Rise From the Ashes | FRIDAY FIELD NOTES
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Summary
When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time! You are not easily deterred or defeated. You are a man of action. You live life to the fullest. You embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
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
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Mickler, and I am the host and the founder of this podcast, this movement, The Order
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of Man. This is a movement designed to help you as a man become a better father, a better
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husband, a better business owner, community leader, employee, friend, brother, cousin,
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you name it. However you're showing up in life as a man, this podcast, the information I'm
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sharing, and the information my guests are sharing is designed to help you thrive, regardless
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of what hat you're wearing as a man. So each and every week we have interviews. We do an
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ask me anything segment with my cohost, Kip Sorensen. And then of course you're getting
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this your Friday field notes, which is my thoughts from throughout the week. And I've got a good
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one lined up for you today, rising from the ashes. And I'll tell you why I decided to talk
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about this today. Inside of our exclusive brotherhood, the iron council and inside of our Facebook
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group, which now has, I believe over 51,000 members, I hear over and over and over again
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from men who have been completely derailed from situations that have happened to them.
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And these situations could be a bankruptcy, could be a divorce, could be a death, could
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be an illness, could be a job loss. There's all kinds of things that we deal with in life
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as men. And I don't want to see that. There's been situations and circumstances in my life in
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life. I feel like everything has crumbled around me and I found a way to overcome those
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things. So I'm going to talk with you about that today. I'm going to talk about what this
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actually looks like. And then of course, share with you a very simple formula that all of
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us are probably somewhat familiar with, but I'm going to articulate this a little bit more
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clearly. So hopefully when we do get knocked down and we will, that each and every one of us
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will have a greater ability to get back up and get back in the fight. Now, before I get
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into that, I do want to mention my friends and the show sponsors, which is origin main.
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Now you guys are all familiar with this. You've heard me talk about it for the last several
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months and you don't hear me talk about a lot of other companies. And that's because
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10% off on anything that you pick up over there. All right, guys, with that said and out of the way,
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let's get back into this again. It's titled rising from the ashes. Now, the reason I titled this is
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because there is going to come a point in your life. If there hasn't already, or been multiple times
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in your life, like there has mine where again, everything seems like it's crumbling around you.
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Everything's burning down to the ground. Your relationship is falling apart. Your fitness is
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out of whack. Your money situation is horrendous. And unless you can find a way to rise from the
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ashes, it's very easy. I think to allow these types of things that are, are supposed to build
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us up and make us stronger. It's very easy to allow them to cripple us, to derail us,
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to keep us from accomplishing all that we're meant to accomplish. And what I see a lot of guys do
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is them living in mediocrity because they never learned to dust themselves off and they never learned
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how to rise back up and become stronger in spite of all of the events that every single man on this
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planet deals with. So again, I talked about it, whether that's a bankruptcy, a separation with your
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wife or a divorce, a death of a loved one. Maybe it's that you're injured or there's a, an illness
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or medical situation that you're dealing with. Maybe there's a job loss. I mean, there's so many
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different scenarios and I see two types of men, those men who deal with the situation and come back and
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find a way and develop a plan in order to become a better version of themselves. And then I see other
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men who completely self-destruct. They completely fall apart because they don't know how to handle
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these situations. And look over the next 15, 20 minutes, there's no way that I can give you
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enough information in, in part the willpower that you need to overcome these obstacles. But I hope by
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giving you this operating system, this framework that you and I, and everybody listening to this
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podcast will be able to utilize it a little bit more effectively in their lives when these negative
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things inevitably happen and they will, and they will keep happening. But through using this system,
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I've been able to come out of everything that I've ever dealt with a stronger man because of the
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system that I'm going to share with you today. Now, all of us are probably somewhat familiar with
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this system. It's called the OODA loop. And again, a lot of you have heard about this, but it's a
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system. It's a cycle. It's a process that was developed by a air force Colonel John Boyd,
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and it's an acronym. So it's the OODA loop. It stands for observe number two, orient number three,
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decide and number four act. So what I want to do is I want to break down each one of these things a
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little bit more for you so that you have, again, this framework to be able to rise from the ashes
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and pull yourself up and become a stronger man. All right. So number one, let's talk about observe.
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Look, you may have just gotten your butt kicked. You may have just gotten your ass handed to you.
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Again, I don't know what that looks like, but let's just assume for a second that you're dealing
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with something in life, some negative situation or circumstance in which you found yourself.
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It's safe to assume that when you get kicked in the teeth, that you're not going to be able to get
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right back up and get yourself back into the fight. It would be nice if that were the case,
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but the reality is it just isn't. And what I found is that when I hurry and get up and I don't think
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about or spend any, any amount of time observing what just happened to me, I rush back into the
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battle and I actually put myself in a worse situation because I didn't take the time to
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regroup. I didn't take the time to evaluate what was going on around me. I didn't take the time to
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inventory, to see what actually happened, to really try to understand what is going on objectively.
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It's very difficult to do when you're in the midst of something very emotional to look at it
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objectively, but it has to be looked at that way because what essentially you can do now is make
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yourself the project. See what I see so many guys do is when these things happen, they completely
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derail and they forget about improving themselves. They get themselves into a position of self-pity.
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What's interesting about this is that as we, as men are designed to solve problems, we walk around
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and we look at all the little problems that we could potentially face. And we look at what everybody
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else is doing right and what everybody else is doing wrong. And we constantly think about how we
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could do a better job and how we can improve our environment and the situation and the, and the
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football game and the whatever. And very rarely do we turn that back around on ourselves. Guys,
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we have to make ourselves the project. And the first way that you make yourself the project
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that you look at yourself objectively and figure out where you need to improve
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is by observing what actually happened. You don't need to be emotional. You don't need to rush into a
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solution. Just regroup retreat or withdraw from the fight just for a minute, not permanently,
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just for a minute to figure out what the hell just happened to you. Number one, observe. Number two
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is orient. All right. Now, you know, what's going on. You understand what's happening. You understand
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what just happened to you. Now it's time to start making a plan. It's time to start figuring out what
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your resources are. It's time to figure out what your weaknesses are. It's time to figure out what
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assets and what liabilities you have. It's time to start putting the little plans into motion,
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or at least thinking about what is it that I need to do next? What areas of my life do I need to
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improve? Do I need to improve my fitness? Do I need to improve communication skills? Do I need to
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improve my ability to manage my finances? Do I need to develop and harness a new skillset so I can get
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a promotion at work? What is it that you need to do? And I would suggest documenting everything,
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write everything down. This is what I do when I'm doing my task list for the day. I write absolutely
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everything I can down on that task list. I'm not prioritizing right now. I'm simply writing down
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everything that I know needs to get accomplished and what I could potentially work on in order to
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improve myself. So now we've observed, we know that we are in a difficult position. We're figuring
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out what's going on around us. Now we're orienting ourselves to that situation. We're figuring out,
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okay, what is it that I can do next? What is a potential plan of action? What course should I
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potentially take now that we have that? And we have that all documented and listed out.
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Now we can decide. We can decide based on what it is we want to accomplish. If I know that I need to
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lose 30 pounds, I can decide what I need to do in order to lose 30 pounds. If I am in a relationship
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that's really struggling, I've observed that I've oriented myself to where I fall short within the
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relationship. And now I can decide, Hey, I need to move on or I need to step up or I need to develop
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this skillset like communication, for example, and we can decide, we can decide what we need to do.
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Once you've made the decision, once you have a plan, a course that you're going to set sail on,
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now it's time to act. Only then should you act. I already mentioned, sometimes we're quick to act
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without doing these other steps. We don't observe. We don't orient. We don't decide. We just rush back
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into battle because we think that's what we're supposed to do. And granted, it might work out.
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The problem though, is that even if it does work out, it's not replicatable and you didn't learn the
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lesson from it. So we'll just take relationships. For example, if you are struggling in your
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relationship and you and your wife go through a separation, let's say, and you correct all the
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behavior that you think she wants you to correct, that actually might be something that works. But
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I'm telling you, unless you do these other steps, you may have just put a bandaid on the wound.
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You did not implement a long-term strategy for growth and progress within the relationships.
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And it's no surprise that in six months or a year or even two or three years that you find yourself
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in the exact same situation. See, we shouldn't be in this game for the short term. We need to be in
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this thing for the long term, which means that we have a little bit of time to do these other steps
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before we rush back into it and wreck everything and fall back into the same traps and the same
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patterns that we fell into before that produced, we'll call it less than desirable results for
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ourselves. So guys, don't be emotional. Don't overreact. Don't make this the first step.
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Step number one, observe what's going on. Step number two, orient yourself to the situation.
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Step number three, based on what you've observed and based on your orientation and what it is that you
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want to do moving forward, now you can make a decision. And then step number four, which I just
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said a second ago is then, and only then should you act upon all the information that you have in hand.
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Now, when I started talking with you about 15 minutes or so ago, I said that this was a cycle
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and it is a cycle. I think what a lot of people do is they find themselves in a bad situation,
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again, through a bankruptcy or an illness or a job loss or a divorce. And they recognize because
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they're in this dire situation that it's an emergency and they need to immediately correct
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the behavior. And they do, they make a great job correcting the behavior and then they fix it for a
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time, but then they fall back into the same patterns because they're not using this as a cycle.
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Guys, this is a never ending process. So if we take relationships, observe, orient, decide, act.
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Now let's assume just for the sake of argument that you get back with your wife.
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Then what happens? You fall back into the same patterns. We could use the same thing with regards
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to health and fitness. Maybe you get a health diagnosis that you need to lose some weight in
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order to deal with this. Okay. So you start dieting, you start exercising, you start running,
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you start making healthier choices, you're getting more sleep, you're reducing stress, and you're doing
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all the things to improve your level of health. And then things go away. You get better. You start
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feeling better and you've risen from the ashes, except for you didn't put this into a cycle. And
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so what happens is in the next six months or a year, you forget about exercising. You start sleeping
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in a little longer than you should. You start having some more junk food and you get yourself right back
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into the same situation that you found yourself in 12 months earlier. Guys, this has to be a process for
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you. When I see guys who lose weight immediately or have some huge business success right off the bat,
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that's great. There's nothing wrong with that. Except for in my experience, it's very difficult to
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sustain unless you have a system in place that is a cycle, not a linear progression, but a cycle.
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I'm constantly going through this, constantly going through this, constantly going through this.
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So even as things aren't bad in my life, my relationships, my fitness, the business,
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the bank account, the things that are going well in my life right now, I am still using this process
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because I want to head things off at the pass. I don't want to wait until things get horrible
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for me to have to go into emergency or crisis mode. So guys, build this into your day, build this into
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your week, build this into your quarterly planning. That's what I do is I do a 12 week quarterly
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planning. I call it a battle plan. And I build this OODA loop into my plan. So I'm constantly
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evaluating whether things are going right and whether things are going wrong. And what I found
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is that as I constantly implement this into my life, I find less and less actually goes wrong.
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Guys, I know when we find ourselves in difficult situations, in emotionally charged and heated
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and dire situations and circumstances, it's very easy to a get down on ourselves and turn into this
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self pity, woe is me type situation. And on the other hand, I know it's very easy to rush into action
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and just try to fix everything. And what ends up happening there is there's usually some collateral
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damage and fallout because we bulldozed our way through a problem that we created for ourselves.
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What I would suggest instead is to incorporate the OODA loop or your version of it. Maybe it's
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slightly different, but this gives you a basis. This gives you a foundation for what you can do
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in your life. Again, it's observe, stop, breathe, relax, disengage, withdraw from the battle just for a
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time, not permanently, just for a time figuring out what just happened. Number two, orient yourself.
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What are my assets? What are my resources? What are my strengths? What are the weaknesses I have?
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How can I shore these up? Who are the people that I need to get involved in this process in order to
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help me be better off? Number three, decide, make a decision based on the facts at hand, no longer
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emotions, but the facts at hand. Here's where I found myself. Here's what I want to accomplish.
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Here's how I think I can improve this. I've gone through so many different scenarios and this is the one
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I've decided to act upon. And then number four is like I just said, act, take the action,
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do what you know you should be doing day in, day out, over and over and over again. And as you're
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taking this action, observe, is the action working? Is what you're actually doing moving you in the
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right direction? Or is it moving you further from what you want? Guys, I want each and every one of us
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to rise from the ashes. I've seen too many men fall prey to some of these situations. And some of these
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situations, frankly, are outside of your control. Some are within your control, but either way,
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you have the power to rise from the ashes. You have the power to make yourself the project.
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You have the power to become a better, stronger, tougher, grittier, more resilient man than you were
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before. These challenging scenarios aren't there to cripple us. They're there to fortify us, to build
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us, to make us stronger, but we have to have a system in place in order to do that. So guys,
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I hope that helps. Please let me know if you're using this or using a different version of the
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OODA loop, or you have your own scenario or process. I would love to hear what it is. I think
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if we can share our ideas and our processes and the systems that we use and the tools that we have
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and the conversations we're having, we're all going to be better men for it. And when I started this
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project four years ago, it's the, it's the very reason I called it the order. When I say order,
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I think brotherhood fraternity society, but it's men, it's all men working together to create
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solutions to the problems that many of us have all dealt with. So guys go out there,
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incorporate this into your life. Use the OODA loop rise from the ashes. Like you're meant to
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become a better man because of those, what we would consider negative situations. Turn those into a
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positive. Go out there, take action and become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening
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to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you
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were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.