Relationship with a New Step-Daughter, Leadership Standards vs. Principles, and Overcoming the Lone Wolf Mentality ｜ ASK ME ANYTHING
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 10 minutes
Words per Minute
174.06497
Summary
On this episode of the Iron Council Podcast, we are joined by a brother of the IC, Jon, to talk about his recent trip to Ecuador with his daughter, what it's like being a dad, and answer some questions from the IC.
Transcript
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You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly charge
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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. John, we do it again, brother. How you doing?
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Yeah, you just got back. You just did some traveling as well. Where did you come back from? You told
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me like a couple weeks ago, but I forgot. So it was a combination. No, we went to Ecuador
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for three weeks, my daughter and I. Yeah. Awesome. It was a humanitarian thing. It was really
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cool. We helped build a school for special needs kids, which was nice. And there was a good
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spiritual aspect of the trip too. And it was really, really cool.
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Cool. And I'm assuming that was a great opportunity for just the two of you to do a trip on your
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own without the whole fam. Yeah. Yeah. It was a good bonding experience for us. And it was
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for her kind of a post-graduation trip as well. You know, good excuse for me to get out with just
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her. And man, it was so cool. And then we got back and went straight to Las Vegas at a company
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convention in Las Vegas that she went with us also. And it was the first time she went to anything
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like that, kind of taking notes to learn business. And instead of just being there and kind of like
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wanting to do her own thing. And being annoyed that she has to be there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that was
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a cool follow-up experience too, kind of back-to-back to, you know, to get her perspective on she's
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about to turn 18, a little more interested in our family business and simultaneously getting ready
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to go to BYU. So yeah, it's a lot going on. Yeah. That's great, man. That's great. So we're
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going to fill the questions today, obviously Sean stepping in for Ryan. And we're going to fill
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the questions. We're going to fill some questions from the iron council, which is our exclusive
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brotherhood to learn more about the IC go to order of man.com slash iron council membership is
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closed. We open that up at the beginning of each quarter. And so you'd have to wait until the next
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quarter to be able to join us. But to learn more or to stay connected, go to order of man.com or
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even follow Mr. Mickler on Twitter and Instagram at Ryan Mickler. And we, I actually do have a couple
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of questions from Instagram. So we'll roll some of those in as well. We'll start off with the easy
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one. So a question from brothers of the North on Instagram. He says a little bit off topic from the
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norm, but something I'm interested in. Do you guys ever, uh, every day carry? And if so, what do you
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carry? Thank you. Huh? Not every day. Pretty rarely. Actually. It's funny after living in California,
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it's near impossible, um, to get a concealed carry out there. Um, actually I've heard it's loosened up a
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lot in the last like year or so, but still either way, uh, never got it there. Now that I'm in
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Tennessee, it's a, it's a concealed carry state. So you don't need a permit or anything. And I've
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only carried a couple of times, um, constitutional carry, right. I think that's called when you don't
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have to get a, uh, a license. Yeah. Yeah. No license, no permit required. Um, just does need
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to be concealed, but I have a, uh, P two 20 E SIG 45 that is my go-to. Um, you know, so pretty,
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you do an appendix or what do you, what are you using from a holster perspective? Um, a waist
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holster. Uh, I do want to get, I do want to get, yeah, an appendix one. It's, I haven't gotten it
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yet, but after a couple of times, I just, I think I'm more comfortable with that. It's weird how that
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is. Yeah. I, one of my Clint, you know, Clint, one of the battle team leaders in the IC. Yeah. He,
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he, he did me a solid because when I started carrying, he was like, well, I, I, I started looking
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at a particular SIG and I'll, I'll share what I carry in a second, but, uh, he was like, try out
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a bunch of holsters before you decide. And so I literally borrowed holsters from him and I, I'd
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spend one week with that particular holster to see what would work, what didn't work. Um, and,
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and after doing that, it was appendix all the way. So, uh, there's a company out of Utah tier one,
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uh, concealment. I think they're called, they make it a great appendix. Uh, I carry a 365 P365 XL,
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um, with a Romeo zero, uh, red dot on it. So, uh, it's, it's great, man. And it's, uh, works out
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good. The only problem I have is, uh, you know, uh, the dress shirt thing, right? So like I, I,
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I changed my wardrobe so I don't ever tuck my shirts in because of this, but sometimes I want
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to wear a dress shirt and tuck my shirt in and I have a dilemma. So have you, um, well, I was going
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to ask you, but you haven't been carrying or you don't carry it as often, but like, I wonder how
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many guys have done the walk of shame. I call it the walk of shame. And it's when it, I, this is
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very, it feels very natural to me. In fact, I feel like something's wrong if I'm, if I'm not.
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And, um, I have gone to concerts like, and I get up and I'm like, Oh my gosh. And that's the walk of
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the shame back to the car. Right. Because I was still carrying, I didn't realize it. Um, I've gone
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to the Delta center multiple times, walk up and I'm like, Oh my gosh, walk of shame back to the car.
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Right. Like just constantly, like, I don't know. I, I, um, I've, I've done that a lot,
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unfortunately, but, uh, luckily it hasn't like been an issue. I just, I don't remember until I'm
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about up to a metal detector. And then all of a sudden I'm like, Oh yeah, walk back to my car.
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So you do make a good point. You make a great point though, with the holsters, because it is
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something I've bought three of them now. And it's, and just about every time I'm at a gun shop. Yeah.
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And, and when you're at a gun store, in my opinion, the smaller, the better, as far as gun
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stores going, trying to find them. I mean, cause you could spend hours there trying to figure it
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out. And, um, it's definitely something that takes some time. I think most guys think, Oh,
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it's, you know, I'll just kind of get something and strap it on. I'll be good to go. It'll be fine.
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Yeah. Yeah, totally. And I'm, uh, you know, we know this jujitsu, you know, on the mind and I,
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me personally, I think it's, I think appendix is perfect for that. Perfect. Perfect for ground
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fighting off your back. Right. It's, it's in my center of control. It's right in front of me.
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No one's reaching back. I'm not exposing an elbow by trying to grab something. It's in a place where if
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I'm playing off my back, I have immediate draw ability. I mean, I, I've, I've, I've kind of
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nerded out about what a holster I should be carrying. And, uh, I feel pretty good about the
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appendix. Although at first I was like, this seems highly dangerous, extra dangerous for whatever
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reason. I just don't like something being pointed at my junk, but, uh, you know, you get over it,
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I guess. You know, it's funny you say that too, because one of my holsters I took and I flipped,
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it was like a, like a plastic, you know, one of those plastic ones that you kind of slide in and
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it, I flipped it around so that instead of having it on my drawing side, on my, on my side, I shoot
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from, I flipped it to the other side so that I'd kind of pull across and it, yeah, it didn't work,
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but I definitely had that. That was my thought is that I come across and you're like, this is
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pointing at stuff. Yeah. Didn't work, but it definitely crossed my mind. All right. All right.
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Let's get to our next question. So Drew Sands, uh, Sands, um, what's your go-to tactic to switch
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from work mode to dad mode? And this is great for you, Sean, because I know you work for yourself.
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I've, I've worked for myself in the past. And so, um, I think it's extra hard when you work for
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yourself, but, but nonetheless, I think all guys have this problem maybe is, you know,
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they're focused on work all day and then they come home and it's hard to, to make that switch.
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So recommendations. First of all, I, I like to try and discourage people from operating in different
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modes. If that makes sense. It's almost like we're taught to be bipolar, right? You have to be one way
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at work and you have to be one way at home and one way at church and one way at, depending on the
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activity that you're doing. And I've really tried and me personally, and then just helping develop
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leaders that they be consistent in who they are and how they show up, no matter what they're doing.
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And what you'll find is as you really focus on trying to do that and being consistently the same
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and the different things that you do, switching into a different mode doesn't become as difficult.
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And it's one of those things. I think sometimes we think, Oh, in our job, we need to be,
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you know, more rough or more, um, you know, especially as men, we need to be kind of seem
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like we're in more control or maybe even more aggressive is maybe a bad word, but I think a lot
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of guys think that. And then when I'm at home, I need to be, have more empathy and be more compassionate
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and be more caring and listen better where really you need to do those things in your
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working environment as well. And so I think they go hand in hand. Um, but in saying that I'll also
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say that it, instead of switching to dad mode, I think what I've had to become more cognitive of
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when I'm working or I'm in a work mode or I'm doing some work at my house is that if one of my kids does
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come up and they say, Hey dad, will you do this with me? I've learned to, when they ask,
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I tend to drop what I'm doing more often, not all the time. There's boundary set for certain times
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and specific things that I'm doing. But if I'm just in a task and let's say I have my eight-year-old
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come up and he says, Hey dad, do you want to go fish in the pond? And it's something that he
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doesn't want to do every day. That's not a normal thing that I enjoy doing with them. I'll 95% of the
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time drop what I'm doing and just go fish, which in my brain doesn't sound right. Especially if I'm
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on task, I would much rather finish the task naturally. My natural, uh, kind of, uh, oh my
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gosh, what's the word I'm looking for? Um, tendency tendency is that I'm going to finish before I go do
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something with him. So I've had to develop that muscle of kind of the Covey, um, seven habits
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thing of putting things in order of importance of when he asked, Hey, is this more important than
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the task at hand? Most of the time that's yes. And we've increased experiences with all my kids
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because of being able to drop that task, go be in the moment, be present with them and then come
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back later to whatever I was doing. So in the, in the spirit of Drew's question, I like, and I don't
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want to take away from the mode thing. Cause I really liked that. Cause I think it creates congruency
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of how you show up in the world. If that makes sense. And I, and I think that is more on an authentic
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way of being. Um, so I, I get that switch mode, but let's assume that Drew's also saying tactics of
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maybe not mode, but what's your tactics of, Hey, I'm done working or, and I need to make kind of a
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shift of focus, right? Not mode per se, but switch of focus. And what tactics do you bring? So you're
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not carrying the stresses maybe of work home from the workplace or never stop working and, and
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everything else. How do you, how do you, what are some tactics in that space?
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That's the hardest part. I, one for me has been to put away my phone so that there's nothing coming
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up, reminding me that this task needs to get done and so that I can be present. So I'm not distracted
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by whatever else would pull me back to the other tasks that I was doing. So that was a major, just
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putting myself in a position where I'm not distracted while I'm doing something with my
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kids. And, um, and then the second one was, um, reminding myself of my vision. And this is where
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vision comes into an important part of your daily tasks and what making sure that you're doing the
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important things. Because if I remind myself of the father, I'm supposed to be, and as I, who I am
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and how I show up first and foremost, I want to be a good disciple of Christ and a good example of that.
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Um, secondly, I want to be a great husband and third to that is I want to be a great father. And so
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all of that comes before business and those things. So if I remind myself of that vision
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that I have for myself, then it, it gets me focused on doing well in that instead of
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getting back to, you know, whatever it was I was doing in between. I like it. I like it. I had a good
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conversation with, um, one of my employees, um, Ray, actually last week we were talking about
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um, staying on task boundaries, those kinds of things. And, uh, one of the things that I've
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encouraged, uh, employees to do in the past, and obviously kind of encouraged Ray to do this
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is, um, and, and the analogy I use often, or the example I use often is like, I get frustrated
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if, if my wife calls me midday during work, right. Cause I I'm in the middle of task and,
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and that goes both ways, but I don't, I don't naturally do that both ways. Right. So
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you know, work calls me in the evening. I'm not like frustrated, like, Hey, I'm, I'm really
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focusing on my kids right now. Like, this is not a good time. So I need to get my priority straight
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back to what you're saying. Um, but, uh, but most importantly, what I was about to say is
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what we do is in my day, like in the day, establish the boundary, the day is over. And I actually,
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what my recommendations was is the following items is, is number one, I, if I know my day is over,
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let's say at six, right. And I'm going to change my focus at 6 PM, then I need to give myself the
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margin to do that. Well. And the reason why I want to do it well is so I can be fully present,
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right? It's hard to be fully present with anybody. If I have these nagging, unsettled things that
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aren't addressed. Right. And so what we want to do is in the day effectively give ourselves the margin.
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So let's say at five 30, I know I'm leaving at six at five 30, I am now going to end my day.
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And this is what that day looks like. Number one, I re I review my calendar for tomorrow because the
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last thing I want to do is wake up and go, Holy crap. You know what I mean? There's something,
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I have this weird meeting at 7 AM and I'm not ready for it. And I have problems. Right. And,
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and that might show up, you know, later in the night with my family. So I want to know that now.
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So I look at tomorrow's schedule, see if there's anything that is critical that I'm not ready for.
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Then I make my power list. Uh, Andy Priscilla talks about this. A number of influencers have,
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have this, but I, but I create the list of things that absolutely need to get done tomorrow.
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And why it's fresh in my mind. I just spent the last 10 hours working. I know exactly all the drama,
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all the issues. I know it's very, I'm really well connected to it. So I do it the night before
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and I write down any critical issues that need to be addressed tomorrow. I mark off my tasks that I
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completed. And then I, in my day. And now when I drive home, I know work's not coming with me.
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The times that I've not showed up more, less powerfully for my family. It's the scenarios
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where I'm at work and I'm like, Oh my crap. Holy crap. It's time. I closed the laptop lid.
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I grabbed my laptop and I ran out of the office. And the reason why is what, what did I intend to
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do? Well, I'm just going to go home and flip the same back open. And then I'm going to try to
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multitask. And that has never worked out well for me. Whenever I've tried to get some work done
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and be with my family, that's never a good idea. I'm, I'm short with them. I'm easily triggered.
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I'm upset. I'm not playing on the floor with my kids and being goofy because I'm stressed out or
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I'm trying to get something else done. So I would generate that margin to end your day
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has been really beneficial to me for sure. Yeah. I totally agree with that. When you did
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there's no way you can multitask and be effective in both. Yeah. I've had breakthroughs in my life
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when my kids were young and I was stressed out working from home and I was horrible. And I
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realized like, I can't, I can't do this. Like I'm showing up in a really negative way to them. So
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all right. Brendan Watkins just married a single mom with a toddler. The father left them for someone
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else not too long ago after she was born. Currently she goes to his place. Um, every other weekend,
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I've gotten mixed advice about how to approach my relationship with her and what kind of relationship,
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if any, to have with her father. What are your thoughts? Hmm. First thought is it's a recent
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relationship. Yeah. I mean, my, my first thought is that it's a, it's an, it's a new relationship. So
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that's you out of the gates have to be, yeah, it takes time. You have to be fully acceptant of
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the fact that there's a toddler and that's a part of, if you care about this woman, that,
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that it doesn't say if it's a boy or girl, does it a girl? Yeah. Okay. So then she's a part of this
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woman's life and it's always going to be a part of that. And so out of the gates, I think it's
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important to want a relationship with her as well. I think it, I think you're doing yourself and
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you know, you're, if you call her girlfriend yet, or you know, this just married. Yeah. Just married
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her. Oh, just married. Oh, geez. Just married. Then, then I was wrong. It's not a new relationship.
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So I missed that part. The relationship with his daughter is new though. What the relationship with
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the daughter is new with the top in essence. Well, yeah, maybe I, maybe, I guess, I guess,
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I mean, if they're getting married, unless they pulled the trigger, unless they did like a frozen,
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right? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Fair enough. Fair enough. But time to establish some form of a
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relationship. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, okay. This, this, which is my whole thought process. Yeah,
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absolutely. You need a relationship with her. I mean, she's part of your life. She's always going
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to be, and you definitely want a relationship with the dad in some capacity, not that you're ever going
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to be buddies, but at the very least that you're cordial and that there's communication of mutual
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support on either end. And, you know, I can say this coming from growing up with a single mom who
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went through multiple marriages where I got the most angst growing up as if, if my mom and dad weren't
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getting along and I have to give my dad credit. He never said bad things about my mom ever, but she
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almost only said bad things about my dad and it didn't make me love her more and him less. It just
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would make me mad at her for not supporting me and that I still love my dad. So I think it's important
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that you at least have enough of a relationship with the dad that you can know his good qualities
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and, and not bad mouth the guy and not, you know, now again, he didn't say much about that end. And
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if the guy's a good guy, if he's a bad guy, if he's, I mean, if, if she is going there every other
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weekend, he's in her life. And so either way there's input. And so the, the better, you know,
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and understand him, the better off you're going to be on your end and how you talk about him and how
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you support her, um, when she's with you and when she's with him. So it's, and that could change as
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she gets older that she may decide she wants to be a dad more. She's, you know, I mean, wait until
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the teenage years happen. So this is, she's part of your life. And I think the more involved you are
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in every part of it, um, the better off everybody is. What, what would you say? I mean, you've experienced
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dealt with this. Yeah. I I've experienced this. I I'm actually curious, Brendan, like what,
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like he, he mentioned how he's gotten mixed advice on how to approach the relationship. I'm kind of
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curious what the, what the advice has been. Yeah. That's interesting. I think that's what threw me
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because yeah, me too. But I mean, and, and here's the deal. Like I, here's, here's the thing. I think
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a lot of parents get wrong that, um, that you and your new wife, um, and I'm not saying you guys are
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doing this, but I think this is what some, some couples get wrong is they think that, that, that
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the, the new spouse or the new husband is going to replace dad. And they're going to have their nice
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little picketed fence and everything's going to be fine. You will never replace her father.
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Her, her, she has an innate built-in love and affection for him that, that is special and
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unique and you will never be able to fill it. And, and I think you and mom need to get really
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clear that you're never going to, and that's okay. And, and it's beautiful. And, and that you've
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taken on the responsibility of someone else's kid and that's admirable on your part. And you're all
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in now, right? Cause you married her. So, um, but the, the, the key thing is I would focus on
00:24:03.660
establishing a relationship with her. I would focus on making sure that her relationship with
00:24:07.840
her dad is healthy. I would give her advice on how to interact with her dad. I would promote him
00:24:14.440
as much as humanly possible in her life. Um, and you can take, um, you know, kind of the backseat
00:24:22.280
of, of fatherhood a little bit. Um, cause you're going to need to be now there's a couple of things.
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Uh, you and mom need to be aligned on the same page, right? So don't buy into any of the advice
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that's like, well, it's not your kid. So like, you don't need to like withhold boundaries or any
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of that stuff. No, you, you, that is still your home. You're still married. You and mom are on the
00:24:42.460
same page. You guys need to be on the same page. Um, and you need to be that kind of, uh, role model
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for her, um, while promoting her relationship with her dad. The, the other thing that, and I'm just
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going to project on you where maybe Asia and I, we struggled in their early phases. I think, um,
00:25:00.980
one thing that we struggled with is, um, if I was hard on him, she would be extra soft. And if she was
00:25:09.080
extra soft on her son, then I was extra hard. And, and you guys need to not do that. Like what we did.
00:25:17.800
And you also need to celebrate the differences of what it means to be a father versus to be a
00:25:23.520
mother. And you guys bring different things to the table and that's totally okay. And I would get
00:25:29.300
really clear on your parenting strategy. I know you're newlyweds. And so it's going to be really
00:25:34.500
tempting to be like, Oh, there's nothing wrong. So we don't need to strategize just strategize now,
00:25:40.460
like get on the same page and clarify how you're going to approach things. And I would make sure that
00:25:45.980
you and her are clear that mom, momming and dadding are different, uh, and they're meant to
00:25:52.040
be different and that's okay. And no undermine each other. Uh, don't undermine her extra affection
00:25:57.960
and love, and don't let her undermine, uh, your, maybe a little bit more aggressiveness and sternness.
00:26:04.800
She needs both of that. And, and both mom and dad bring those to the table.
00:26:08.980
Hmm. I like that. I mean, that's good advice just for parenting in general, all, all up. Yeah.
00:26:14.920
Um, and not to scare you, Brendan, but like the number one hardest thing in my relationship
00:26:22.520
with my wife has been raising, um, stepchildren. It's been the number one issue. It's very difficult
00:26:31.680
to do. And, um, well, good. I like how you said support him. Cause that's a major thought
00:26:39.520
that I had to. Um, and it just made me think right now she's a toddler, which means she probably
00:26:46.020
just loves being with him regardless. So she leaves, she goes, she has a good time. She comes
00:26:51.480
back. And as she gets older, because she's living with you, I think the challenge, and you can speak
00:26:56.760
to this directly is that you're going to be, this is where her rules are and she's going to have less
00:27:02.980
rules, less boundaries when she's with him. And so it may become a thing where, you know,
00:27:07.840
she's angry with you about certain rules. And then she goes and she has certain freedoms that
00:27:12.320
she doesn't have with you. It doesn't mean you need to change your rules or those freedoms
00:27:17.140
simultaneously. She may also grow to have some angst with her dad. And when that happens and she's
00:27:26.200
upset, I think it's important that you, you talked about knowing him or having a relationship
00:27:31.100
with him, the more that you know about him, if you can even just grab one good quality and be like,
00:27:37.020
Hey, yeah, I know you feel this way, but Hey, he's still good at this. And he's still your father
00:27:42.180
and he still loves you. And, you know, and we're here to support you regardless, you know, and I'm
00:27:48.040
sorry, you're going through this hard time. That's better to say, you know, than just to agree with
00:27:53.260
her, you know? And so I think that's that the, the word support, like you said, is important.
00:28:00.860
It doesn't mean you always got to say great things about him all day, every day, but you
00:28:05.840
need to know enough to know what to say in those instances.
00:28:09.060
Yeah. I like that just to polish off that idea a little bit. So in the book, um, outward
00:28:14.240
mindset, leadership, and deception, they have this triangle of what they call the triangle
00:28:19.200
of influence. Right. And it's, and it's really the, the steps by which you have the greatest
00:28:24.280
influence in someone's life. The first element is mindset around the person that like, there's
00:28:30.180
nothing wrong with them and they're great and blah, blah, blah. Number two is relationships
00:28:35.460
with those of influence. So if you want to have a good relationship with her, you have
00:28:41.480
to have a good relationship with dad because no one's going to have major influence in life
00:28:46.120
more than him and mom. So if you have a, a broken relationship with him, or even a broken relationship
00:28:52.780
with mom through fighting that hinders your relationship with her. Um, and then of course,
00:28:57.580
when they become teenagers, us, us being somewhat of a cool dad or being, uh, or having strong
00:29:03.840
relationships with the, with the friends of our children is an example of what that might
00:29:08.760
look like in the future. Right. Because now friends and other, their peers have influence on
00:29:13.160
them. Right. And those relationships become critical. So anyhow, concept just reiterating
00:29:17.780
the same thing. So, all right, James Percival, um, small business owner. He says in leadership,
00:29:25.440
are you guided to lead by standards or principles? I don't believe that they are mutually exclusive
00:29:32.760
and I don't believe an effective leader can lead without both, but do you guys think one
00:29:38.120
is better to use or as a baseline over the other? And it may be, and maybe I'm just naive
00:29:45.400
here, Sean, but, um, maybe let me ask this. Um, what do you think he means by the distinction
00:29:56.600
That's funny. You say that. Cause I saw this question yesterday and I was going to ask the
00:30:00.280
same thing. They're suck. I mean, they, they do come hand in hand. I honestly, when I think
00:30:09.500
of standards or principles, I don't think of one without the other. Yeah. I don't, I don't
00:30:15.160
think of one without the other. I think you, your standards are guided by your principles
00:30:21.680
and vice versa. And I think all good principles come with a high standard. And I think all high
00:30:30.920
standards are guided by sound principles. So, well, let's, let's maybe even say this,
00:30:36.480
maybe I'm not looking for an easy out, but I think this is where we need to make sure that the,
00:30:43.020
the values mission and principles by which we run a company are clear and concise enough that this
00:30:50.520
isn't a thing, right? Like let's, I, cause I just shooting off the hip here, right? I'm thinking,
00:30:56.420
okay, you have a company and their values are like, love everybody, be kind and caring. And it's
00:31:02.960
like, well, okay. So this isn't a transactional agreement. I actually don't have to do my job.
00:31:06.760
I just live by the principles of our values. I'm just nice to everybody and I'm good to go.
00:31:10.320
Right. It's like, well, no, actually you should probably have some guiding principles
00:31:15.860
within your organization. That is exceptional performance that we do amazing work that we
00:31:22.860
serve our clients, right? Like it should be clear and concise enough that standards and principles
00:31:28.760
shouldn't be in conflict with one another. Is that, is that fair?
00:31:32.600
Yeah. And this speaks to what I talked about earlier with being consistent in who you are,
00:31:37.540
no matter where you are. And this is something that early in our career, as we were growing an
00:31:44.600
organization and we wanted to have an agency eventually with, I mean, our, what we thought
00:31:49.960
was big back then was thousands of people. And to be able to do that, what's, what are we going to
00:31:56.400
have to do? And the first thing you got to do to grow a large business is stay in business. And so
00:32:01.240
one of the examples I can think of is if you look at through, um, the, the housing, uh,
00:32:10.180
market in the early two thousands, um, after the stock market crashed, you know, I look at my
00:32:17.320
financial business. We started to build it as the stock market had its first major crash in decades
00:32:23.380
in the early two thousands. Good time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great timing. Right. But it was,
00:32:30.120
we were building it on sound principles and we made a standard for that. And then what happened was
00:32:36.440
rates just fell off the charts. And then all of a sudden people started refinancing their house,
00:32:42.260
um, on these neg am loans, which I'm sure you remember. And you know, these adjustable rate
00:32:49.160
mortgages that everybody was doing, you didn't have to show any income. You didn't have to show any,
00:32:55.000
I mean, anything, any mortgage that anyone should be getting. Yeah. Yeah. And we were doing loans.
00:33:03.160
My wife actually was doing loans when she started our business. And so it was something we were good
00:33:08.660
at, but we took a stand as a, as a business. Now our company, our overall company, the umbrella that
00:33:17.180
we're under, they didn't take that stand that they weren't going to do them because it was legal,
00:33:24.260
legal to do them. I mean, perfectly legal to do them, but we'd on paper, it didn't make sense to us
00:33:29.300
to do that to people. And so we took a stand where we were going to stop doing them. And we did. And
00:33:36.140
that costs us by the way, millions of dollars, we would have made millions of extra dollars through
00:33:41.700
those few years. And we would, we had people, we knew that told us like, why aren't you guys doing
00:33:46.700
these? There's so much money in them. It's so easy. It's blah, blah, blah. I was like, you know what?
00:33:51.040
Because on paper, you're just digging a bigger hole for these people long-term. And sure enough,
00:33:56.340
that's what happened. And we saw people that didn't take that stand that, I mean, some of them
00:34:02.620
were sued. Some of them lost licenses. Some of them, a bunch of them are no longer in the financial
00:34:07.360
business at all. Which ended up being a great business strategic move on your part, by the way.
00:34:11.260
Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we didn't make the extra millions, but we've made tens of millions because
00:34:16.720
we chose not to do it. And it increased our reputation through that time. So that, so the blend of
00:34:23.780
principles and standard, the standard was you could do it. Everybody's doing it and you can make a lot
00:34:31.300
of money doing it, but our principles wouldn't allow us to meet that standard. And as a matter of fact,
00:34:40.960
we raised our standard on, no, we're not going to do it, even though it's easy. Instead, we're going to
00:34:46.180
have this harder conversation with these same people and we're going to tweak and do it this way.
00:34:51.020
And we still help them, but in a different capacity. And all the, now a lot of people
00:34:56.960
didn't listen to us. A lot of people went somewhere else. They went to someone who would give them what
00:35:01.140
they wanted. And, and again, we maybe would lose 10 or 20 grand in a, in a transaction with somebody
00:35:09.440
because they went elsewhere. But all of those people that went elsewhere ended up losing their
00:35:15.080
houses or losing hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes millions because they didn't do what we
00:35:21.460
showed them. And then they come back later saying, I wish I would have. And so it built our reputation
00:35:26.720
either way. And again, that's made us who knows how many millions through reputation. And so that's
00:35:33.980
where our principles guided the standard. And we had to raise that standard to meet that. But again,
00:35:41.880
if you're not first being focused on being consistent in who you are, no matter what,
00:35:48.080
especially when dollar bills show up, then, you know, that's where you need your principles to
00:35:55.740
be stronger than the standard. Yeah. Now let's, let's get in James's second portion of that question.
00:36:01.380
He said, but do you guys think one is better to use as a baseline over the other? And, and,
00:36:07.520
and specifically to that question, James standards are easier to baseline, right? Like
00:36:13.260
you don't, I mean, principles are just kind of elusive. You don't, I mean, they're harder to
00:36:18.140
baseline. And, and in the end, I think it's really important that you realize this and promote it to
00:36:23.000
your employees. This is a transaction. Actually, let me, let me step back. This is how I would,
00:36:27.660
this is how I like to explain this. We have a role and a job that role for it to be successful
00:36:35.300
looks exactly like this. These are the metrics and measures by which we say is exceptional
00:36:41.460
performance for this given role. Then I'd go to you, Sean, as a potential hire and say,
00:36:46.920
are you willing to do what's necessary to win in that role? That's it. And when an employee is
00:36:53.960
underperforming, it's let's clarify the role. Let's make that we're sure that it was supporting
00:36:58.760
and make sure that they want to do it. And if they don't, then we'll off board you. We'll find you
00:37:04.780
a job with our, with our competitor instead. Like it's very simplistic, right? But those standards
00:37:10.500
have to be clear, cut and dry, man. It, you, you gotta be so clear on, on what winning is
00:37:16.860
that there is zero doubt. That way you give your people a fair shake at winning. If, if they don't
00:37:24.000
know exactly what winning is. And I'm speaking from like a position right now of completely failing
00:37:31.080
in this space. I am actually very, um, hands-off right from a, from a leadership perspective,
00:37:37.080
I've stepped into, uh, uh, people on culture role. I, you know, from, uh, and I get a recruiter,
00:37:43.220
right. And I, I assume he's going to win. What's winning Kip for a recruiter. I have no idea.
00:37:51.800
I don't know if it's 10 open recs in a given month. I don't know if a rec should take four weeks
00:37:56.760
or eight weeks or two weeks. I don't know. So what do I, how can I hold someone accountable
00:38:03.340
to winning? If I don't know what winning looks like. So I had to put my big boy pants on,
00:38:09.520
sit down and go, okay, this position, I have to be clear, concise. And also if I have any form of
00:38:16.120
cadence around accountability or anything else with them, what am I holding them accountable to? If I
00:38:21.280
don't know what the standards of winning are. So I had to really sit down and go, oh my gosh,
00:38:25.740
okay. We're going to take surveys. Um, like there's all kinds of things I'm learning. Like
00:38:30.940
everything I was looking was like land lagging indicators. Like, you know, maybe we make a
00:38:35.320
hire, we do a survey and we ask the hiring manager, like, how was the experience? They go,
00:38:38.620
oh, it was great. Well, but if that's two months later, right? Like how do I know that they're
00:38:43.180
winning up into the new hire and things like if we do a submission online, if we get 200 applicants,
00:38:51.120
that's a bad job description. That's a measure actually. That's not a good job description
00:38:56.660
when you get that many submissions, like there's all these things. And so I had to put that hat on
00:39:01.700
and go, okay, how do I ensure I know what winning is? So now I can hold someone accountable and
00:39:06.520
clearly communicate what is winning in their role. And we need to do those and have those standards.
00:39:12.520
Otherwise we're, we're not supporting our people. It's too elusive. It's, it's, it's a gut thing.
00:39:18.940
And, and if you can't explain it, then you're not communicating it. And there's all kinds of
00:39:24.540
exceptions or expectations out there that aren't being communicated. And we're not going to be able
00:39:30.520
to support a people without really clear, concise standards. Yeah. So if I'm hearing, just to be
00:39:35.740
clear, it's, I think the standard is the more important thing. And then our principles that guide
00:39:42.060
that standard being delivered in its most positive way are secondary to that.
00:39:48.940
Don't worry. Because, and if you don't mind, this is kind of a fun thing. And I mentioned this,
00:39:53.040
I think last week with Ryan on the podcast, right? We often look at people's ability and then we'll
00:39:58.780
look at their effort and they're like, Hey, Sean's highly skilled. He puts a lot of effort in thus,
00:40:03.540
he's good to go. Well, that's not necessarily true, right? You could have a sales guy focused on
00:40:08.760
standards, zero principles, but he's shortcutting, he's doing bad work under my, like what, back to your
00:40:15.300
example, giving loans out that we shouldn't be giving loans out to, right? Because we're not
00:40:20.180
following any principles. We're just executing and looking at the metrics versus the third measure,
00:40:25.680
which is impact, right? What's the weight that we're leaving on the organization, our coworkers
00:40:30.660
and our clients. And those often are resembled in the principles by which we operate.
00:40:36.440
Right. And that's the reputation I was talking about, which as you were speaking, I thought of,
00:40:41.880
I thought of your business, which I honestly know nothing about your business. I know it's in the IT
00:40:47.880
world, right? But I do know this, we have, we have mutual friends and our friend, Jacob. And when Jacob,
00:40:55.280
you know, saw you one time we were doing this, he was doing some work for me. And he's like,
00:40:59.600
Hey, I know that guy. I know. And then he told me, he's like, man, that company that he's with,
00:41:04.380
they're just awesome. And, and what he said is that the, your reputation is that you under promise
00:41:12.140
and over deliver is, you know, and that you're at the forefront of the experience that you're giving
00:41:18.200
your clients in, in, um, the product that they're getting. And so what that means to me is that you
00:41:25.080
don't have, you've mentioned those sales guys that are doing the opposite, which if you look at sales
00:41:31.300
in general, if you say the word sales, I think they have a bad reputation. Most people think of
00:41:36.600
the used car guy, the insurance guy, you know, all these people who promise you all these things
00:41:42.020
that you find out later don't exist in your contract or whatever it is. And so I think the
00:41:47.420
long game is that your reputation is, you know, on the sales end is that you're going to get what
00:41:54.480
you pay for. Totally. Totally. All right. Josh Savage. What is the best training to do on days
00:42:03.040
that I can't attend Brazilian Jiu Jitsu classes, knowing that flexibility and conditioning are my
00:42:08.200
biggest weaknesses. Am I also, I am also a newish white belt. So knowing that flexibility and
00:42:16.340
condition are my biggest, so his biggest weaknesses is flexibility and conditioning. What should he be
00:42:21.620
doing when he can't attend Jits? Well, I, I think number one, that the newish white belt part of
00:42:30.460
it has nothing to do with it. I think you're going to have the same challenge, even as you progress in
00:42:35.940
your belts. I mean, you would know that better than I would, but I think either way you, you need to
00:42:42.220
stay flexible. I think of foam rollers, a game changer. I think you need to get good at using foam
00:42:48.180
rollers, peanut rollers, um, stretching anything that stretches your body. I think it's important
00:42:55.500
that you, if you are lifting in between that you're stretching before and after that, you just keep that
00:43:01.620
flexibility and any movement that you're doing incorporate, um, hip flexibility, joint flexibility,
00:43:11.140
flexibility and those things. Um, and then at the core of all of that, um, no pun intended is functional
00:43:19.400
core. I think the best thing you could do in between training is functional core work, um, in keeping
00:43:27.820
you healthy in those areas. What would you say? I totally agree. I, I, the, I totally agree. I think
00:43:35.300
flexibility is really critical. You know, uh, I, I just don't fall my, my, what I, what I hear Josh, and I know
00:43:42.860
you're not saying it, but what I hear sometimes it's like, Hey, I can only go to jujitsu one a week. So
00:43:47.520
what's this other thing I can do? That's going to help me be better at jujitsu. Just don't put too much
00:43:52.760
weight on it because there's really kind of no replacement to training, right? So you're not, what we're
00:44:01.160
suggesting is not some hack that's going to like supplement going to class. Now is flexibility going to
00:44:08.020
help you without a doubt, right? Is having a strong core going to help you without a doubt? Is your
00:44:12.040
conditioning better without all those things will help, right? But in the end, right, the biggest needle
00:44:18.100
that will move you down your jujitsu journey will be doing jujitsu. So don't, don't look to this as a hack in
00:44:26.880
any way, but still do those things, right. And, and, and get those in as much as you can. The other
00:44:32.480
thing is I would, you know, I would look at other ways that you can supplement your jujitsu when you
00:44:37.700
can't attend. I really would. Right. So if you can't attend, but, but you have another newish white
00:44:44.800
belt that, uh, you know, is on the same schedule, but him and you can do drills for 30 minutes and pick
00:44:52.180
one or two moves and literally do it to exhaustion, like lame, like the same thing, 50 times each side
00:45:00.640
switch kind of super boring stuff. I would do it. So, um, you know, look for those opportunities to
00:45:07.900
do some drilling with other people. If you can't get on the mats, you know, you can drill on carpet
00:45:12.420
if you need to, or figure something else out, but I would try to get as much mat time as possible
00:45:17.460
and, and, and maybe get creative on your mat time. If you have to, I would add this, tell me what you
00:45:23.120
think about this Kip is also watch as much of it as you can, you know, in the time that you have,
00:45:28.140
if you can't physically get there, just, just watching guys drilling or watching technique.
00:45:34.360
Um, you know, I know for me that helps a lot because I, I can't go three, four times a week for
00:45:39.720
sure. Um, but just me staying active in paying attention to jujitsu. I know for me personally
00:45:47.860
is helpful. What are your thoughts on that? I agree. I think watching it is, is valuable,
00:45:53.520
especially when you can like kind of hold onto it a little bit and like process what happened.
00:45:59.100
You're like, Oh, interesting and generate some curiosity. So the next time you have a human body
00:46:04.220
in front of you, you can give it a run. I think that's in particular, that's really nice.
00:46:09.300
So, yeah, I think watching is good. Um, and, and some of the, uh, actually the other thing I was
00:46:14.540
going to mention that, that you mentioned, Sean was, you know, flexibility, um, you know, Josh,
00:46:20.600
some of those moves that you guys are probably doing at warmups that some of them might seem
00:46:24.520
worthless to you, um, because you haven't maybe connected them to how you train, but there's
00:46:30.580
your, there's your baseline list of flexibility and conditioning things is probably what you guys
00:46:36.240
are doing as part of your warmup process. I would do those right. Work on your Oompas or shrimps,
00:46:42.480
um, you know, inverted roles for your, for your next, your neck flexibility, you do those kinds of
00:46:50.500
movements. And you can obviously YouTube searching how it comes up with all kinds of warmup and
00:46:55.380
exercises that you could do. And I would do those for sure. Nice. Okay. All right. Adrian Patlin,
00:47:01.380
Adrian, um, I, I struggle with getting along with other men, even the brothers within the iron
00:47:08.800
council work and jujitsu and et cetera. I get prideful and become a lone wolf and stop reaching
00:47:15.440
out and just focus on myself. But then I get bitter because I don't have a band of brothers that
00:47:20.680
trust or know, know me well. This is great, man. And, and before you answer Sean, Adrian, like
00:47:28.320
props to actually submitting this question. Um, because if this is a struggle, I'm assuming even
00:47:35.580
saying this is a little bit like putting yourself out there. So, um, so I really appreciate it. And I,
00:47:41.960
I actually, I'm, I'm excited to, to chat through this. So what's your thoughts, Sean?
00:47:47.780
I think he's got to practice. And what I mean by that is first start in forcing yourself into more
00:47:58.200
conversation when you're at those things, what, if you're at jujitsu, if you're at whatever it is
00:48:05.100
to try and find some common ground, more common ground that you have with different guys. And,
00:48:13.900
um, you know, as he says this, I have, I would admit that I have the same challenge. Like there's not
00:48:22.240
buddies that I hang out with every weekend. I'm not going and hanging out with the guys or,
00:48:28.060
you know, very often at all. But when I'm in those environments, I make the extra effort
00:48:35.760
to get into more conversation with the guys that I'm around so that I could know them better. I can
00:48:43.360
feel more comfortable with them. I can, you know, find myself getting into more conversations where I
00:48:50.900
could even maybe confide in them or vice versa. And so, but that's a forced effort. So I totally
00:48:58.580
relate to what he's saying because I tend to be a lot more like that as well. Um, so I have to force
00:49:06.740
myself in it. The only difference I think, and this could just be the way the question came off
00:49:13.580
is for me, I do it because at the, there's all these other priorities in front of those
00:49:21.820
relationships. And so, you know, my, my church callings and my, my role as a husband and father
00:49:30.900
and my business and all of the other things I have going on in my life, you know, these other
00:49:37.720
relationships come fifth, sixth, seventh in line, maybe. And so automatically I just don't give as
00:49:45.220
much time to them. That's different than you just don't want to be around anybody, you know, or you,
00:49:54.220
you don't want, you want to be that lone wolf or you're pretty, you think you're better than them
00:50:01.660
or, you know, I, I, I'm guessing that's what he meant by being prideful. And so I think if that's
00:50:08.020
the real issue where it's less that it's low on the priority level and, and you're lacking time,
00:50:16.660
as opposed to, you just think you're better than everybody. And so you're going to do your own
00:50:22.000
thing. I think that's a deeper psychological issue that you, you know, need to work out.
00:50:29.980
Yeah. I mean, Adrian, let's, let's break this down. I get prideful and become a lone wolf and
00:50:37.600
start reaching out and just focus on myself. Maybe said another way that you think that if you get
00:50:46.320
found out that you, you think that if I'm, I'm, I'm assuming this a little bit. So we're, we're
00:50:53.380
projecting on you a little bit here, Adrian, but, but you're assuming that if you get found out that
00:50:58.420
people know how bad at jujitsu, you really are and how much at work, you really don't know.
00:51:04.380
And at the guys that I see realize that you're just a mediocre husband, maybe a bad father,
00:51:10.360
you lack discipline at work, and you can't defend a child with your jujitsu because it sucks so bad.
00:51:17.240
You would draw from everybody. So they don't figure that out. And then you try to work on yourself
00:51:22.740
with no one around. So no one knows who you really are because you honestly think that your value is
00:51:32.000
based upon their perspective of you, dude, you got to let it go. That is exhausting.
00:51:39.100
When I think about that, that is so exhausting. I've thought about even doing like another martial
00:51:46.340
art. Uh, recently I've been like, Oh man, I should do Taekwondo or something new because I want to know
00:51:51.960
nothing. I want to be the guy in the class that goes, it's all out on the table. It's, it's actually
00:51:58.740
refreshing when you think about when you are living in integrity and you can just be you.
00:52:07.640
It's there's freedom in it because now there's not this charade of, of trying to pretend something
00:52:13.880
that you're not and everything else. Now that's really easy to say, but like, it doesn't get you
00:52:18.800
out of the jar, right? It's still really hard to see the label on the outside of the jar when you're
00:52:22.600
in it. So let me, let me help you look at that label. No one cares. No one cares, Adrian. Most people
00:52:31.120
walk around. They are so wrapped up about what you think of them. They don't give a shit what you know
00:52:36.640
or what you don't know. They really don't. And in fact, not only that from, from a, from a leadership
00:52:42.840
perspective, you know what my favorite employee is. The one that raises their hand says, I don't
00:52:48.240
understand. I don't know. And they're hungry and eager to learn. That is more valuable than the person
00:52:56.320
that pretends they know something and doesn't raise their hand. And in fact, here's the rub.
00:53:00.740
The employee that doesn't know something, everyone in the room knows they don't know anything.
00:53:05.600
The only one believe in the charade is that employee and they're handcuffing themselves
00:53:12.400
from growing and learning because they're unwilling to literally sit there and go, I don't know,
00:53:19.460
but I'm willing to learn. You have put too much weight and pride in being right versus being the kind
00:53:29.680
of person that can get the job done or the kind of person that can find the right answer. Let go
00:53:35.820
of the charade, man. I, when I just think about it, like I said earlier, it, it, there is so much
00:53:43.660
emotional weight and garbage that comes with that, that man, you are burning energy. And guess what,
00:53:51.100
man, that energy is being burnt on something that doesn't matter. And most people will respect you more
00:53:57.020
for being authentic and, and being clear on what you know and what you don't know. Now with that
00:54:02.420
all said, I get it. You don't think my ego rises up in the middle of jujitsu and I go, and, and I'm
00:54:09.480
rolling with a blue bell or a purple bell and he is almost catching me or destroying me. You don't
00:54:14.960
think my ego raises up and go, this guy's making me look bad, right? I'm a black belt. I should know
00:54:20.840
this bubble. You know what I mean? You don't think that hurts my ego, but here's the rub. If I want to
00:54:26.300
become better, I have to let go. I have to let go of that concern and operate from the perspective
00:54:33.380
of like, yeah, maybe his jujitsu is better than mine. That kind of sucks, but guess what? It is
00:54:39.400
what it is. I'm on the path that I am. And for me to continue on this path, I have to deal in reality.
00:54:46.360
And the reality is you're going to get caught. Sometimes the reality of it is you're going to
00:54:51.020
get a job and you're not going to know the answers to the job. You're going to get into the iron
00:54:54.700
and counsel and you're going to be with a bunch of guys that you think are amazing and you don't
00:54:58.460
think you pair up to them. That's going to happen. And the more you let go of the expectation of how
00:55:04.940
you should or should not be and deal in reality, the sooner you're going to be on the path of growth.
00:55:11.160
I'm so glad you said it that way, Kit, because I was thinking more on the end of like, I'm prideful.
00:55:16.900
I think I'm better than these guys. And that's why I don't think about it, man. But most people
00:55:22.180
are prideful. Are they really, do they really think they're better or are they pretending they're
00:55:27.920
better because they're trying to protect their low self-esteem? Yeah, I totally agree. And I like how
00:55:36.660
you talked about it as far as jujitsu goes, because when you said that, when I started jujitsu,
00:55:43.260
I was a brown belt in Kenpo. So I'd done Kenpo for five, six years, was about to get my black belt,
00:55:49.700
like literally on the verge of it. And then I moved and, and all these circumstances happen.
00:55:56.020
And then I started looking into jujitsu and I go to jujitsu, I had a friend doing it.
00:56:01.060
And then I get into jujitsu here. I am, you know, thinking, Oh, I'm almost a black belt.
00:56:06.700
I never felt more worthless and defenseless in my life. Just thinking like, man, I did,
00:56:13.200
I just waste five, six years trying to pursue this thing. And, but it's one of the best things
00:56:19.480
that ever happened to me because then I understood and realized like the belts mean nothing. It's more
00:56:27.160
about your capabilities, you getting better, you knowing and understanding you can get better,
00:56:33.000
the push to be better and being in an environment that helps to you to harness that. And, you know,
00:56:41.240
now to the point where I'm four years, four to five years deep in jujitsu and I'm still a wipeout.
00:56:48.900
And when I say it, I hate even saying that, like, I just said it publicly now in front of all these
00:56:54.180
people that we, we just talked about it early in the podcast. Like I don't go that much. Right. And so,
00:57:00.060
and, and after I moved now I'm in a new gym and they have their whole own system. And, you know,
00:57:06.880
like my professor there, he can't, and good, you know, he, he's not going to give me a promotion,
00:57:13.160
but when I go in there, I'm tapping his purple belts and his blue belts, you know, and I'm a
00:57:19.880
white belt. So honestly, like I've learned to not care about the belt, you know? And if,
00:57:26.680
if my professor decides he's going to promote me, awesome. It doesn't going to, it's not going to
00:57:31.660
stop me from going. If I'm not, if he doesn't, because I'm, I'm getting better, I'm learning.
00:57:39.080
And honestly, I'm getting my ass kicked. And part of why I go is I, I like getting my ass kicked
00:57:45.740
because it's a reminder that I don't know as much as I think I know, or that I'm not as capable as I
00:57:52.180
think I could be. Jiu-jitsu forces humility. That is why most people quit. And so if we use this
00:57:59.520
example, what does quitting give you? Nothing. You don't get better at it. You go lone wolf.
00:58:07.020
Awesome. And, and now you're just avoiding the very thing that you're not good at.
00:58:12.200
Congratulations. Good choice. Right? Like, and that's, and to be frank, that's why most people
00:58:16.800
quit. They can't handle it. Tough guys come in and they go, I'm a tough guy, right? They have an
00:58:22.140
image of the car drive, the way I dress, the way I talk, blah, blah, blah, the music I listen to.
00:58:26.900
All this is gives a persona of the ability to be tough and jujitsu rocks most people's worlds and
00:58:35.860
they can't deal with it. They go, you know what? I don't want to deal with it. And so they choose
00:58:42.280
not to deal in reality and they move back into their little make-believe world of being tough
00:58:47.580
instead. And that is what jujitsu does. And guess what? It never stops. It's still that way today.
00:58:54.180
And you use the example, like you don't care about the belts, right? Because it doesn't matter.
00:58:58.060
I would even suggest you shouldn't care about the tap because I can't count how many times
00:59:04.560
that I go, I tap someone, a little bit of ego flare kicks into me, right? I'm like, oh yeah.
00:59:11.040
You know, I got him. I'm better than him. Mark my word. Whenever my ego flares up like that,
00:59:17.060
the next roll or the next day I get destroyed. And then, and then the jujitsu gods look down on me
00:59:25.820
and go, shame, shame, shame, Kip. You know better. You don't get ego here. You get humility here,
00:59:32.980
right? And, and that's the way it is. And, and that's why we go because it keeps us in check,
00:59:39.960
right? And that's why, you know, to, to Adrian's question, that's why Adrian, you stay in the iron
00:59:48.880
council. That's why at work, you say you don't understand something. And that's why you keep
00:59:54.780
going to jujitsu because you need to let go of that stuff. Right. And we all need that humility.
01:00:02.680
Yeah. And I don't want to make this a purely jujitsu thing. It's just a good analogy as we're
01:00:07.080
talking about it. Everything is, everything is jujitsu. Okay. But you're also going to have guys
01:00:14.360
that come in that can train more than you. And that have been there the same amount of time as
01:00:19.960
you. And like, I know guys than you. Yeah. I know guys who started when I started in their purple
01:00:27.440
belt now, you know, or their brown belt. I know one guy just got his brown belt. He was, you know,
01:00:32.940
young kid. He was, when I started, he was 18, you know, now he's in his early twenties.
01:00:37.780
He just got his brown belt. I found out, and we've been training the same amount of time,
01:00:42.580
but he goes every day. And so it's, you know, priorities, you know, different. He doesn't
01:00:48.520
have kids. He's not married. He doesn't have a business. He doesn't have any of these things.
01:00:51.960
And so like, I could sit there and be like, man, I suck. This is, and not want to go like roll
01:00:57.900
against that guy or whatever, because he crushes me now. And I used to be able to, you know, on his
01:01:02.900
same level. So I could say that, or I could just call it like it is like, he's putting in more time.
01:01:09.380
And, and so that's going to happen at your job. It's going to happen in a working environment.
01:01:13.760
You're going to, instead of saying like, I hate that guy, he passed me up at my job.
01:01:17.840
Well, what did that guy do that allowed him to pass you up? Right. And maybe take some of that
01:01:23.660
into consideration and then either chalk it up as, okay, I could do that too. If I want to put
01:01:29.660
that priority on that and operate in that way, or that's just not my priority. And I'm fine with
01:01:35.640
that. Yeah. I'm not going to, I'm not willing to pay that price. And so I'm going to be, you know,
01:01:41.400
mediocre jujitsu player. Right. And I'm still going to enjoy it, but that's not my top priority
01:01:46.420
because I want to focus more on work or whatever else. Right. Yeah. I like it. All right. Last question.
01:01:52.500
Uh, Sam Ayers tips for keeping a stoic mindset when it feels like you can't catch a break,
01:01:59.080
when it feels like regardless of work, you put in that stuff just won't work out.
01:02:06.940
This is when we talked earlier about the standard. I think this is where knowing those standards are
01:02:14.540
important because it's, there's a difference between spinning your wheels and productive work.
01:02:23.880
And so as long as you know, the standard that produces productivity, then you can be confident.
01:02:31.740
And if you know, you're giving your all. And I think this is where most, most people fool themselves
01:02:39.700
is because you're working hard. You say, well, I should be getting better results than I'm getting
01:02:46.240
right now. Yeah. But I think most, yeah. Yeah. I think most of the time there's a little bit more
01:02:53.260
that we can give that we're not, that we let ourselves slip in. And that doesn't give us the
01:03:01.400
exact result that we want. And so that standard, you know, I talked about, you, you see someone else
01:03:07.540
who's excelling at that thing that you want to do well in and, you know, we can make excuses or we can
01:03:15.500
level up to that standard and apply those things ourselves and put ourselves in a position where
01:03:22.620
we can get those same results. Um, that's what will happen inevitably. And it's, there's not a,
01:03:30.700
there's not a self-improvement book. There's not a business book. There's not a health and fitness book.
01:03:36.500
There's not a spiritual book that you'll ever read. That doesn't give you that exact plan.
01:03:43.080
Find something that works, you know, find somebody that, that does what works and do what they did.
01:03:50.980
And you can have those same results. And so as long as you know what that standard is, and you know,
01:03:56.300
you're putting in at least equal to the work or more, then you can be confident in the result on
01:04:06.000
the backend. Um, so I, I would say, just make sure you're not fooling yourself and then don't get too
01:04:13.160
emotional when you get little wins starting to happen is just stay focused, keep working, keep working
01:04:20.140
hard. Um, don't allow your thermostat to kick in. I call it, you know, to help you cool off, um, and stay
01:04:29.480
the course. Yeah. But it's hard. Yeah. I've been there super hard. Right. I mean, you can, you can, you
01:04:36.160
can hear it, right. Can't catch a break. Right. And it's like, okay, what does that, what does that
01:04:41.580
mean? Can't catch a break means a break is what, right? I'm doing everything I should be doing,
01:04:47.000
Sean, I'm doing it all, man. And it's not working out. Right. A little bit of, I had this expectation
01:04:54.740
that if I did X, I should be getting this. I'm not getting that can't catch a break. Right. Um,
01:05:00.960
and so maybe Sam, I would just be mindful of the meaning we're putting around it. Right. Of like,
01:05:09.600
you know, because that, that has a sense of, uh, self-reflection, negative talk, right. Kind of in
01:05:16.600
there. I, at least it does for me. And, um, you know, you, you do. And victim hood. Yeah. That's
01:05:24.120
definitely victim wording. Doesn't yeah. A and B doesn't equal a plus B doesn't equal. Can't catch a
01:05:31.020
break. Right. It's like, well, it doesn't equal C. Okay. Well then it's the wrong A or B. Okay.
01:05:35.300
Change A. Change B. Change this. Oh, not the results. Didn't work. Pivot. Like a pivot's not
01:05:43.520
bad. Right. So, so let, maybe let go of those expectations a little bit. Um, have the expectation
01:05:50.760
until it's not met. If that makes sense. So I'm going to do X, Y, and Z to get X result. That's
01:05:59.340
a good expectation, right? That's a plan. But when that result doesn't show up, let it go.
01:06:05.300
And stop making it wrong. Like, oh, I shouldn't, or I should, or whatever. You didn't. Right.
01:06:12.440
So it's Stoics, uh, uh, the guide to the good life. One of my favorite books on Stoic philosophy.
01:06:17.920
I love this analogy to use like tennis matches as an example that, and we could use jujitsu
01:06:24.260
if we wanted a jujitsu match as an example, but like, and, and I, and I came to this realization.
01:06:29.600
I was at worlds, uh, a couple of years ago and I was in the bullpen getting ready. My nerves are
01:06:36.280
all over the place. Why are my nerves up? Because I want to win. I don't want to look bad. I want to
01:06:42.440
perform well, whatever. And my buddy tapped me on the shoulder and said, just remember you will not,
01:06:48.740
you will not experience a single match today. That is as hard as what we deal with back at our
01:06:56.360
school. And that my win or losing that day was not determined in that moment. It was determined
01:07:04.820
months and months leading up to that competition. It's already been determined. Now, the only thing I
01:07:11.800
had to do is just go do whatever I was going to do based upon my training. And so it really allowed
01:07:19.360
me to let go and just see what happens. And then if I didn't win, it's not, Oh, I failed in that match.
01:07:27.340
I should have blah, blah, blah. It's no, my train didn't work. And I need to make pivots back to the
01:07:34.480
training itself. So I have a better results when it comes to competition. It's the same thing.
01:07:40.660
And so let go of the meaning that you're putting around, not getting the break and say, Hey, guess
01:07:46.840
what, dude, you didn't catch the break. It's not working period. That's the facts. So what are you
01:07:52.520
going to do about it? Let's get some coaching. Let's pivot. Let's whatever, right. And get the
01:07:57.260
necessary reps in. So you do get the opportunity when it does present itself. I like that spot on.
01:08:03.320
Cool. Sean. Good as always, man. Yeah. Yeah. Good as always.
01:08:11.220
We're getting close to September. I'll be out your way and you'll be back in town. So I'm going to hit
01:08:18.240
you up. Yeah. Yeah. Please do. And even if you guys want to come down to the house, I don't know,
01:08:23.400
we'll talk ping me and we'll make, we'll make things happen. Not on the recording of the podcast.
01:08:29.240
I don't want some freaks, you know, showing up in my house. I'm just joking. Okay. Thank you guys
01:08:35.320
for submitting the questions. Really appreciate the engagement of the conversation. Always powerful,
01:08:40.820
right? And, and, and, and we talk about all the time, just the power of the conversation.
01:08:45.460
That's the power of the iron council. That's the power of having a band of brothers. If you are running
01:08:50.800
lone rule, right? You're running solo and you don't have like-minded men that you're around.
01:08:56.980
You need to make the necessary adjustments that that's just what needs to happen for us. It's
01:09:03.100
iron council. I'm sure Sean has that within his work through church and other groups, but, but
01:09:08.660
maybe advice today is, is find like-minded individuals that are going to uplift you and
01:09:13.380
have the necessary conversations to uplift one another, right? Iron shoppings iron. So
01:09:18.060
connect with Mr. Mickler on Instagram and Twitter at Ryan Mickler. And of course you can go to
01:09:23.700
orderofman.com to find out about the IC, get swag from the store and everything else for you guys
01:09:30.000
that are wanting to get on the path, but we're not opening up enrollment yet. Go to orderofman.com
01:09:35.560
slash battle ready and walk yourself through the battle ready program in preparation of joining the
01:09:42.460
iron council. We've seen a lot of results and success with a lot of individuals doing that. So
01:09:47.180
if you're not waiting for tomorrow, which you shouldn't wait for tomorrow, you should take
01:09:51.980
action now. That's orderofman.com slash battle ready. Sean, thanks again, man. Always a great
01:09:58.820
having a conversation with you. And until this Friday on for Friday field notes with Mr. Mickler,
01:10:05.480
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01:10:08.160
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01:10:12.600
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