140 know what our line is and where it sits. And we have to know what we're going to do. If people cross

00:10:18.520 that line and we have to be able to enforce those boundaries. And when people say, Hey, can I have

00:10:23.360 your attention to do this thing? We should constantly be weighing that against what we could otherwise be

00:10:27.960 doing. If a friend invites you to go on a, um, well, here's, here's a great example. A friend of

00:10:33.760 mine sent me a text, uh, just a couple of days ago, and it was for a local mud run that they're doing

00:10:40.260 in the next week and a half. And I would love to go do that. I happened to have my kids that weekend.

00:10:45.140 And so I thought, you know, I'd love to do that, but if I do that, then I won't be with

00:10:48.480 the kids. So that's a boundary, especially when I have them half of the time, it's a boundary that

00:10:53.100 I have. So I wasn't going to be able to do that. Well, come to find out kids can actually register

00:10:58.180 for it as well. And so we're going to go do that as a family, but had the kids not been able to

00:11:03.000 register for that, I would not have done that. I would have liked to have done it, but I would not

00:11:06.900 have done it because that's a boundary. That's something that I've established and I have in place.

00:11:12.160 And I don't cross those boundaries unless there's some sort of emergency or risk associated with it.

00:11:18.040 I do not cross those boundaries. I know it's important. It's in my calendar. It's all booked

00:11:24.140 out. It's all documented and written down. And all I have to do now is follow the system.

00:11:29.200 But so many of us make other people's problems our priority and they're not. I know that we want to

00:11:34.640 serve. I know that we want to help. I know that we want to be kind and gracious where we can,

00:11:39.520 but other people's problems don't have to be my priority. Now I can make them my priority,

00:11:44.500 but I want to be deliberate and intentional about when I should and when I should not.

00:11:49.440 So what are your boundaries? It could be as simple as you don't bring the phone in the house

00:11:53.980 or you don't check the phone. It could be as simple as every single night we have dinner as a family.

00:11:59.820 That's a non-negotiable. There's all sorts of little, again, little seemingly insignificant

00:12:04.440 things that you can do that are non-negotiables that you do every single day and you don't let

00:12:09.320 anything else get in the way. And that's going to allow you to be more present because you're

00:12:13.560 going to have the routine and you're not going to have a bunch of stuff distract, distracting you,

00:12:17.440 excuse me, from what is important. Number three, speaking of distractions is you do have to

00:12:22.300 eliminate distractions. Okay. We are filled. We are inundated with distractions everywhere you turn

00:12:29.160 from being on that little device of the phone. That's a distraction. If you're using it as a

00:12:34.500 tool to build your business, it's not. But if you're on there dinking around, playing around,

00:12:38.100 playing video games, whatever, I don't know what the video game is these days, but whatever video

00:12:42.780 game people are playing on their iPhone and that's what you're doing, that's a distraction.

00:12:47.360 If the TV is running in the background, that's a distraction. If CNN or Fox or whatever your poison

00:12:52.400 of choice is when it comes to those networks is up in the background and you're trying to do your work,

00:12:58.080 but you're hearing this like constant barrage of negative information about what's going on in the

00:13:02.360 world, that's a distraction. If your door is open and you're allowing your colleagues and coworkers to

00:13:06.480 come in and out whenever they feel like it, those are distractions. We cannot have those distractions

00:13:11.780 in our lives because it takes away from, there's a cost associated with it. Our time is finite. Our energy

00:13:20.360 is finite. These are things that cannot be duplicated. They cannot be replicated. You can't create more

00:13:26.900 energy. And that's a scientific principle. You can't create or destroy energy. Energy is just

00:13:32.800 transferred. So if you want to look that up with, with regards to physics, you can look it up,

00:13:36.820 but it applies here too. You're not going to create new energy. It's already there. And all we're doing

00:13:42.220 is we're transferring it to things that we say are important. So if I, if I believe my family's

00:13:48.580 important, then I'm going to transfer the energy I have into my family. If I believe even subconsciously

00:13:54.160 that my work is more important than my family, then that's where it's going to go.

00:13:57.880 If being distracted by the news, because I get trapped in the drama and I like that and it

00:14:02.620 entertains me, then that's where my energy is going to go. So I don't want my energy to go

00:14:07.800 anywhere else. I want it to remain compact and tight and focused on the things that are in front of me

00:14:12.860 in the moment. So if you feel yourself getting pulled on a lot of different directions, which creates

00:14:18.780 a ton of anxiety for me and frustration for me, so I imagine it does for you, then you've got to cut

00:14:24.920 the strings for those other things that are pulling on you. TV, electronics, games, maybe even vices like

00:14:32.540 gambling or pornography or alcohol or whatever is distracting you from being fully engaged and

00:14:39.120 present in the moment. Number four, this one is huge. A lot of people don't talk about this.

00:14:44.820 This is huge guys. If you're like me and I don't know you, but I'm just saying, if you're like me,

00:14:50.940 we have a tendency of getting inside of our own heads. I might be sitting down and watching

00:14:55.720 my kids really like Rio and Rio too. Those are the cartoons they're watching right now. So I might

00:15:01.440 be sitting down with my kids, watching this movie together, cuddling with my kids and playing or

00:15:07.320 laughing at jokes and just having a good time. And then in my head, I start thinking about that email

00:15:12.780 or I start thinking about, oh man, what do I have to do tomorrow? And then if I let that sit and grab

00:15:20.620 hold, then all of a sudden I'm up off that couch. I go away from cuddling my two youngest kids to

00:15:26.420 coming in here to my office to send an email out or to check my schedule. I can't be doing that

00:15:32.840 anymore. I don't want to do that. I shouldn't do that. It's not fair to them and it doesn't foster

00:15:37.060 the kind of relationship I want with them. But that said, I found it very valuable to purge things

00:15:42.840 from our minds because if we just let it sit in there like an echo chamber, it just bounces around

00:15:47.220 and echoes back and forth and back and forth and you can never shut it off. So the best thing that

00:15:51.960 I've done is I've got journals in a lot of different places. So I've got one here. I've got a few journals

00:15:57.860 here in my, my desk. Like I keep journals everywhere. I even have a notepad on my phone

00:16:05.180 for notes that I might think of. So for example, if, um, if I'm sitting there watching a movie with

00:16:11.960 my kids and I remember, oh, you know what? I forgot to call John. I'm not going to just let it bounce

00:16:17.620 around on my brain. Cause that's taking up energy and space. I don't want it to, and I'm not going to

00:16:21.380 go call John, but I might grab my phone and just pull up a folder, a note folder and just write

00:16:27.000 in there daily tasks and just write in there. Hey, call John. If I'm laying in bed at night

00:16:32.160 and I start thinking about this specific email that I forgot to send out or, or this, uh, this

00:16:36.800 invoice that needs to be taken care of, I'm not going to, I'm not just going to sit in there and

00:16:42.240 just let it bounce around all night in my brain. Cause I won't get the sleep that I need. So I'd grab

00:16:46.480 out my phone or I grab a little field notes by my nightstand, by all my nightstand by my bed.

00:16:50.800 And I just document that, just write it down. Hey, send invoice. And then it's, you purged it.

00:16:56.840 It's no longer in your mind. You don't have to think about it. It's not occupying space. So you

00:17:01.260 can go back to whatever you were doing, focused in whatever you're doing. And then, you know,

00:17:05.980 you're not going to forget it because it's written down. Have you ever had an idea where you're like,

00:17:09.260 Oh, this is a genius idea, but I can't write it down. So I'll just, I'll remember it. And then

00:17:13.240 two hours later, you can't for the life of you remember what that genius idea was, what that

00:17:17.460 million dollar idea was. Isn't that wild? So write it down, purge this stuff from your mind and get out

00:17:24.040 of your mind. So you can get into what you're into. And guys, the last thing is pruning and

00:17:29.300 weeding. Okay. It's really important that we prune and weed our lives. Um, you know, I'm looking

00:17:35.020 outside here at the trees in my backyard and it's a big, beautiful, full tree. I think one's an ash

00:17:40.640 tree. And I think they're actually both ash trees, different species, but I think they're both ash

00:17:44.760 trees. They're beautiful. They're big, they're shaded, they're, they're mature, but they get a little

00:17:49.420 unruly at times. And so occasionally I might run outside and I might saw a limb off so that it

00:17:54.420 impede my view or it doesn't get down into where we might be playing baseball or catch or something

00:17:58.860 like that. But it requires attention is what I'm saying. Like even the things that are good,

00:18:04.520 like these beautiful trees I have out back, they're, they're not all good. They require

00:18:10.400 maintenance. They require pruning. They require attention. And the same is true about our life.

00:18:16.060 You're going to have things creep up in your life that are going to take a little hold of your life,

00:18:21.360 even just to a small degree periodically. And unless you're vigilant and aware of pruning and

00:18:28.520 maintaining and weeding, getting rid of things, not allowing certain things to come into your life,

00:18:34.940 those are going to start to take over. It's a lot like in finances. Uh, one thing I see a lot

00:18:39.920 with regards to people making mistakes with their finances is number one, they just don't track their

00:18:44.780 money and their expenses. And when you start to break it down and actually look into it,

00:18:49.100 you'd be amazed at how many subscriptions people have 50, a hundred, 200, 500 plus dollars worth of

00:18:56.700 monthly subscriptions that they aren't using. It's the Disney plus and it's the Netflix. And it's this

00:19:02.520 one service that you used one time. And it's the free trial that you signed up for that automatically

00:19:07.080 rolled over into a paid membership. And you don't even use the dang thing. You probably have at least

00:19:13.140 a couple of hundred dollars a month in subscriptions that you're not even using. You need to prune it.

00:19:18.640 You need to get rid of it because that's sucking up your financial resources. The same is true with

00:19:23.980 regards to your time. People have weaseled their way into your life. Activities have come in that are

00:19:29.840 unimportant. People are making their problems, your priority, and they're doing it consistently and

00:19:34.960 you've allowed it to happen. So now it's becoming a regular thing. Get out the shears,

00:19:39.220 get out the saw, prune that shit down, and make sure that what you're doing is only what you ought

00:19:46.560 to be doing. I'm not going to tell you what that is. It's not my place to tell you what you ought to

00:19:51.040 be doing, but it's my place, I think, to encourage you to only focus on what you believe you ought to

00:19:57.500 and you can let the rest go. That's hard when there's some societal standards or norms that say

00:20:03.220 you have to be engaged and present in everybody else's business. You don't. You have to be engaged

00:20:09.160 in your business and you have to learn to take care of your people, but you can only do that if

00:20:13.440 you have the capacity to do it. So guys, those are my five rules for presence, for being more focused,

00:20:19.720 for having joy and happiness in your life. I know I took, even with regards to happiness and joy,

00:20:23.860 kind of a strategic tactical approach, but I think the more strategic we are about this,

00:20:30.580 the more room it leaves to just enjoy. Let the moment go where it's going to go.

00:20:36.660 Not have a desired outcome. That's a bonus, I would say, is let go of the hidden agenda that you have

00:20:44.260 for things. So for example, if you're going to go on a hike with your kids, you might say to yourself,

00:20:50.340 well, we're going to do it the fastest we've ever done it before. Okay. I've said things like that

00:20:55.440 and I believe things like that. And I believe also there's a time and a place for it. And there's also

00:20:59.680 a time and a place that is not appropriate for that. So get rid of the agenda and think to yourself,

00:21:06.160 you know, my only agenda is to be present in this moment and let it go. Just let the height go where

00:21:12.860 it goes. If you make it to the top, great. If you don't make it to the top, who cares? If all the kids

00:21:17.920 get distracted or they get tired or they get angry before, because they're, it's hot or like,

00:21:21.880 who cares? Just be present. I'm working on it. I don't have this all figured out, but these five

00:21:28.080 tips have helped me and I hope they help you. All right, guys, if you have any other advice,

00:21:32.820 please let me know directly because I need it in my life. I'm sure a lot of other guys do as well.

00:21:37.460 You can email me at ryan at order of man.com or preferably you can hit me up on Instagram,

00:21:43.420 shoot me a direct message. Let me know what you're thinking. And I try to be pretty good

00:21:47.500 about responding to those things. Outside of that, guys told you about the iron council.

00:21:51.240 If you want to talk more about presence, you want to learn about next month leadership under

00:21:56.160 crisis. That's what we're going to be covering in the iron council with, uh, about 1200, a little

00:22:01.780 over 1200 other men while working to improve themselves. All right, guys, I'll be back next

00:22:07.300 week. Until then, let's go out there, take action, become the men we are meant to be.

00:22:11.540 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

00:22:15.860 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - May 26, 2023

Presence is Powerful ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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