Rebuild and Remake Yourself ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES
Episode Stats
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Summary
We are all dealing with hardship in one form or another. In this episode, Ryan talks about how we can use our hardships to build ourselves into something better and stronger. We have the opportunity to become a better man and a better human being.
Transcript
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You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart
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your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.
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You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong. This is your life. This is who
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you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,
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you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler.
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I am the host and the founder of The Older Man Podcast and Movement. Welcome here and welcome
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back. Look, guys, I'm going to be real honest with you. I do not feel like recording a podcast today
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at all. But I made a commitment that I would never miss a podcast episode, barring my death or maybe
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a close family member. But here I am recording a podcast for you. And I say, losing a close family
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member, it feels like over the past couple of days that I have, our family dog died a couple of days
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ago. And it's been very, very difficult for me and the family. But again, I made a commitment to you
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guys to be here to do these podcasts. It's important to me. It's important to you guys. And I want to be
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a man of my word. So here I am recording this podcast. And I thought a lot about what I wanted
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to talk with you about today. And frankly, I'm just going to shoot from the hip a little bit today.
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I didn't really create a lot of notes or anything like that. But I got thinking about it over the
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past couple of days because of what my family and I have been dealing with, with the loss of our
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family dog. He had an inoperable brain tumor that was keeping him from walking. And he was starting
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to lose his vision and other motor functions, including some of his breathing as well. So we
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made the decision to put him down. So as I thought about what I wanted to talk with you about today,
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I know that a lot of you guys are dealing with hardship and I don't want to compare hardships.
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Um, some of you guys are dealing with things that are more difficult than others,
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but, but I don't get to decide what's hard for you and what isn't hard. And you don't get to decide
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what is hard for me and what isn't. Um, so what I would say is we're all dealing with, uh, we're all
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dealing with hardship. In one form or another, we're all dealing with hardship. Uh,
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and, and it's, and it's challenging. It's difficult. It's demanding. It's, uh, demoralizing
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a lot of the times it's, uh, just, just consumes you. But what I would say in difficult times is
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that we as men have the opportunity to use these times to rebuild ourselves.
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That's it. It's a lot like, um, I don't know, moving to a new town or going to a new school
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when you were a kid, you, you, nobody knows you, right? And so you have the opportunity to
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create your image or to make yourself into whatever it is that you want to make yourself into.
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And it doesn't change as we get older. We have the opportunity to make ourselves into something
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more, whether we're dealing with the loss of a pup, like we are, or the loss of the family member
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or, or a job loss or medical illness or any number of things. Maybe you lose your job. Maybe you're
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dealing with, with medical issues, any number of things that could happen on a daily basis to us.
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Uh, but if you're still here and you're still alive and you're still kicking, you have the
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opportunity to rebuild yourself into something more. And, and I'm a firm believer that, that
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can only happen through challenge and struggle and hardship
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and suffering and pain and even maybe misery. And it's uncomfortable. And we don't obviously
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wish for it, but we can thrive in spite of it. So how do we do that? How do we take a divorce or a
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loss of a job or a lawsuit or a medical condition or the loss of a loved one? And how do we rebuild
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ourselves? Number one, start thinking about the long-term.
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Um, what do you, what do you want out of your life?
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Have you thought about that? Have you considered that? Like, what do you actually want?
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What do you want to look like? What do you want to feel like? How do you want to engage? What do you
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want to be doing for work? What do you want your fitness to be like? What do you want your bank account
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to look like? What experiences do you want to create? Who do you want to serve? Who do you want to help?
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Who do you want to lead? Who do you want to be with? All questions that you want to be pondering
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and considering on a daily basis. And when we have these difficult and challenging times,
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that's what you should be drawing upon because you could dwell and you could focus and you can
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spend all your time and attention wallowing in your own self-pity and feeling bad for yourself
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and your circumstances. And by the way, I think there's a time and a place for that that's
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appropriate. But at some point we ought to be thinking about what the future holds and
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how we can recreate our own future and desires and goals and ambitions. And we can, we can
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rebuild. It should be a time of optimism, you know, that we can, we can build from the ground
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up and we can make something new. We can make ourselves into something better than we were
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before. But in order to do that, you have to start answering those questions I just listed out.
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Are you thinking about the future or are you just thinking about what, what currently is,
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or even worse thinking about what was, what's done is done.
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What hasn't happened yet isn't, isn't really something totally within our control, but you
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can focus on the present and you can begin to rebuild, but it takes that forward thought process
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so that you can reverse engineer. You can work backwards into what you should be doing today to
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rebuild. So the first thing you need to do is think about what are you going to recreate? Who are you
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going to recreate? What is going to rise from the ashes of suffering and despair and challenge and
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loss and all of those things? The second thing I would say is what do you, what do you need in
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order to make that a reality? One of the best questions, uh, one of my mentors, Sean Whalen asked
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me very, very early on, as he said, of course, the vision thing, who do you want to be? And then he
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asked, what, what kind of person do you need to become in order to accomplish that?
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Because if I was already that person that I would already be experiencing or at a minimum be on the
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path to experiencing the, the results that I desire. So are you asking yourself, what kind of
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person do I need to become? Because the guy that I had envisioned for myself couldn't be 50 pounds
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overweight. He couldn't be somebody who was incapable of having a conversation. He couldn't be somebody who,
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uh, was incapable of adding value to people's lives. The man that I envisioned for myself was
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somebody who could add value, who was healthy and fit and can communicate effectively and could reach
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the right people and add value to their lives and, and, and share and lead and serve.
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And this is part of the reverse engineering process of rebuilding your life.
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When I say assets, I'm talking about your skill development. Do you need to learn how to be more
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assertive? Do you need to learn to be more, uh, more effective communicator?
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Are there certain hard skills like coding or welding or painting or computer skills or budgeting?
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Any of these hard skills that you need to develop in order to recreate who you are?
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Probably. So what are those? Have you listed them and what is your goal for obtaining those things?
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Think about who you need to become. Think about what you want and who you need to become.
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And the third thing I would say, and we're going to keep this fairly short today, because again,
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I've got a lot on my mind is, uh, you've got to start formulating a plan.
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I guess there's four things. Number one is, is think about what you want. Number two is asking
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yourself who you want to become. Number three, I would say is formulating a plan. What's your strategy?
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For getting there because there's a thousand ways to get to that mountain. That's just outside of
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my window. I can look out the window and I could see a mountain over there. And there's a thousand
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or more different ways that I can get up that mountain. Some are more efficient. Some are less
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efficient. So I got to figure out what's the best way to do this. And that goes back to point number
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two. Maybe I need to bring somebody, the right people into my life who have done it before.
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That's an asset. That's something I need. And so if I can surround myself with people who've done it
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before, they're going to tell me, Hey, don't go that way. Do go this way. Watch out for this trap.
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Avoid this, avoid that. And they're going to help guide me towards the right path. That's going to
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be the most effective and efficient way of getting there. That's number three. Number four,
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get to work guys. That's it. Get to work. You know, a lot of us spend a lot of time thinking
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and planning and strategizing and reading and gathering information and collecting resources.
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And we think that we're moving the needle. And I think it's an important part of moving the needle,
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but you aren't actually moving the needle until you get to work. And I get it. It is hard, man.
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The last couple of days, like I've not wanted to do podcasts. I'm going to be traveling today.
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Uh, like, I don't, I don't want to do anything. I just want to go lay in my bed and just
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like tune everything out. That's what I want to do. But what I need to do is different. I need to
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lead my family. I need to lead myself. I need to serve you guys. I need to honor my commitments.
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And so that means that I need to get my ass out of bed and stop wallowing around and start getting
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to work. And it's hard. It is hard when you're dealing with this stuff. You know, I went through
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a separation with my wife about 12 years ago, man, that was the darkest time of my life. And
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actually this is kind of feeling like that. As far as mentality goes with the situation with my dog,
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um, I'm kind of feeling like that right now. Same, same sort of feeling. And I don't want to do
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everything, but guys, you can force yourself to get up and go to work and do what you need to do.
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And you're going to feel better when you do. And you should be optimistic about that.
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You get to recreate yourself. You get to build, you get to thrive, you get to create a new reality
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for yourself, but you got to get to work and you don't have to hit all the home runs and you don't
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have to work as hard as maybe you have in the past, but you got to do something and moving the
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needle feels good. Doesn't it? When you get up and you overcome your natural desire and tendency to
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want to be lazy and want to stay in bed and want to wallow around and want to throw yourself a pity
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party, doesn't it feel good to get up and go to work and be productive and then honor yourself
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and honor the other people in your life and honor the commitments that you made, but you got to go
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to work to do that. So here I am recording this podcast when frankly, I don't feel like it, but I'm
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going to feel better when this is done because I've honored my commitment to myself by doing this
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podcast. And I've also honored my commitment to you by being here, by being present, by being
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focused, by sharing what I think will be valuable for you to some capacity or some degree in your
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life. This is a very, very simple strategy of not easy, of course, especially in the wake of what you
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might be going through currently, but this is, this is the way, this is the path.
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So as easy it is to be down and, and sad and hurt and guys, by the way, we can experience those
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things. You know, I'm so tired of this, like fake machismo, this just like alpha bull crap that
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isn't really, really real. You know, people put on this persona so they can pretend that they're
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better than they are. Like we struggle guys. Like we struggle with challenges and hardships and
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it's okay. You can struggle. It is okay, but you can't do it indefinitely.
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You can't use it as an excuse to self-destruct, but what you can do and what I think you,
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what I believe you ought to be doing is using these downtime as a moment of reflection and
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pause and consider what's important in your life and then rebuilding from the ground up.
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And isn't that a sense of optimism? Isn't that a sense of hope that I could, I get to build myself
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better than I was before. And you will, you will be better. It may not feel like it now, but you know
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that, right? Whatever you might be experiencing, whatever hardship you might be dealing with right
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now, you've, you've dealt with that. You've dealt with maybe even worse.
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And you've come out of it. Okay. So have hope. Think about what you want out of your life.
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Think about what kind of man, number two, that you need to become in order to accomplish that.
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Number three, formulate the plan, the strategy, the way that you're going to get there. And number
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four, get to work, get to work guys. That's all I got. I know this one was kind of short, but
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you know, again, we can, we can, we can deal with these things in our own way. And I've talked to
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my kids about this and they've been concerned about how they mourn and they wondered if they
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can smile and laugh and be sad and the range of emotions that they're going to be experiencing over
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the next several days and weeks and maybe even months. And I said, yeah, you, you can, you can mourn
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however you, you feel like you want to mourn. You know, if you want to cry, you can cry. If you
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just want to be sad and just kind of relax, you know, you can do that. If you want to be happy
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and smile and think about the good times we had with our dog, you can do that. There's no right
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or wrong way to do this, but I would say that you can't do it indefinitely and that you have to keep
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progressing and you have to keep honoring your commitments and your word. And here I am trying to
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do that to show you that it's important that we, in fact, I think it's the most important thing.
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That we honor our commitments, that we do what we say we're going to do
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and that we strive to always make ourselves better. That's it. No plugs, no ads, no asks.
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Just wanted to share that with you. Also want to thank you for all the well wishes. I appreciate
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that. It means a lot to me that thousands and thousands of you would send messages and emails
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and texts and everything else and express your sorrow and your condolences. That means
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actually a lot to me more than you might know. So I do appreciate that.
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All right, guys, I got a couple of great podcasts coming up. We've got
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Ben Shapiro. We've got Dan Crenshaw. We've got Jason Wilson. We've got
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some other Jesse Itzler, incredible men coming in the podcast. So make sure
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you're tuned in, you're subscribed, you're tapped into what we're doing here
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and stay tuned. But go out there, guys. I know you're dealing with hardship right now
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to varying degrees. One is not more significant than the other, especially when we're comparing
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to each other. We all have our own things to deal with. Deal with it effectively. Deal
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with it effectively. That's all I would say. All right, guys, go out there, take action
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and become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.
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You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.
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We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.