Order of Man - Rise of the "Peter Pans," Overcoming Insurmountable Challenges, and How to Comfort Others Correctly ｜ ASK ME ANYTHING

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

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

00:00:10.280 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who

00:00:16.960 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.440 you can call yourself a man. John, what's up, brother? Great to see you.

00:00:26.500 Good morning. Good to see you. Do you listen to the podcast when it's Kip or just when it's

00:00:31.780 yourself? Of course, only myself. Why would I listen to that? I just didn't know. I just

00:00:39.060 didn't know how much we needed to say sorry for picking on you, whether you listen to it

00:00:45.680 or not. I don't know. No, I listen to the podcast regardless. It's on my normal playlist. I hear

00:00:54.260 it. I'd like it. I'd laugh. Good. Good. Well, it's great to see you, man. You've been a friend

00:00:59.140 for a long time. Obviously, you're a hunter and we are hunting buddies. You've got some origin gear,

00:01:03.980 it looks like, on. What's that behind you over your left shoulder? That doesn't look like origin,

00:01:07.440 though. Or your right shoulder. Oh, no. Yeah, that's sick.

00:01:11.840 Oh, yeah. What are we going to do with you? We got to get you converted fully.

00:01:17.300 That's what I had. I do. I bought everything they had at origin.

00:01:21.440 Oh, did you really? Nice. I bought the entire kit, like every single thing.

00:01:25.720 Nice. You got any good hunts planned this year?

00:01:28.540 Yeah, man. I love them. Planned elk. That's just my bow hunting elk in Southern Utah. So,

00:01:37.780 I'll be out by you. Nice.

00:01:40.860 Yeah. Actually, if we'll see scheduling-wise, I don't know what's going to be going on with

00:01:45.780 Legacy around that time or what you're going to be doing, but maybe we can make it work to get you

00:01:49.660 out there this time. Is it September? Is that when it is?

00:01:51.700 September, yeah.

00:01:52.620 Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Let's talk about it. I've got some other hunts planned in Minnesota, Hawaii.

00:01:57.880 We just got back from Texas. We're actually going to Africa this year,

00:02:01.300 me and my two oldest boys. So, we've got a lot of cool stuff planned.

00:02:04.620 Oh, awesome. What part of South Africa?

00:02:07.000 Yeah. We're flying into Johannesburg and then I think it's an hour flight from there or something.

00:02:11.480 I don't exactly know where it's at. I'm not very good with the logistical side of things. So,

00:02:14.860 usually other people deal with that and they say, be here at this time and I just show up.

00:02:19.100 That's awesome. We just went hunting. My sons and I, we were out in California at a ranch out there,

00:02:24.760 Central Cal. And we were doing night vision hunting for pigs because they changed the law

00:02:30.700 out there.

00:02:31.680 Oh, sweet. Yeah. That'd be a blast.

00:02:33.780 It was insane. It was so much fun. Yeah.

00:02:36.440 That's awesome. Well, cool, man. Should we get into some questions today?

00:02:40.480 Yeah. First happy birthday though, by the way.

00:02:42.840 Yeah.

00:02:43.500 Hey.

00:02:43.840 Yep. The big four too, man. The big four too.

00:02:46.500 It's so crazy.

00:02:47.420 You're almost as old as I am.

00:02:49.940 Yeah. It's funny. I, I see adults make a bigger celebration out of their birthdays than they need

00:02:57.000 to. And it's hilarious to me. I never, do you get in? I've never got into that. I'm like,

00:03:01.940 yeah, it's my birthday. And people say, well, what do you, what'd you do? I'm like,

00:03:04.940 same thing I did yesterday. Got up, went and worked out, did some work, coached my son's baseball

00:03:10.500 teams, you know, tried to do some good. That's about it.

00:03:13.960 Yeah. I'm there with you. Last birthday I really celebrated was probably my 21st.

00:03:19.900 Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I was celebrating my 21st birthday before I was 21. So 21 wasn't

00:03:26.200 really that big a deal for me. Oh, you can finally drink. I'm like, bro, I've been drinking

00:03:30.060 for 10 years. Maybe not that long, but all right, man, let's get into some questions today.

00:03:36.540 All right. Let's start with, uh, this is coming from the IC and it's Craig Webb says,

00:03:43.300 I've been listening to some of the older podcasts and listen to the rise of the Peter pans from June

00:03:49.240 of 2018. Fantastic episode. Five years later, it's even worse now. In my view, I think it may take a

00:03:56.160 cataclysmic event or collapse to correct this trend on a large scale. What are your thoughts on that?

00:04:02.540 And what would you add if anything to your thoughts from 2018?

00:04:07.480 Yeah. I don't remember what I said in 2018, but I can tell you as far as the Peter pans, it's I've

00:04:13.560 called it the Peter pan syndrome. It's, it's boys who don't want to grow up. They're lost, right?

00:04:18.580 They're the lost boys. They're lost. They're confused. They're misguided. They're misdirected.

00:04:22.760 And because of that, they don't have any real responsibility. They don't want to step into work.

00:04:27.560 Uh, you look at recruiting numbers in the military is dwindling. Uh, they're not only are they too

00:04:32.860 dumb, but they're too fat to be able to join the military. It's ridiculous. People aren't getting 1.00

00:04:37.800 married. Uh, they're not having kids that are, they're rejecting. And look, I don't entirely blame

00:04:44.540 these, these young men, but they're entirely rejecting any sense of personal responsibility

00:04:53.080 and growth as a man. And unfortunately what happens in those situations where there's a vacuum

00:05:00.080 of, of real capable, strong, dedicated, responsible, committed men is those people who want to control

00:05:09.500 and amass power over people, step into that void. And it becomes easier and easier to trample on the

00:05:17.200 rights of, of citizens. So I think, I think he's right. I think there is going to be some sort of

00:05:23.780 cataclysmic event, uh, whether we start to see more bickering and fighting and it gets worse and worse

00:05:29.280 in civil war. I mean, we've, we've seen this indictment of Trump, uh, over the past several

00:05:33.940 days. Now, I think, I think as of the release of this podcast, if I understand correctly, he was

00:05:39.220 going to turn himself in on a Tuesday. So yesterday as of the release of this podcast, I'm, I'm curious

00:05:45.880 and also, you know, a little apprehensive about where, where that goes, because that's clearly

00:05:51.420 politically motivated. And does that draw more of a political divide than is already there? And, and,

00:05:56.500 and will it get violent and get worse and worse? And I think the answer is yes, it will. The hard

00:06:01.540 thing is, is there's no magic pill. There's no one that we can wave over this and we can say, look,

00:06:06.180 we've solved it. Everybody's happy now. And we have men who are being men and we have men who are

00:06:10.160 getting married and having children and teaching their kids and raising them in righteousness.

00:06:14.640 I wish we could say that that would happen, but it just doesn't. So what do we do about it?

00:06:19.040 I think this movement is a big part of what we should do about it. We should be vocal. We should

00:06:23.220 stand up for the things we believe in and stand out or up against the things that are detrimental to

00:06:29.120 our wellbeing. And we should embrace masculinity and we should coach our boys, literally,

00:06:36.180 baseball and football teams. And we should be part of PTA. And we should be part of school boards.

00:06:41.560 And we should be into elected positions of authority within our communities. And we should

00:06:46.040 create men's groups in our church and civic organizations. It's all the things that we've

00:06:50.900 been talking about for years. But if you're sitting on the sideline thinking that somebody else is going

00:06:55.740 to do it, or hopefully it gets better, or hopefully it doesn't get worse, man, we're in for a real

00:07:00.400 wake-up call. So what I would suggest is everybody listening to this podcast,

00:07:04.220 call up one guy today, a friend, an acquaintance, a coworker, a brother, your father, one man today

00:07:10.440 and say, Hey, let's get together this weekend. Let's get together. Let's talk about how each of

00:07:15.640 us are doing. Maybe we can go to jujitsu or we can go this weekend. I mean, some of my buddies are

00:07:21.340 going to shoot the bows. We're going to get the bows out and get the cobwebs off the bows for the

00:07:24.640 hunts coming up. And we're going to talk about some issues as we do. It's not surface level stuff.

00:07:30.080 It's real meaningful things. And we're holding each other accountable. And we've had a fitness

00:07:35.360 contest and which I tied for first, which is kind of lame. I think, I think there should be a winner,

00:07:42.060 but it is what it is. I think I should have won, but that's a whole other conversation.

00:07:46.480 But yeah, look, you might hear this and think, Oh, Ryan's just droning on and on and on. No,

00:07:50.960 I gave you like seven things that you should do. And if a thousand guys listening to this podcast did

00:07:57.300 that and a thousand is not very many relative to how many people listen to this podcast,

00:08:00.420 we would completely change in a very short order. Our community, if a hundred thousand did it,

00:08:07.340 if a million men who listened to the podcast did it, imagine what that would look like.

00:08:11.960 A million men getting together this weekend to band together, to ask how each other are doing,

00:08:17.040 to push each other, to motivate, to hold each other accountable. This is what it's going to take.

00:08:21.560 But unfortunately we have a bunch of Peter Pans because we've allowed it to happen. Us men who

00:08:27.660 are strong and capable have allowed it to happen and allowed other people to dictate the tone of

00:08:32.080 the conversation and masculinity in general. As you say that, I just think, you know,

00:08:39.700 is that just because of Peter Pan syndrome or is that just what's happening? The narrative out there,

00:08:46.540 the things you mentioned and the trickle down effect of it affecting the military marriages,

00:08:52.740 kids, all of those things. Is that just Peter Pan syndrome? I think there's a bunch of other factors

00:08:58.600 in that. So I don't know if you can just attribute it to that. I mean, you look at the narrative in

00:09:03.180 general on the attack on the nuclear family, it's all of those things are happening. The confusion

00:09:10.300 that's happening, that the gender confusion, that, you know, that the things that are being taught in

00:09:17.180 our schools around masculinity and what that means. And I think everything you said is absolutely

00:09:25.500 correct as far as how we help it. We need more examples of what real masculinity is and how that 0.98

00:09:33.220 shows up in our communities and in our neighborhoods and how that feels. And I think that the more

00:09:40.740 exposure that boys have to how it feels to be around real men is the difference maker, but they're so

00:09:49.840 confused. Like they don't know how they feel if they're just learning from what's in mainstream media

00:09:55.960 and what's being taught in their schools and what's being taught in, you know, unfortunately some of the

00:10:01.320 environments that they're in. And so the more we can be in those environments as good examples,

00:10:08.000 I think that's going to have the lasting effect, but I wouldn't attribute everything we're talking

00:10:12.040 about to just Peter Pan syndrome. I mean, how do you feel about that? I think there's a bunch of

00:10:17.180 things hammering that narrative and that effect in those things and how they're playing out.

00:10:22.940 Yeah, I think you're right. I think Peter Pan syndrome is more of a symptom of the issues,

00:10:28.300 is a symptom of confused, lost, and misguided souls. And so the inevitable result is lost,

00:10:37.720 confused, and misguided young men. So it isn't that they just miraculously just kind of came into

00:10:44.660 this confusion. It's because that lie and those narratives have been peddled for so long that this

00:10:51.940 is the inevitable result. And I think a lot of it is by design, cosmic design, certainly it's

00:10:57.040 spiritual warfare. And also that spiritual warfare manifests itself in political and cultural warfare,

00:11:02.560 which we clearly see is happening right now. So yeah, I think you're right. Look, regarding the

00:11:09.060 how you feel, when you said that, I was like, oh, how you feel, you know, we get so wrapped up in

00:11:13.860 feelings. And at first I was a little taken back by that, but I think what you're saying is

00:11:19.080 absolutely correct. It's what is the experience of young men being around other men? And I can give

00:11:25.600 you a real tangible example of that. So my oldest son, you know, his name is Brecken and he just

00:11:31.440 turned 15 over the weekend. And we went to USA powerlifting. He qualified for national powerlifting

00:11:38.640 in South Carolina and Myrtle beach. So we just got back. I was remembering as he was lifting and he did

00:11:44.740 very well. Um, PRS on everything. I was reminded of two and a half years earlier when he came to both

00:11:53.680 me and his mother and said, Hey, uh, I'm, I'm not happy with how I feel or how I look. He was a little

00:12:02.400 dough boy. He's a little chubby roly poly, you know? And I think the current narrative would say,

00:12:07.840 just be happy. It's okay. You know, just try to feel good in your own skin, like, and, and try to

00:12:15.500 reaffirm his unhappiness. Instead, we took, I think a better approach and said, okay, fair. You're not

00:12:23.520 healthy. You're, you're not feeling good. You don't, you don't, you're not confident. So what do we do

00:12:29.040 about it? And we help navigate and guide him not by how he felt or didn't want to feel, but using the

00:12:36.340 feelings that he had and the experiences that he was living to be able to push him towards a more

00:12:40.720 desirable and favorable outcome. And if you look at the young man now, of course, I'm a bit biased,

00:12:46.340 but I think objectively you can look at him and say, well, he's obviously more fit. He's certainly

00:12:51.360 more confident. And that what was required is a parent steering him in the right direction, not

00:12:59.420 reaffirming his mediocrity. And the last thing we would want to do if he came to us as,

00:13:06.120 as he was overweight is to say, oh, it's okay. No, it's not okay. Or, or if a boy or a girl comes

00:13:13.960 to a parent and says, Hey, I don't feel like a girl. I don't, you know, I don't, I don't feel like

00:13:18.680 a boy. Well, you don't know what that feels like. Cause you're a child and you're, you've got all of

00:13:23.920 these hormones that are being introduced to your body right now. And it's messing with not only your

00:13:28.580 physical body, but your mentality and your emotions. And so of course you don't feel right.

00:13:34.020 I didn't, I didn't feel right when I was going through puberty. I, I didn't have anybody telling

00:13:38.840 me, well, maybe I'm a girl, you know, and I think about young women, they're, they're more

00:13:42.980 susceptible to this than, than boys, especially because the social media and, and, and the trying

00:13:49.540 to keep up with their friends type contagion, but we can't confuse them. They're already confused

00:13:56.840 by design. And what our kids need is a parent or in the absence of a parent, unfortunately,

00:14:03.200 a good moral, righteous, capable adult saying, Hey, it's, I know you're confused. This is a

00:14:09.660 confusing time. Let me walk you through it. I'm not going to reaffirm your confusion or even worse,

00:14:16.500 exacerbate your confusion by telling you something you're not. So we really have to stand up,

00:14:22.000 especially against this transgender thing. This is a big, big deal and it's only going to get worse. 1.00

00:14:26.980 And all these guys are like, Oh, well, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm busy and I got my head down and all

00:14:31.640 the real men are at work. Well, you better pull your head out of your butt because if you don't 1.00

00:14:36.080 get in the game, the cultural battle, we're all going to get railroaded and it's not going to be 0.99

00:14:41.040 pretty. Yeah, I totally agree. You know, I, I, um, as you said that I had two thoughts. One was

00:14:47.260 in powerlifting, let's say, right. That environment. And if we're talking about how it

00:14:52.660 feels, I think the narrative in those environments is that it's all these like gnarly, huge veins 0.94

00:14:58.300 popping out of their necks, you know, slap each other on the butt, like, like go, go, go man, 0.97

00:15:05.280 destroy. Right. And that's the, it is some of that from the outside. And it is some of that, 1.00

00:15:10.080 but they, but they, that's all that you see. If the, if you let the narrative play out where

00:15:15.680 inside of it, as you meet those guys, when they're competing, yes, that's maybe how they

00:15:21.700 are. Maybe when they're even when they're practicing and when they're training, but outside

00:15:28.180 of that, that doesn't define who they are. And I think that's, you know, important. I thought

00:15:33.120 of Brandon Lilly, as you said that, you know, and like, here's a guy who held records in powerlifting

00:15:38.920 and one of the prominent names in that sport. And he's one of the like kindest, gentlest guys.

00:15:46.480 When you meet him, you know, he was our, when we were on our hunt, he was our, he was like our,

00:15:51.940 our camp chef, right. You know, he just loves cooking and, and sage, right. Kind of the camp

00:15:58.020 chef and camp sage. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's just one of those things that from a quote unquote

00:16:04.980 powerlifter, I don't know if you'd necessarily would expect that if you followed the narrative

00:16:10.680 of what that world, you know, quote unquote is or should be. And so that's what I'm talking about

00:16:17.200 by feeling it, being in those environments and getting that exposure so that you, you know,

00:16:21.900 the truth, you know, what's really happening. Right. And, and then what we could do the most is

00:16:28.180 what you said. I, ironically, right before we sat down, I have right behind my, me here,

00:16:33.620 it's a picture of a bunch of my kids and stuff. And then underneath the quote that says the most

00:16:37.640 important work you'll ever do is within the walls of your home. And that's exactly what you're saying.

00:16:43.060 You know, that above everything has to come from us. So.

00:16:47.640 And your community. I mean, I would, I would also turn it outwards and I would say that's important

00:16:51.740 because the people around you, they're around you. I want them to be elevated as well. I want my

00:16:58.100 neighbors to be awesome. I want their, their young men to be good, good boys. And by good

00:17:03.460 boys, I don't mean good boys that color within the lines and do what they're told. I mean,

00:17:07.780 I mean, being good at being men, Jack Donovan makes that distinction, being good at being men

00:17:12.940 versus being good men. There's a distinction. That's what I want out of them. And you know what?

00:17:17.740 The other thing we have to consider is they made that neighbor, although I know their family,

00:17:21.840 they have a great family, but I'm just using this as an example. There might be a neighbor that you

00:17:25.760 have that you might be the only male role model in their life. You might be it. Dad might be out of

00:17:33.460 the picture for, for whatever reason. You know, they don't have any other presence or grandpas or

00:17:39.980 uncles around and you might be it. And I actually think about this when I've occasionally we get

00:17:45.180 questions from a soon to be a father-in-laws and they've got their daughter and their son soon to

00:17:55.500 be son in law, I should say is, you know, maybe a little punk and obviously they think less favorably

00:18:04.160 of them. I think by design, of course we do. And they try to maybe sabotage the relationship or how

00:18:12.020 can I talk my daughter out of this? And you know, there's certainly a line, which you may need to do

00:18:16.860 that, but also that kid's going to be your son. So, and he's going to be taking care of your daughter.

00:18:24.580 Yeah. 0.99

00:18:25.180 So you can gripe and bitch and moan about it or you can father him. 1.00

00:18:30.240 Yeah. Take him on. 1.00

00:18:32.360 That's what I needed when I was a young man and I got married. My father-in-law, man, he was great.

00:18:37.560 Um, you know, always didn't, didn't always see eye to eye, but he's somebody I really admire. I

00:18:42.980 really respect. I really look up to him. And he took me under his, his, his arm, his shoulder,

00:18:48.900 like, like a son. And that was the most meaningful thing I think he could have done not only for me,

00:18:53.980 but also for his daughter. Yeah. All right, man. Question one took 20 minutes on that. What's next?

00:18:59.520 Man. I'm dealing, this was from Karan Gil. I'm dealing with a situation where mentors telling

00:19:06.820 me to be resourceful and take a massive, but very important risk. I value their mentorship more than

00:19:12.560 anything in the world. And every other time they've told me to do something in the past,

00:19:16.600 I've done it almost every single time. This time around, I just can't bring myself to do all it

00:19:22.120 takes to get it done due to the perceived scale of the risk. Although it'll hurt me to not take the

00:19:28.520 coaching. And I know that my reason not to perform is ultimately an excuse, no matter how good of an

00:19:33.940 excuse it is, it just won't work in my mind to follow through with the coaching this time around.

00:19:39.100 How do you reconcile with the fact that you're going to go against mentorship just this once,

00:19:44.840 knowing you're choosing to not follow in the footsteps of success in favor of playing it safe

00:19:51.080 this time? And how do you follow through and perform in situations that seem impossible when you

00:19:58.360 don't know how to move forward and there's a deadline or when the potential way forward seems

00:20:02.760 overwhelmingly risky? Okay. That's a lot to unpack in there.

00:20:09.360 And I'll break that second part down next. But as far as mentorship, you're a grown man.

00:20:15.740 You aren't obligated to take everything that a mentor or anybody tells you and apply it. Now,

00:20:21.880 should you? If you want the desired result? Yes. But you have to live with,

00:20:26.580 you have to live with the choices that you're making. And if the risk is unacceptable to you,

00:20:31.280 make that choice and stand by it. And you know what? Explain that to your mentor.

00:20:35.320 Sean, if you're my mentor, I would say, Hey, you gave me this recommendation. You suggested I do this.

00:20:41.320 And I decided I'm not going to do that because X, Y, and Z. I'm not going to waffle around it. I'm not

00:20:48.280 going to dance around it. I'm just going to come out flat out and tell my mentor that I am not doing

00:20:52.860 that. Not, I can't, not I'm scared, not I'm this, not I'm that. Like be a man and make a decision.

00:21:00.920 And if your decision is to do it, it's okay to say, Hey, Sean, you know what? You're telling me

00:21:05.140 to do this thing. I got to tell you, I'm really scared because of X, Y, and Z. That's okay to say,

00:21:10.120 but if you're going to say, no, let your no be no and let your yes be yes. And so if you're going to

00:21:14.920 say no, then you go to your mentor and you say, Hey, Sean, I appreciate what you shared with me.

00:21:18.780 I'm not going to do that because of these reasons, but I appreciate the suggestion.

00:21:24.600 I still want to work together and I'm open to other suggestions, but that one is off the table

00:21:28.420 for me. That's that to me is how you address that. I'm not going to, I'm not look, I'm not here to

00:21:34.140 convince you that you should do it. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not here to tell you,

00:21:39.240 you should take the risk. I don't know what the risk is. I can't convince you to do one thing or the

00:21:44.180 other. All I'm going to say to you is make your decision and stand by your decision and then make

00:21:50.240 sure you communicate it like a mature, assertive man would do. What would you add to that? And then

00:21:57.080 we'll get to the second part of that question. Well, I'd say everything you just said, I've done

00:22:02.240 exactly that with one of my mentors before. And I, I told him I'm not going to do that. And here's why.

00:22:09.260 And what, what it was ultimately for me was that the risk was going to be a detriment to my family

00:22:16.760 dynamic at that time. And so I needed to focus more time. I don't, I didn't have the mental and

00:22:22.300 physical capacity to be able to juggle both, if that makes sense. And so I took priorities in hand

00:22:30.220 and told him, and guess what he said? I totally understand. And as a matter of fact, I respect you

00:22:35.320 for that. And in this time in your life, I didn't understand that other dynamic was going on and I'm

00:22:41.180 glad you told me. And so it was great. It didn't mess up the relationship or anything else. Um, but I

00:22:48.660 will also add that if this is your mentor that you respect and you're, you truly believe about him,

00:22:55.180 what you said, also don't expect that he's going to work with you as closely, um, as you want.

00:23:04.300 Um, at least not right now at this moment in your business and in your life or whatever it is that

00:23:11.560 he's mentoring you on, um, because you're not taking his advice, you know, and I will say that

00:23:17.500 about mentorship. There's, you don't get a ton of chances, um, to not do what they say. And I know

00:23:24.400 for me, when people come to me, if they ask me what to do and you tell them and they still choose

00:23:28.240 not to do it, I'm out. Like why I have all these other people that will listen and I'm going to focus

00:23:35.180 my time and attention on them more than you. And again, the circumstance may be valid or whatever

00:23:40.320 else. And, and I'll say that for my mentor, he, he was focused on other people and I didn't expect

00:23:45.320 for him to be focused on me. But I'll tell you what, when I went back to him several years later,

00:23:50.080 now we're engaged and we're doing things and, and, and I'm re-engaged and now he's back helping me

00:23:56.240 again. But there was a time where he wasn't. And so don't expect him to be fully engaged in

00:24:04.160 your pursuit. Um, if you're not going to take that advice. So, you know, there's, there's that risk

00:24:12.660 too. So weigh the risks. And as we're saying, you know, I, I will add that in deeper, like looking

00:24:21.120 at this, someone in the IC Allen actually answered him back. And then he, and then he went deeper and

00:24:26.680 said that the ultimate risk that he's taking, if he, if he takes that back step, meaning if he fails

00:24:33.240 by the thing that he's scared to do, it may take him a year to overcome. And my thought was like

00:24:41.540 a year, really like a year's not that big of a deal. Your risk to maybe achieve some monumental

00:24:48.440 things in your business to me, doesn't sound like a major risk. No, if that makes sense. So it sounds

00:24:53.980 like a larger risk to not take his advice, especially if he's been through those waters before. Um, and

00:25:01.980 again, weigh the risk of what means more to you. I think what's important to realize is that all of

00:25:08.900 our decisions have a cost associated with them. And we usually think about negative decisions,

00:25:14.800 having a cost. It's naturally what we go to. If I do this thing, here's the risk of it. And it'll

00:25:20.080 have a negative cost, but also positive decisions have a cost. You could absolutely, in this case,

00:25:26.040 let's say you decide not to take your mentor's advice. You could absolutely be doing the right

00:25:31.540 thing. And there's still a cost to it, which means, and you alluded to one of them, you might lose

00:25:36.460 your mentor is that is not doing it and, and choosing your family. Like you talked about in your

00:25:42.680 example, is that worth, worth the cost? I don't think we weigh the cost enough of our decisions. We

00:25:48.660 weigh the cost of bad decisions or what if, what if it goes wrong? But look, if we just realize, Hey,

00:25:53.520 I'm going to make this decision. And I realized there's a cost associated with it. Then you get to own

00:25:58.460 it and you get to live with it. This is why like the fear of missing out thing doesn't resonate with me

00:26:03.140 very much because when somebody invites me to do something, I'll either say yes, because I want to

00:26:08.500 do the thing, or maybe I'll say no, because I'm choosing something else. And I realized I'm going

00:26:12.540 to miss out on friendship building. I'm going to miss out on networking. Um, I'm going to miss out on

00:26:17.520 just having a good time. And I'm willing to pay that price because the decision I made over here was

00:26:22.900 the right one for me in the moment. And if you just own it, it's not that big a deal. Um, there's

00:26:28.480 another consideration here. And, and, and you said, you talked about excuses. Like I realized

00:26:34.920 this might just be an excuse, although it's a good one. I actually think there's a distinction

00:26:38.660 between excuses and reasons and excuses are like putting a period on the end of a sentence. Once

00:26:45.600 you put that period on the end of a sentence, the sentence is done. It's over. There's nothing else to

00:26:51.820 it. And so if you said to yourself, I'm just throwing out a random excuse, I'm not good enough to do

00:26:57.000 this period. Then that's an excuse. Now what's interesting is that reasons are more like commas

00:27:04.100 in a sentence. So we could take the same verbiage. I'm not good enough. If you say, I'm not good

00:27:10.320 enough, period. That's an excuse. If you say, I'm not good enough. So I need to learn X, Y, and Z.

00:27:18.380 Then it's no longer an excuse. It's a viable reason why you might be fearful, why you might be scared,

00:27:24.400 why you might not want to pursue it, but it's a comma. And there's more to the story that you

00:27:30.380 haven't written yet. But I could say that with podcasting. When I started, I don't know how to

00:27:34.800 podcast period. Okay. That's a dumb excuse. I don't know how to podcast. Get real and jump on YouTube

00:27:42.700 and take five minutes and learn how to do this thing. Instead, I don't know how to podcast.

00:27:46.800 So I'm going to figure it out. And I jumped on YouTube and I looked at Pat Flynn's got a great

00:27:53.560 resource on podcasting. And I went through that tutorial and did it word by word, line by line.

00:27:59.380 It was a reason that I was hesitant, but ultimately not an excuse to keep me from doing it.

00:28:05.920 I like that a lot. And it's the only other thing I could think of in that is that

00:28:11.300 for you to succeed in anything, you have to know you deserve it. And the only way you know you

00:28:17.180 deserve it is by the risks you take and the sacrifices you make, you know, Napoleon Hill

00:28:22.720 and think and grow rich. Everybody focuses on how he talks about how you need to know exactly what you

00:28:27.300 want and when you want to buy and have the date and it be exact in what you want. But the next thing

00:28:34.620 he says, most people overlooked, he says, you also have to be an exact in what you're willing to

00:28:38.620 sacrifice to gain those things. And, and too many people overlook the sacrifice part in meaning that

00:28:45.740 none of those things happen without the sacrifice and without the risk, because you're never going

00:28:49.900 to feel like you truly deserve it. So I, so I do take, I agree with that, but I do take a little

00:28:54.820 bit of issue with, I deserve thing. And the reason I do is because I, well, I don't feel like I deserve

00:29:01.980 anything. And, and I feel like if I begun to believe that I deserved things that might stunt

00:29:09.220 my growth. So, well, I, I agree with that because I don't feel if, especially the higher performer you

00:29:15.220 are, you never feel like you totally deserve it. Cause you always feel like you're a work in progress.

00:29:19.120 I think when I say deserve, what I, what I mean by deserve is that you are, you're confident in

00:29:30.340 why you have what you have. You're, you can, you can feel good about it. Yeah. Because you've put in

00:29:38.000 the work you've put in the sacrifice. You've, you've done everything it took. So no one could ever take

00:29:42.960 that from you. You're never in a position where, yeah, maybe you don't deserve it because you know,

00:29:47.760 you can be better, but there's a difference between knowing that everything you have is

00:29:53.660 because of the work and the sacrifice and the toil that you put in to get there.

00:29:59.300 Yeah. You know, one thing I've thought about is our worth as just human beings. And I believe

00:30:06.540 divine creatures, we, there's so much worth in us and it's usually left as untapped potential.

00:30:14.140 And what I would say to a guy who's struggling maybe to take risks or struggling to try something

00:30:18.700 or struggling just to go to the gym or struggling with whatever is you're worth that investment.

00:30:25.100 Yeah.

00:30:25.960 You're worth that effort. Now, look, I'm not here to tell you, you deserve what you want. You don't

00:30:31.920 wanting something has nothing to do with whether or not you'll achieve it has something to do,

00:30:37.680 but it's very minimal, but you're worth trying. You're worth the effort it would take

00:30:44.220 to put you in a different position. You're worth that. And if you believed in that inherent worth

00:30:51.700 that you have, I think more of us would not slump into depression when things go wrong,

00:30:56.080 but we would rise up to challenges that we face and face them head on and figure out how in the world

00:31:00.500 to do them. That actually leads into this guy's second question, which was about

00:31:04.060 this insurmountable task. And I don't want to beat a dead horse here. So maybe we'll just hit it

00:31:08.340 quickly and then we'll move on to the next question just to change it up a little bit. But

00:31:12.040 look, you're worth whatever that objective is. Your inherent built-in worth is worth pursuing that.

00:31:21.240 Don't allow it to be so overwhelming that you don't do it because then you're undermining your worth.

00:31:27.180 Take it and break it down. That's what you have to do. Okay. You just have to break it down.

00:31:33.300 There's big things going on in my life right now that I think a lot of people would crumble at.

00:31:38.760 I'm not going to crumble. Look, there's times where I'm overwhelmed. I'm not going to crumble

00:31:43.600 because of my worth. I don't have the luxury of crumbling. And so I can take these big, daunting,

00:31:53.660 challenging trials and obstacles and say, okay, what's next? What do I need to do today?

00:32:00.060 Okay. Do that. Not even today, maybe. What do I need to do this hour? Well, my alarm just went off.

00:32:06.780 Really don't want to go to the gym, but that needs to be done because I'm worth going to the gym.

00:32:12.340 And so I go to the gym, you know, and it's like, you just build upon those things. So take whatever

00:32:16.660 that seemingly insurmountable task is, break it down into small manageable steps and just look at that

00:32:22.220 thing in front of you. You don't need to have the roadmap. You just need to know the next step

00:32:25.880 and the next step and the next step and the next step, but only once you complete the previous

00:32:29.940 step. Yeah. I like it. All right. Next question. It says, simple Ryan, how are you in here? Oh,

00:32:38.000 how are you in the here and now? How are you coping with the recent personal events you shared with the

00:32:43.460 IC? What methods are you using and implementing on a daily basis to keep on the steady path of personal

00:32:49.500 strength and growth? Yeah. I mean, as far as, you know, I I've been pretty open about the alcoholism,

00:32:55.060 you know, and so, so sober for eight months now, I think it's just under eight months. So that's,

00:33:02.480 that's been going well. You know, how do I, what, what tasks or what, what systems am I using? I think

00:33:08.240 you said for something along those lines. What methods are you using and implementing on a daily basis?

00:33:14.660 It's the battle plan that that's it. I mean, that's my answer. You know, it's interesting when

00:33:19.660 things don't go well in my life, it's because I don't do my battle plan. It's like I deviate. I

00:33:24.960 start to think that maybe I have it figured out or, uh, you know, that I don't, I don't need to do that

00:33:29.820 or, or it isn't that important. And then that stacks on top of another day, another day, another day,

00:33:36.600 another day. And then before I know it, I look back and I've deviated so far off course that it's

00:33:40.840 almost unrecognizable. And I actually became unrecognizable. I look back now and I'm like,

00:33:45.580 man, I'll listen to podcasts and, and, and just replay conversations that I've had with people in

00:33:51.440 my life. Man, that was a real piece of work to put it mildly. But why did I get that way? Because

00:33:57.180 I deviated from my plan for too long. It happens, you know, we miss a workout or we wake up late or

00:34:04.360 we eat more than we want, or we have an argument with our spouse or, um, you know, the project doesn't

00:34:08.840 go well, or we lose our cool with our kids. Like it happens, but the key is to get back on some sort

00:34:14.100 of path as quickly as we possibly can and not let the problem compound. And that's what I was letting

00:34:18.780 have have happened. So what methods am I using? It's the battle plan. For those of you who don't

00:34:24.140 know what the battle plan is, uh, you can, I think if you go to order of man.com slash TWBP as in 12 week

00:34:34.280 battle plan. So TWBP, you can watch quick video on it. Uh, but it's identified, it's, it's creating

00:34:40.760 a vision for yourself, identifying objectives in four key areas of your life, and then breaking it

00:34:45.640 down into daily tactics that you can do every single day to accomplish your objective. So for

00:34:50.940 quarter two, um, mine personally, just so you guys know, and this will answer his question is my

00:34:58.980 calibration, uh, objective is to develop greater emotional maturity. Now, typically that's not a

00:35:04.900 good enough objective because it's not measurable, but in this case it is measurable because I've

00:35:09.320 created a series of questions and, uh, analysis that will actually track my emotional maturity.

00:35:18.960 Uh, and so one way that I'm doing that developing greater emotional maturity, two ways, actually

00:35:23.820 specifically one is journaling every single day about how I feel, what I'm experiencing, what I'm going

00:35:28.860 through. And then number two is reading the Bible because obviously, you know, having a greater,

00:35:35.300 being greater in touch with your spirituality and where you come from and your worth, like we were

00:35:38.640 talking about earlier, helps with being centered. Um, my connection, uh, um, objective is again,

00:35:46.040 this is relationship with other people. It's to coach successfully. My two oldest, excuse me,

00:35:51.280 not my tools, my two youngest boys, baseball teams. So we, we practice or we do something every day,

00:35:57.100 whether it's playing catch or having practice, we've got a game tonight. Condition is to complete a,

00:36:02.420 uh, Ragnar relay race and a, uh, Spartan race. I don't like running at all. So those are good for

00:36:10.640 me. And, um, the contribution, which is becoming a man of value. I'm actually going to keep that one

00:36:17.540 personal for myself right now, but, but those, that gives you an idea of what I'm doing on a daily

00:36:25.040 basis and what my battle plan looks like. So that that's the system I use. And if I stay on track

00:36:29.340 and I do it every day, it's, it's money, it's golden. It just works. Yeah, I agree. Mine's

00:36:34.920 right here. Actually. It's funny. I printed my copy to bring to the barn and then taping it. I'm

00:36:40.000 taping it right here so that when I sit here and do my work, it's, I'm looking at it every day. And,

00:36:44.860 um, and like you said there, I went, um, a couple of quarters ago without that and started to drift a

00:36:52.500 little, you know, not majorly cause it was just a quarter, but still you drift if it's not in front

00:36:56.800 of you. So I, I totally agree. Um, you also, when you were looking for the resource, there's also the

00:37:03.960 battle battle planner app, you know, that as you said that there's the app as well. So you can get

00:37:09.420 that on, uh, the app store, uh, and get the, the battle planner app for yourself as well. Um, yeah.

00:37:17.360 So it's, uh, I will, one thing that you said, I'm not going to add to what you said,

00:37:21.760 but I will point something out because every time someone talks about how they feel,

00:37:26.700 like you always have a comment about it. You had it in this podcast, right? And like,

00:37:31.620 Oh, I don't know if you necessarily like feeling is as important, but in your battle plan

00:37:35.280 to create emotional maturity, it's funny that you have that, that you're going to journal how you

00:37:41.900 feel. Right. So it's something that, right. I mean, that, that's saying a lot that you just,

00:37:47.040 that stood out to me. And the reason that I need to do that is because,

00:37:51.360 so people who are trying to think of the, the, the word people who suppress their emotions

00:37:58.560 are the most emotional people out there. Like, think about that guys, the, the guy,

00:38:04.680 and we're talking to men, the men who suppress their emotions are some of the most emotionally

00:38:10.700 responsive people out there. Isn't that weird? And instead, I know, look, I'm not telling you that

00:38:17.240 you need to run around babbling like an idiot all day long. Cause you want to express how you feel 1.00

00:38:21.880 like we have shit to do. You don't have time for that. But if you're sad, you better sit with that 0.98

00:38:28.340 for a minute, because if you don't, it's going to manifest itself at a very inappropriate time.

00:38:34.560 I guarantee it's going to be inappropriate when it comes out or you're angry about something.

00:38:39.740 And you're like, Oh, let's just get over it. You are more emotionally charged than the guy who's

00:38:45.960 like, no, I'm, I'm angry because of, and then this list, the scenario. And I don't want to be that guy.

00:38:52.160 I was that guy. You know, the slightest little thing would trip me up and would, would set me

00:38:56.500 off and trigger me and lose my cool or lose my patience or I'd turn to alcohol. I don't want to

00:39:01.440 be that guy. I want to know what I'm feeling. I'm sad today. Why am I sad? Because of this.

00:39:05.880 Okay. Well, sit with it for a while. How can you not be sad? Maybe do these things instead,

00:39:11.560 or I'm angry or, and just the fact of journaling, just the fact of having an outlet is amazing

00:39:18.200 because I can get it. And that's how I process, but get it out of my brain onto paper. So it's not

00:39:23.600 just bouncing around like an, like an echo chamber all day. But yeah, I think the reason I say I,

00:39:30.440 I, about feelings is I see too many people putting too much weight into their feelings. And that's

00:39:35.740 what I mean. It's like letting it dictate every tone of their conversation or every decision that

00:39:41.020 they're going to make. And I don't want that to happen. So I'm actually going to get more in touch

00:39:46.940 with my feelings rather than push them down. Isn't that weird? It's such a weird thing.

00:39:52.300 It's a weird thing. And they're, when you talk about sadness and anger, they're so close on the

00:39:56.760 spectrum of feelings as well as a lot of times we're mad, but we think we're sad or vice versa.

00:40:05.400 We're sad and we think we're angry. And so we're, we're reacting to those emotions inappropriately

00:40:13.220 because we're not differentiating between the two and, and letting it out appropriately.

00:40:18.840 Or just examining it. You know, why am I mad? I'm mad because my, a client of mine said this thing.

00:40:25.680 Okay. Why does that make you mad? Like that question alone has saved me so much headache.

00:40:33.000 Why, why does that make you mad? Oh, my son said this thing to me today. Why does that make you mad?

00:40:37.440 And then the usually is like, well, it shouldn't really make me mad, but why does it, you know,

00:40:41.900 and you try to, you get to the root of it and explore it. You're like, oh, it's not about my

00:40:45.120 son at all. It's about my own insecurities. You know, he said something, I took it out of context.

00:40:51.380 I took it the wrong way. I felt offended or I felt slighted. Now I'm angry. And it's like,

00:40:55.340 oh, maybe he actually didn't mean any of that at all. Maybe he was having a bad day and said it and

00:41:00.560 it wasn't intended or directed at you. It rarely is. People aren't out to get us. And you just

00:41:06.420 created a whole story around it that doesn't exist. Yeah. Well, and that's what I'm talking

00:41:11.780 about too. Sometimes you might sit down and say, well, why am I mad about that? And the more you

00:41:16.180 think about it, maybe you realize I'm actually not mad. I'm sad about that. Like that made me sad,

00:41:21.780 not mad. You know, and there's sometimes we just don't want to accept that, especially as men,

00:41:26.200 cause we're not supposed to be sad. Right. We're not supposed to want to cry. We're not supposed

00:41:31.120 to feel that emotion sometimes. Um, or we tell ourselves that, and it's sometimes you just need

00:41:37.480 to reflect and realize that's what it is and be okay with it. Look, I talk with more men than probably

00:41:42.880 most guys do just because of the nature of my work. And I can tell you most men are pretty sad.

00:41:48.460 Yeah. I agree. Like they're dealing with some shit, you know, they're dealing with financial

00:41:53.980 hardship. They're dealing with health problems or dealing with marital breakdowns or dealing with 0.99

00:41:59.600 issues with their kids. Like most men are pretty hurt. And because we don't have a healthy way to

00:42:06.920 process the feelings, we just suppress it and we walk around and we put our smile on and, you know,

00:42:13.660 we, we do what we're quote unquote supposed to do and pretty tore up and broken inside. It's rough.

00:42:19.260 Yeah. It's weird too with men because we're perfectly fine with being mad, but we're not

00:42:24.860 okay at all with being sad. Yeah. Good point. Really good point. Yeah. I don't want to be either.

00:42:30.800 So therefore I need to get stuck with it and figure it out. I like it. Awesome. Next question is Ryan

00:42:36.380 Umagat. And he says, Ryan and Sean, thank you for all you do. We in IC appreciate your insights and

00:42:42.680 feedback. Please continue to share as you do with the AMAs and FFNs. My question is this. How do you

00:42:48.660 draw the line between comforting a loved one after a loss or setback and rewarding less than ideal

00:42:54.400 results? For example, my girlfriend recently took an exam for promotion at work. Unfortunately,

00:42:59.780 she did not pass. My initial gut instinct is to comfort and console her, but I also understand that

00:43:05.720 allowing her to feel the pain and sting of failure is important in driving her to success in her next

00:43:10.740 attempt. How do you discern when and how much to allow someone to experience pain and negative

00:43:16.680 consequences without allowing anger and resentment to build up while also not becoming too much of a

00:43:21.880 crutch for someone to lean on in their personal progression? It's a good question.

00:43:26.580 It is a good question. I I'm, I'm hung up on this concept of comforting and I've thought a lot

00:43:34.580 about it lately. I don't think telling people they're okay and patting them on the head and

00:43:40.320 coddling them is comforting. That's not comforting. Yeah. Because whatever your girlfriend is dealing 1.00

00:43:45.660 with, right? It's his girlfriend, right? Yes. Whatever she's dealing with, with her exam,

00:43:50.680 like you saying, Hey, you're good, hon. You're, you're, you're smart. You're, you can do this.

00:43:55.420 That's not comforting because in her head, she's probably thinking I suck. I'm not smart. I can't do this. 1.00

00:44:02.060 I'm not good enough. And then you say, Oh no, you are good enough. And now she is contentious

00:44:07.800 with you because now you have a disagreement. She may not vocalize it. You know, it may not turn

00:44:13.700 into an argument, but there's a disagreement there. You think she's good enough. Here's another thing 0.79

00:44:19.140 that could happen when you try to comfort her that way. You could actually, she couldn't, I don't know

00:44:23.960 if she will, but she could actually interpret that as you invalidating her feelings. Because if she,

00:44:29.940 if she feels like she's not good enough and not smart enough and not intelligent enough,

00:44:34.400 and you say, no, hon, you're good. You're invalidating what she's feeling.

00:44:39.420 And that just creates contention. So I think we, as men, and I say this out of personal experience,

00:44:45.660 need to stop with the fixing, need to stop with the comforting and consoling.

00:44:51.320 And I think we just need to be present for our people. So in this, in this case, Hey, hon,

00:44:58.180 man, you took that exam and said you didn't do so well on it. How do you feel? Oh, I just feel

00:45:03.680 horrible. Like I didn't study enough. And I just, I thought I was going to do well. And I didn't

00:45:08.920 really like, did you feel like you just got stressed out in the moment? Like you knew the material,

00:45:13.600 but you got stressed out in the moment and the test got your anxiety going and got the better of you.

00:45:18.060 Like, what do you think? Yeah. I felt really prepared, but yeah, I was nervous when I got in

00:45:24.180 there and I was sweating and I saw a couple of questions right off the bat. I didn't know.

00:45:28.360 Oh man. Yeah. I've, I definitely know how that feels. I can understand how you feel that way.

00:45:33.240 Like, what do you think you're going to do? Well, I'm going to take it again. Oh, that's good. Like

00:45:37.980 when, when's your next opportunity on two weeks? Awesome. Like, how are you, how are you going to

00:45:43.120 manage that your anxiety next time you go in? Like, what are you going to do about that? Well,

00:45:47.340 I think if I, you know, X, Y, and Z, like, you see what I'm saying? Like you're validating

00:45:51.640 everything that she's feeling. You're, you're talking to her. You're validating. You're asking

00:45:56.240 her questions. You're showing that you care. You're showing that you believe in her because

00:45:59.980 you're letting her answer and her own questions and come up with her own solutions. And that's

00:46:05.520 actually pretty comforting. And I think a woman's going to walk away from that or a man, if that's 0.87

00:46:10.320 your friend or whatever, like, I think a person's going to walk away with that elevated by that

00:46:14.300 experience. Like they're not going to walk away being like, Oh, I feel worse. They're

00:46:20.100 going to walk away being like, Oh, you know what? Rye is really there for me. He really

00:46:24.280 cares about me. That's nice. That's awesome. And that was comforting, but I didn't do it

00:46:29.440 by saying, yeah, you're a good girl. You're okay. You can do it. It was not pandering to

00:46:34.020 her. It was treating her like an adult and letting her come up with her own solutions. And I think

00:46:39.820 I was going to say women like that. I think everybody likes that. Yeah. I wish I would. I 0.99

00:46:43.700 wish I, I wish I would have learned that earlier and done more of that in all of my relationships,

00:46:48.000 but you know, 42 times around the, around the sun, hopefully maybe I'm learning a few things here

00:46:54.600 and there. Well, and there's a difference too, between, you know, maybe you didn't pass a test

00:47:00.620 or something like that and wanting to completely quit something. Right. And so there's, you know,

00:47:06.760 sometimes you need that accountability. You talked about it earlier, just talking about

00:47:10.920 the, the guys that you're doing the physical challenges with, right. And those things and

00:47:16.140 having that accountability or getting out the bow or whatever. And sometimes you need people in

00:47:21.800 your corner to just tell you to like, get your head out of your ass, you know, for lack of a better. 0.99

00:47:27.020 And, and by the way, that sometimes is easier for men to do with their, with their guy friends or 0.99

00:47:32.220 their support, you know, with other men than it is with their partner, you know, their, their spouse

00:47:38.640 or their girlfriend or, or whatever it is. But sometimes that's necessary too. And, but it's

00:47:44.560 less often, you know, and so I think it's, it's important to, to be able to differentiate between

00:47:50.120 the two as well. You know, I've seen it play out both ways. You know, and what you're talking about

00:47:56.620 is the best, most of the time. And I think it needs to be extreme for us to be like, Hey, look,

00:48:02.020 you know, you're get your head out of your butt. Everything you're saying is, you know, not true. 0.99

00:48:08.380 And, uh, and you just need to put in the work or whatever. Right. But those are more rare instances.

00:48:15.460 So, and I think there's a ratio probably, you know, I don't know what it is. It's different.

00:48:21.540 I'm sure for every situation, but if you come at it always like that, that's a problem. You know,

00:48:27.280 if you sprinkle those in with these other types of conversations, then it's, it actually holds more

00:48:32.960 weight. It's like swearing. If you swear every word, it becomes watered down and muted. If you

00:48:39.260 very rarely swear, and then you hear somebody doesn't swear, say something like, Oh, this guy's

00:48:43.860 fired. Like what's going on? I'm going to pay attention. You know? So guys forget to ask,

00:48:49.040 guys forget to ask questions, right? Because we want to fix everything. And so our gut reaction is

00:48:54.760 to tell them what to do next or to tell them it's okay. It's like one or the other. And I think what

00:48:58.720 you said is perfect because it's a blend of both. Um, but it's getting to the root and helping them

00:49:03.840 come up with it on their own, which is solving the problem actually. So you want, we want to solve

00:49:09.200 the problem. We're just doing it the wrong way. We, I like telling you, I do this. We want to solve

00:49:14.920 people's problems. That's what I want. I've just been doing it the wrong way. So I can still get

00:49:20.400 to the same result, which is solve the problem, but let them come up with the solutions. It's way

00:49:26.280 more effective. All right. What's next? That was good. Maybe one or two more, Sean. Yeah. Dustin

00:49:31.300 Stokes have advice direction for guys looking for intentional help that would fall under the umbrella

00:49:37.500 of therapy or counseling or life coach. For instance, I'm recently divorced, have an amazing

00:49:43.380 battle team and feel pretty good in most areas doing well in my quadrants. But after the end of

00:49:48.260 a 14 year marriage, I'm sure there are areas that need unpacking, evaluating, and sorting through.

00:49:54.020 Not sure what I need, not sure that I need traditional therapy, but not sure where to start.

00:49:59.540 I feel something more along the lines of a counselor or type of life coach might be better.

00:50:03.540 My goal would be to spend this time identifying areas, traits, beliefs, habits that may be there

00:50:09.680 that I'm unaware of, but would serve me better for the future, whether there's a new relationship or

00:50:15.000 not. Um, you could apply this idea to any scenario in life, not just relationships. What are your

00:50:20.900 thoughts? It sounds like you want therapy. Yeah. I mean, to identify traits, characteristics,

00:50:28.380 beliefs, patterns, whatever the words you use that you don't know are there. That's what a

00:50:32.940 therapist would do. They're going to ask you a good therapist is going to ask you questions.

00:50:36.960 They're going to uncover your beliefs. They're going to look into your narratives and scripts

00:50:40.380 that you've been operating your life by. Most of them are subconscious and, uh, they're going to

00:50:45.380 help you get to the root of it. So what, what's the aversion of therapy? I, I don't, I don't think

00:50:51.380 there should be one. And I don't, I don't go, I was going for a while. I I've got a lot of value

00:50:56.120 from it. Um, and, and at times I still will. In fact, you know, one of the things I've been

00:51:00.100 doing is there's, there's a handful of people that in my life that I really think highly of

00:51:05.520 in different aspects of life. And I always wanted to impress them because I held, I held them in high

00:51:12.240 regard. And so I wanted to have things figured out and I wanted to like be valuable to them. And

00:51:19.100 like, that's what I wanted. And I think that's pretty natural. And I've, I, I made the decision.

00:51:25.060 In fact, I had a conversation on Sunday with somebody I really admire and respect. And I

00:51:31.400 actually just said, Hey, I got to talk with you about some problems I'm dealing with. In fact,

00:51:35.280 I need your advice. And I would have never done that a year ago because that wouldn't have impressed

00:51:40.240 this person. In my mind, it would have made me look less than in their eyes. And we had a great

00:51:47.400 conversation on Sunday and I think our relationship is better. Actually, I think there's a new level of

00:51:54.340 respect that wasn't, that didn't exist before. And maybe what you need therapy is certainly an

00:52:01.760 avenue and we can look at that, but maybe also what you need is to open your mouth and talk to

00:52:05.920 people about your problems. You know, find somebody who's good at what you want to be good at and

00:52:11.240 stop. We'll call it peacocking. Like stop that. Just tell that person that you got to have some,

00:52:18.240 some discretion here on who you tell. I'm not saying just go share everything with everybody,

00:52:23.020 but maybe you can isolate something you want to share with a specific person.

00:52:29.840 And that might get you on the path to figuring some of this stuff out because they might have

00:52:34.580 some really good advice for you. And odds are they either went through the same thing you're going

00:52:39.900 through now, or they know of somebody they're going to have some, if you think highly of them,

00:52:43.700 they're going to have some advice for you. I'm reminded, I heard a story, Benjamin Franklin,

00:52:48.480 when there was people that, that didn't, that didn't like him or he didn't like,

00:52:53.940 he would make it a point to go borrow a book from them. Yeah. I've heard this. Yeah. He would go borrow

00:53:02.320 a book from somebody he didn't like or have a good relationship with, and then he would read it and

00:53:06.280 then he would return it and he would, you know, thank them for letting him borrow the book. And,

00:53:11.120 and he found that the relationships improved. And anytime you can allow somebody to be helpful,

00:53:19.020 the relationship is going to improve. If you allow them to be a value, if you allow them to be of

00:53:24.880 service, this is why when people say, Hey, can I do anything for you? I give them something to do.

00:53:30.300 Like very, very, I don't like to say, Hey, when somebody says, Hey, can I do anything for you? I don't

00:53:35.360 like to say, Oh no, I'm good. Because who am I to deny the opportunity for that person to serve?

00:53:41.120 Hmm. I, I think that person wants to serve. I think maybe me having this need in my life

00:53:47.760 is what allows them to add value in a meaningful and significant way. And their life is fulfilled

00:53:52.760 because of it. And so is mine too, because I get the help I need. So let's open up a little bit more.

00:53:58.700 So I would try that. And then regarding the therapy there's a great resource called betterhelp.com

00:54:04.860 and it's, it's online therapy and they can match you with specific people in your area or,

00:54:10.440 you know, a man versus a woman or a person who's trained in substance abuse versus family

00:54:16.820 relationship issues. So that might be a really good resource you can check out too. It's fairly

00:54:21.920 inexpensive. And, you know, you could try it and see how it feels and that might be a good avenue for

00:54:27.740 you. That's awesome. I like it. The only thing I would add is just a thought on when you said

00:54:32.580 reaching out and how they feel. I've, I find myself more in the mentoring end than any other thing.

00:54:37.760 And this is just in friends in general, when I see them saying things I know they're uncomfortable

00:54:43.020 with or, or reaching out for things that are maybe they're seemingly their faults or, or

00:54:50.460 things they're uncomfortable with about themselves that they don't typically want to share or wouldn't

00:54:58.340 normally come out and share it. When they do, I make it a point to let them know

00:55:02.880 that I'm proud of them, which is weird for me. I don't like telling someone I'm proud of them

00:55:07.280 necessarily, but I think it's important, especially for men that when they are insecure in something and

00:55:13.660 you know that they're coming out and talking about it, that you let them know exactly what you said,

00:55:19.140 that there's actually extra, an extra level of respect there that you see in them. I think it's

00:55:26.500 important for men to know that and to feel that when they're going through that and they're reaching

00:55:30.700 out, because like you said, not enough guys reach out. And I think the more support they can get

00:55:35.080 in taking those actions is necessary from a leadership standpoint. And even just from a friend

00:55:41.360 standpoint for, you know, somebody that cares in their life, I think it's important that we do those

00:55:46.560 things and let the men in our lives know when we see them doing it.

00:55:50.840 Yeah. You know, I think about why we have such a hard time. And I think a lot of it is culturally,

00:55:56.340 you know, men are warriors and we're the battlers and all this kind of stuff. And I think about,

00:55:59.680 you know, there's specific people. One movie that comes to mind, and I know it's mostly fictional

00:56:07.400 based on a real character, but mostly fictional is Braveheart. And you think about William Wallace,

00:56:13.080 you know, he's this sage warrior. And we all think that he's got everything figured out and he's always

00:56:20.500 the one to come up with the plans and, you know, he doesn't have any issues and the issues that he does

00:56:25.940 have. He's able to harness those issues and do something that's, you know, meaningful and

00:56:30.440 significant. But also he had a very, and I know this is just a movie, right? But what we overlook

00:56:36.520 is that he had a very close circle of men around him that loved him, that would die for him.

00:56:45.160 What does that take? Does that take superficial conversations about the weather and sports?

00:56:51.620 Or does that take bonded in a common struggle? Does that take failure and loss? You know,

00:56:59.000 you see what William Wallace lost, you know, his family, his wife. And then you see what the other

00:57:05.180 guys lost, fathers, brothers, friends. Don't you think they were bonded over that? Not how great they

00:57:12.620 were, but the pain and suffering and losses they had in their lives. That's what they were bonded around.

00:57:18.680 And we overlook that. We think that, oh, we just got to be the warrior. You should be a warrior.

00:57:23.960 Absolutely. You should. You should be completely capable of doing whatever needs to be done

00:57:28.140 to secure your own safety, your loved ones and the people around you. You should absolutely be able

00:57:32.380 to do that. And I think being bonded with other men will help you be more proficient in those things.

00:57:41.000 I like it. So bottom line, get the help. Whether it's called therapy or whatever it's called,

00:57:46.740 doesn't matter as much as just having the conversations. All right.

00:57:50.740 All right, brother. Let's wrap it up today.

00:57:52.620 All right. Last one. This is from Facebook. Cordell Neely. What's the appropriate way to

00:57:58.860 handle ultimatums in relationships? I recently broke up with my girlfriend because she gave me a 0.98

00:58:03.740 second ultimatum in our short relationship. I believe if I had continued down this road,

00:58:08.220 it would have led to resentment and a potential marriage with the Rocky Foundation. 0.95

00:58:13.000 What's the best way to handle that? Sounds like you handled it correctly.

00:58:16.860 What's the appropriate way to handle ultimatums?

00:58:19.800 I mean, if she gives you an ultimatum, well, here's what I would say. If you don't appreciate

00:58:24.220 the ultimatum, that's the first thing you say, hey, hon, I love you. But the way, what you're doing

00:58:30.740 right now, like all or nothing or this or that, like I'm not going to do that. So I'm happy to discuss

00:58:36.060 what you're upset about. I'm happy to discuss what you want, which is probably, I'm assuming it's

00:58:40.000 marriage. I'm happy to talk about that. But if you're going to come in here and strong arm me,

00:58:47.940 I'm not interested in that. So you want to rethink that or is that what you're going to stand by?

00:58:54.780 Because if it is, then I'm choosing option A and I'm out. But if you want to actually discuss this

00:59:02.880 and have a real conversation about marriage or when you'd like to get married or how you'd like

00:59:08.740 to do this, I love you. I'd love to have that discussion, but we're going to do it maturely.

00:59:13.380 We're not going to do ultimatums. That's immaturity. Like saying, hey, you will marry me.

00:59:18.400 I assume it's marriage, but hey, you're going to do this by this date or I'm out.

00:59:24.080 That's a sign of immaturity. And I think it's your job as a man to elevate the conversation in

00:59:29.120 that one. That's what I would say. It sounds like you made a good decision because you don't want to

00:59:34.040 be married. It doesn't sound like. So the worst thing you could do is say, okay, yeah, I'll marry

00:59:40.380 you. That's the worst thing you could do, but I would talk about it. Yeah. And I don't know

00:59:45.740 what the ultimatum was. I thought of the, for me, when I met my wife and found her and figured out

00:59:52.140 she was the one part of my thought process of who I, you got to know who you want to be with.

00:59:58.920 You also need to know who you don't want to be with. And so I had a hard line for a few things

01:00:04.860 that if, you know, if it, if a woman I was dating ever said these things, you know, it's me or your

01:00:12.340 business, it's me or this or me, or, you know, there were certain choices that if they, I knew

01:00:18.100 going into a relationship that that was a, that was a deal breaker for me. And if, if, you know,

01:00:24.460 knowing what those were going to be ahead of time it was easy to spot those things early on

01:00:30.960 as I was dating and I was talking to people and just in, in how they showed up in our regular

01:00:37.220 conversations that if I saw it leading, even in that direction, I was out, you know, I, I agree

01:00:44.480 with you. I think the fact that he's out is good. Um, it's why you don't stick yourself in that bad

01:00:49.880 situation, but I think it's also important to know what they are. And then I also think it's

01:00:54.040 different. There is a difference. He's talking about early term relationships and that's when it's

01:00:59.720 most important. Um, but I think, you know, as you're married, you could be in a marriage for

01:01:04.760 10 years, 15 years, you know, or whatever. And then ultimatums may arise. I don't think those are

01:01:10.840 necessarily deal breakers anymore. If that makes sense. I think that that needs to be further

01:01:15.160 conversation, like you said, and it needs to be mature. And it, you know, you have to, you have to,

01:01:22.900 um, not accept it, but you have to, um, be willing to dive deeper into it.

01:01:32.440 Cause you've already made the, you can't just leave it at this or that. You can't just leave

01:01:37.100 it at one or the other. It has to be a, uh, a conversation that you take seriously. So I think

01:01:44.320 there's two different circumstances. Yeah. I think what a lot of guys will do is, is especially

01:01:49.960 in that early dating is a woman will say something or do something that's a red flag. And then because 0.99

01:01:57.920 they love her, they'll either overlook it or hope that at some future date, she'll change.

01:02:04.280 And she probably won't. Well, she's giving you the ultimatum because she's trying to change you. 0.98

01:02:09.800 And so if you're trying to, if that means you're both waiting for each other to change and that's

01:02:14.220 a bad start. Well, there's another thing here too. Again, I'm assuming it's marriage, but if I'm wrong,

01:02:19.180 I mean, tell me, but, but if she's like, Hey, we need to be, you need to ask me to marry you or I'm

01:02:23.280 out. That's actually a fairy quest on her part. You have to think about that too. Like what she

01:02:29.240 wants is important and you may not be able to give it to her. Like if she wants to get married 0.99

01:02:34.860 and you can't give her that, like she's important too. And so maybe the relationship is not only not

01:02:41.260 good for you, maybe it's not good for her. Maybe she needs to be released so she can go find somebody 1.00

01:02:45.900 who can marry her on her timetable or, or give her what she needs. I mean, that sucks because that 0.98

01:02:52.220 means like that you take that personal, right? Even though, you know, you couldn't give what she 0.66

01:02:57.420 needed. It's still a rejection and it hurts, you know, but it's, it's just operating in reality.

01:03:04.960 And too many of us don't, we put the rose colored glasses on and, and we, you know, try to, we

01:03:10.460 overlook situations and we bury certain things and we don't discuss this. We don't do that.

01:03:15.600 And because it's hard to deal in reality sometimes, but it's way better than dealing in delusion and

01:03:24.320 it only leads to a path of despair and depression. Yeah. I like that. I like that. You said that I'm

01:03:30.000 glad that you said that because my automatic from the hip thing was man, ultimatum suck. Like you 0.99

01:03:34.940 should have ditched her, but I think you're right. You have to evaluate his marriage, even what I want.

01:03:40.040 So if that is the ultimatum of marriage and that's not what you want, then yeah, you need to, you need

01:03:44.980 to get out, but do you want to be married? Right. Do you, is that something that you do want? And

01:03:50.960 could this be someone you could see being that person for you? And if you don't have that reflection,

01:03:56.760 you know, then yeah, maybe you're making a mistake. So it's, it's, it's, maybe she's just immaturity and

01:04:03.940 maybe she, she wants to get married and she just doesn't know how to say it right. And yeah,

01:04:08.560 but that's, again, that's why it warrants a further discussion before you're like blow the

01:04:12.120 whole thing apart. But you, you know, you, you, a lot of times we don't look at the other person,

01:04:16.920 but Sean, what you just said a minute ago was actually an ultimatum. Like if a woman says this,

01:04:22.120 I'm out. So what you're saying is don't say that, don't believe that, or I'm out. That's

01:04:27.740 an ultimatum you have and it's okay. In fact, it's, it's probably a healthy thing because you know

01:04:33.880 what you want and what you don't want. So I think that needs to be communicated up front.

01:04:38.160 It does. Through the dating process. I mean,

01:04:40.220 and that was one thing I was very clear on with the, you know, if it, it, as it came up,

01:04:44.200 I'd be like, Hey, look, just so you know, like most of my time and effort is going to be on this

01:04:48.260 thing. And like, if you're cool with that, we can continue dating and, you know, and it's either

01:04:55.620 an issue or it's not. Right. Cool. All right, brother, let's wrap it up today. Yeah. Well,

01:05:01.180 always good. Always great conversation. And obviously order man.com check out the IC it's

01:05:08.080 closed right now again, right? It is. Yep. When's that going to open back up or do you know that

01:05:14.000 will open up? Yeah. June. Yeah. June. It'll open up, open up again in June. So another three months

01:05:20.600 or so. Okay. Awesome. And then any other resources the guys need to know? We talked about the batter

01:05:27.160 planner app, your book, masculinity manifesto manifesto. We're working on getting sovereignty

01:05:32.800 back in on Amazon, which has been kind of a nightmare. So stay tuned, stand by on that one.

01:05:37.540 Yeah. I mean, for now, check out the battle ready program. You guys are asking about battle planning.

01:05:41.600 We have a 30 day free battle ready program. If you go to order a man.com slash battle ready,

01:05:46.220 you can sign up for that. And that'll walk you through a little bit more in depth, a lot more in

01:05:50.020 depth on what I shared about how I stay on track and what happens when I don't. So check it out.

01:05:56.620 order of man.com slash battle ready. All right, guys. Appreciate y'all great questions today.

01:06:01.020 Keep them coming. We've got some reserve questions for next week. We'll get to,

01:06:04.820 but until then go out there, take action and become a man. You are meant to be.

01:06:08.800 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

01:06:13.120 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - April 05, 2023

Rise of the "Peter Pans," Overcoming Insurmountable Challenges, and How to Comfort Others Correctly ｜ ASK ME ANYTHING

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Order of Man - April 05, 2023

Rise of the &#x22;Peter Pans,&#x22; Overcoming Insurmountable Challenges, and How to Comfort Others Correctly ｜ ASK ME ANYTHING

Episode Stats

Summary

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Rise of the "Peter Pans," Overcoming Insurmountable Challenges, and How to Comfort Others Correctly ｜ ASK ME ANYTHING