Order of Man - RYAN MICHLER ｜ The Origin of Order of Man

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

00:00:05.980 When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:00:10.420 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.

00:00:15.500 This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become.

00:00:19.740 At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:00:25.740 Guys, this one's a little bit different than I've done in the past.

00:00:28.240 My good friend Kip Sorensen interviews me.

00:00:30.960 I'm on the hot seat today, and I'm very excited to be talking with you about all things Order of Man,

00:00:36.900 including the origin story of Order of Man, why we need to be careful of falling into the comparison trap,

00:00:43.800 but how it can actually help you by comparing yourself in healthy ways to others.

00:00:48.320 We talk about having healthy relationships with delayed gratification,

00:00:52.520 any misconceptions about what Order of Man does, what we're doing now and into the future,

00:00:58.020 how we've grown the movement, and how we continue to innovate and come up with new ideas.

00:01:05.900 We talk about some of the tactics and strategies.

00:01:08.940 I mean, we get into it today, and I'm very excited, again, to have my good friend Kip Sorensen interviewing me.

00:01:14.540 So we'll get right to it.

00:01:16.740 Well, gentlemen, I'm excited.

00:01:18.980 We're going to switch things up today, and today we're going to discuss all things Ryan Mickler,

00:01:26.960 put him on the hot seat, and do an interview show the opposite direction,

00:01:32.580 and, I don't know, kind of pull back the curtains a little bit,

00:01:35.460 and let's talk about the life of Ryan Mickler and maybe even some history around the Order of Man podcast

00:01:41.860 and the movement, Iron Council, and hopefully I can bring up some questions that we probably don't get as much on the AMA

00:01:49.860 and kind of focus a little bit more on you specifically, Ryan.

00:01:53.440 So I'm excited about it.

00:01:55.520 I'm a little nervous.

00:01:56.240 I told you before we hit started.

00:01:57.600 I'm like, wow, this is kind of weird to be kicking off the conversation, but I'm looking forward to it.

00:02:02.880 Yeah, me too.

00:02:03.340 I do get requests of people interviewing me, and I go on other podcasts, and so that's cool,

00:02:10.000 but a lot of guys are like, hey, we want to learn more about what's going on with you,

00:02:13.000 which is cool, and I'm happy to do that, but yeah, I knew you were a little nervous.

00:02:16.480 You said you were, and it is weird to have the roles reversed a little, but it's good, right?

00:02:22.420 It's good for both of us, so it puts us in a different position, so we're learning, growing, and getting better.

00:02:25.980 It'll be a good stretch.

00:02:27.100 Exactly.

00:02:27.380 And what's interesting about – I was thinking about this last night.

00:02:30.660 What's interesting about our conversation today will be everyone already knows you, right?

00:02:37.200 So this isn't like, oh, hey, here's this guy, Ryan Mickler.

00:02:40.320 Let's talk and share your history, Ryan, and blah, blah, blah.

00:02:43.140 It's like, well, we already know that, right?

00:02:45.440 Yeah, that's a good point.

00:02:46.080 So we need to kind of quasi-go a little bit deeper, and what I would love is kind of expose – not expose you,

00:02:54.520 but kind of talk about elements of you and how you feel about, I don't know, where the men's movement has gone,

00:03:04.100 how has it changed, and kind of get your opinions about things that we may not hear as much in the episodes that you do.

00:03:13.600 So with that said, let me kick us off with this question.

00:03:20.500 It's been how long?

00:03:21.700 The podcast – are we looking at what, 10 years?

00:03:24.440 Is it 10 years?

00:03:25.600 Actually, so March 15th will be 11 years since we – and I can't exactly remember if that's –

00:03:33.000 if the 15th was the first day that I launched the podcast or the website, which I did simultaneously,

00:03:40.940 but I just dubbed March 15th as our anniversary date, plus or minus, I don't know.

00:03:45.460 Got it.

00:03:46.520 So we're 11 years in.

00:03:48.780 You're 11 years in.

00:03:50.240 I'm like eight or nine years in, right?

00:03:53.740 So we've been working together for a long time.

00:03:56.620 Yeah, we've been together for a long time, for sure.

00:03:57.860 When you look back, when I hear the origin story from your perspective and how you got into it,

00:04:06.600 if I was going to use my words to explain, and you can correct me if I'm wrong,

00:04:11.020 it was really like, hey, I see this gap.

00:04:13.640 I see this gap.

00:04:15.100 It's something that you felt like you needed personally, and so you did something about it,

00:04:20.500 right?

00:04:20.740 One of the things that we talk about, guys, all the time is like, hey, if you don't like it,

00:04:24.600 do something about it.

00:04:25.500 If you see a gap, do something about it.

00:04:28.300 With that said, though, when did that switch from, I'm going to do something about it,

00:04:32.240 to, holy crap, this is making a difference?

00:04:36.200 Yeah.

00:04:36.440 Do you remember when that light switch turned on, and you're like, oh my gosh,

00:04:40.840 this is actually going to make a difference in someone's life, whether it was feedback

00:04:44.240 or something else?

00:04:45.340 Yeah, I do remember.

00:04:46.160 So to just do the backstory just a little bit, when I started, I had a previous podcast,

00:04:51.380 and a lot of people don't know that.

00:04:52.820 And that's an important part of the story, especially as it relates to men going out

00:04:59.160 and developing and building something that they're potentially passionate about, is we

00:05:05.160 think that the clouds are going to part, and the angels are going to descend on from

00:05:09.580 high, and sing hallelujah, you found your calling in life.

00:05:13.100 I wish it were like that.

00:05:13.960 That'd be really cool.

00:05:14.620 But I've talked with, at this point, I want to say just about 600 very incredibly successful

00:05:22.900 men in their own right, and none of them have had that story.

00:05:27.360 All of them have created something out of personal necessity or personal experience.

00:05:35.340 They've experimented, tried things that didn't work, pivoted into different things, took elements

00:05:41.180 of what they learned before, implemented it into new ventures and new ideas, and that's

00:05:45.220 kind of what it was for me.

00:05:47.200 So when I started that other podcast, I was doing financial planning, and that was called

00:05:50.700 Wealth Anatomy.

00:05:52.000 And I really want guys to listen to what I'm saying through the lens of their own life when

00:05:57.240 they're feeling stuck, because that's how I was feeling.

00:05:59.380 My financial planning career was doing fairly well.

00:06:03.500 I had a fairly successful financial planning practice.

00:06:06.560 I opened up my own registered investment advisory.

00:06:09.440 I was trying new things.

00:06:10.520 I was marketing.

00:06:11.800 I was building residual income.

00:06:13.680 I was doing fine.

00:06:14.500 I didn't have to go anywhere.

00:06:15.920 But there was this uneasiness about what I was doing just brewing a little bit under the

00:06:20.840 surface.

00:06:21.320 And so I started doing this podcast to pick up new clients for the financial planning practice.

00:06:25.080 And I realized pretty quickly that I love the medium of podcasting, but I wasn't real

00:06:30.320 keen anymore on doing the financial planning stuff.

00:06:33.860 I remember I got a call from a client or a tech.

00:06:37.460 I think I got a call.

00:06:38.840 And I looked down, and it said who it was.

00:06:41.720 And I was like, oh.

00:06:43.960 And it wasn't because I didn't want to talk to that person.

00:06:46.840 I actually had a really good relationship with that client.

00:06:49.720 And we still stay in contact 11 years later now.

00:06:52.300 But I just didn't want to rebalance their portfolio.

00:06:56.260 I didn't want to talk with them about their retirement strategy.

00:06:59.560 And I knew at that point, I'm a fiduciary.

00:07:03.260 So maybe I'm not only am I morally bound to follow what's important to me, I have a legal

00:07:10.100 responsibility as well.

00:07:12.140 So I started Order of Man as not me recognizing a gap in the market or anything like that.

00:07:21.260 That's not what I did.

00:07:22.340 And some people will say that, oh, you did it.

00:07:24.000 It's like, no, I did it selfishly.

00:07:26.120 Because I just wanted to talk with men that I was inspired by.

00:07:31.800 And a gap for you.

00:07:33.060 For me personally.

00:07:33.540 Did you see that as a gap for you?

00:07:35.320 Yeah.

00:07:36.200 I wanted to be a better father, a better husband.

00:07:38.280 I wanted to learn how to grow my business, my financial planning business, and do that

00:07:41.640 better.

00:07:42.460 I just wanted to be a better man in general.

00:07:44.760 And I thought, well, I know how to podcast to some degree.

00:07:47.300 So why don't I keep doing that?

00:07:48.720 But we'll call it Order of Man.

00:07:51.180 And that took me a while to come up with.

00:07:52.900 And we'll just launch it.

00:07:55.980 And I do remember sitting down with a close friend of mine.

00:08:00.780 His name is Ever Gonzalez.

00:08:02.960 And I said, hey, I'm going to launch this podcast.

00:08:04.960 He was doing some marketing stuff for people in the area in southern Utah.

00:08:09.200 And I said, I'm going to do this podcast.

00:08:10.860 I'm going to call it Order of Man.

00:08:12.620 And I vividly remember telling him, I'm not going to make a decision about what to do with

00:08:16.800 this, whether I keep going or pull back or anything, until at least two years.

00:08:23.260 Like, I'm going to put two solid years.

00:08:25.640 And at that point, I can evaluate, is this something I want to continue to do?

00:08:29.520 Is this something I want to move away from?

00:08:31.080 So I dedicated myself to about 100 episodes.

00:08:34.960 And yeah, I launched the first podcast that we did.

00:08:39.680 It had more downloads than the entirety of the library from my Wealth Anatomy podcast.

00:08:47.120 So I knew immediately, I was like, hmm, okay, we're on to something here.

00:08:52.300 And I started getting messages and growing our Facebook group.

00:08:55.540 And so to answer your question, when did I know?

00:08:58.200 Pretty quickly, I had an idea that this was something really special.

00:09:02.060 But it took, it took guys asking me, these were guys in our Facebook group at the time.

00:09:09.340 And it took them asking me, hey, do you have any sort of program or a course?

00:09:15.080 Or like, what do we like, what do we do with this information?

00:09:18.020 And I was like, I don't know.

00:09:20.660 And my wife at the time, she's my ex now, but my wife at the time had said, hey, I really

00:09:25.540 appreciate you doing all this stuff.

00:09:26.940 Like, you seem happy, you seem excited and passionate about what you're doing.

00:09:29.960 But more and more, you're doing that.

00:09:32.220 And you're not doing the financial planning stuff, which is taking away from family household

00:09:36.340 income.

00:09:36.740 And she was definitely right about that.

00:09:39.200 So she said to me, you know, I think you ought to find a way to either make some money doing

00:09:45.940 it or scale back and pour into the financial planning practice that you've been neglecting

00:09:50.500 for a little while.

00:09:51.180 And I wasn't, I wasn't thrown in the towel or scaling back on order of man.

00:09:55.460 If anything, I was going to double down.

00:09:56.640 So I created a, I created a course and I made it available to 12 guys and it was called,

00:10:02.920 it's called the iron council and I sold it for a hundred, a hundred bucks for 12 weeks.

00:10:08.100 Yeah.

00:10:09.340 And I made it available and 12 guys signed up overnight.

00:10:12.380 I'm like, what is wrong with these guys?

00:10:14.760 Cause I didn't even know totally what I was going to put together.

00:10:17.880 And we put some stuff together.

00:10:19.420 I guess, you know, that's one of the things that is my skillset or maybe it's just a talent

00:10:24.560 or a gift that I have is just, I just take action.

00:10:28.920 And then I figured out along the way, I've never felt the desire or the need to have

00:10:33.300 everything perfectly figured out.

00:10:35.540 I'm pretty intuitive in my thinking.

00:10:37.360 And so the way I feel about it or, or yeah, it's just, it's not even think about it.

00:10:42.480 It's like the way I feel about it.

00:10:43.680 I'm like, yeah, that feels good.

00:10:44.440 Do it.

00:10:45.380 And then I figured out along the way and yeah, I've had some expensive lessons, tuition payments

00:10:49.820 is my friend Pete Roberts might call it, but that's worth it to me.

00:10:54.560 If it means moving forward and progressing and doing something special that most people

00:10:59.180 won't do.

00:11:00.380 Totally.

00:11:01.000 Well, you, I think you brushed over something that I think was really critical and it is

00:11:07.080 the fact that, and let me even pose the question this way.

00:11:11.460 You said you were committed two years in.

00:11:14.100 Yeah.

00:11:14.640 Like most people don't make that distinction, right?

00:11:17.760 They'll go, I want to start this podcast and three months in go, yeah, you know, it's not

00:11:24.160 really getting the traction and then they'll step away from it.

00:11:26.480 But from what I heard from you, Ryan, you're saying like, Hey, I'm going to commit to a

00:11:30.780 hundred episodes or so before I decide if I'm going to keep going forward or not.

00:11:35.400 So if six months in you had zero downloads, your commitment was I'm still making podcast

00:11:42.300 episodes.

00:11:42.840 I'm still doing this.

00:11:44.100 Most people, do you know, willing to go, I'm going to try something for two years before

00:11:49.920 I decide to walk away.

00:11:52.080 Most people don't do that.

00:11:53.300 They won't.

00:11:54.040 To me, to me, that's like, let's say you, you have, I don't know, uh, you go on a successful

00:11:59.680 hunt and I've got a bunch of moose meat in my freezer and I've got these huge moose roasts.

00:12:04.900 And let's say I wanted to cook one of these moose roasts for my family and I want to do

00:12:08.720 it low and slow on a Traeger.

00:12:10.820 And I get up in the morning, I get it all ready.

00:12:13.600 And I set the timer for eight hours at, you know, 150 degrees or whatever it is.

00:12:19.840 And I put it in the Traeger and I'm thinking, okay, at three o'clock dinner will be ready,

00:12:25.660 right?

00:12:25.920 The meat will be ready.

00:12:27.640 And then what I do is I go out every hour and I open the Traeger and then the temperature

00:12:33.680 cools.

00:12:34.200 And then I look at, I'm like, well, it's not ready yet.

00:12:36.420 And so every hour I pull it out of the oven or the Traeger, the smoker, every hour I pull

00:12:41.860 it out and like, look at it.

00:12:43.240 And then I'm frustrated.

00:12:44.700 It's not ready.

00:12:45.600 No, you committed to having it in there for eight hours.

00:12:49.120 Let the process work, you know, make sure, make sure the process is working, you know,

00:12:53.740 that it's plugged in, it's heat up like, sure.

00:12:56.120 But let the process play out.

00:12:58.100 Let it marinate, let it do its thing.

00:13:00.420 Guys will do that at the gym too.

00:13:01.660 It's like, they'll, they'll be on the couch for 10 years and, and they'll say, well, I really

00:13:06.500 want to get in shape and get healthy.

00:13:07.980 And so I'm going to go to the gym.

00:13:09.440 And so they go to the gym.

00:13:10.480 And then a week later, they're like, I'm not seeing the results that I wanted.

00:13:14.600 And they start worst case scenarios.

00:13:17.200 They quit, but also not a great scenario is that they start mixing up their routine and

00:13:21.720 their workouts instead of just committing to something that is proven to work.

00:13:26.240 So that is a, that's a decision I made.

00:13:31.040 And it's, again, I think that's something that I just have a natural inclination to do

00:13:37.600 is just to commit fully.

00:13:39.040 I, I do move a little slower sometimes when I, before I make a commitment, but when I

00:13:45.040 do, it's, it's, I'm in, I'm all the way in.

00:13:48.260 Yeah.

00:13:49.060 Until, until otherwise.

00:13:51.440 Yeah.

00:13:51.840 Until something notable changes.

00:13:54.100 Like I'm not fickle, like something significant would have to change for me to that.

00:13:59.200 That's in relationships that's in business.

00:14:01.640 That's every aspect of my life.

00:14:04.220 Yeah.

00:14:04.780 Yeah.

00:14:05.100 You have a really great, like healthy relationship with kind of the delayed gratification of

00:14:10.780 things, but also operating from the perspective of being a realist that this isn't going to

00:14:15.440 go fast.

00:14:15.940 I may not see results right away and, and getting clear upfront that there might be a long

00:14:21.360 haul to this and being committed to the long haul to, to see it through.

00:14:24.880 Cause I think that's where we probably fell, right?

00:14:27.180 It's like, we think we, we don't get clear that for me to get in shape, that it is going

00:14:33.340 to take three years.

00:14:34.480 Right.

00:14:35.260 Right.

00:14:35.800 Right.

00:14:36.180 I, I, I think, well, you know, I'll start eating healthy and maybe I'll be in shape in

00:14:39.940 three, three months, three months.

00:14:42.040 And, and then I don't see the results.

00:14:43.720 And then I quit because I was never, I never had a healthy relationship with how long it's

00:14:47.120 going to probably take.

00:14:48.180 That's a good point.

00:14:48.960 Yeah.

00:14:49.240 Healthy relationship with delayed gratification for sure.

00:14:52.280 I also think we, as men fall into the comparison trap and I don't look at the comparison trap

00:14:59.500 the same way that a lot of people do.

00:15:00.960 Um, I actually think comparison is healthy.

00:15:03.680 A lot of people wouldn't ever make that claim.

00:15:05.800 Like they won't, they'll, they'll say, never compare yourself to other people.

00:15:09.400 It's, it's dangerous.

00:15:10.680 They'll use the terms like comparison trap.

00:15:12.680 And there's some distinction and nuance here.

00:15:14.860 If Kip, I see the way that you lead your family.

00:15:17.380 And I feel that the way I lead my family is inadequate relative to the way that you do.

00:15:24.760 And I use that.

00:15:26.180 And that's a comparison by nature.

00:15:27.980 That is a comparison.

00:15:28.640 And I use that, that comparison to change the way I serve my family, to change the way

00:15:35.580 I communicate with my kids, to change the way that I'm showing up.

00:15:38.320 And it creates a positive result for my children and for me, then can't we make the case that

00:15:45.860 that was a healthy use of comparing?

00:15:48.880 And I, I think that's why it's so important that we, part of the reason it's so important

00:15:53.020 that we, as men have other men around us.

00:15:55.740 And I would say it would fall into three tiers.

00:15:57.960 It's some, it's your peers.

00:15:59.380 It's somebody who's better at certain things, not everything, but better at certain things.

00:16:05.540 And then it's people who, men who maybe are not as good at certain things as you.

00:16:11.080 And I think we need each of those tiers in our, in our circle, our peers to bounce ideas

00:16:17.340 off of and communicate with and hold each other accountable.

00:16:20.740 Our, our met, let's say our mentors to guide and coach and instruct and keep us in the,

00:16:26.720 keep us in the smoker, if you will, when we're not getting the results that they're the ones

00:16:30.440 who say, Hey, just trust it.

00:16:31.920 Keep going.

00:16:32.400 You're okay.

00:16:32.940 I went through this too.

00:16:33.940 I promise you're doing good.

00:16:35.760 Keep going.

00:16:36.800 Trust the process.

00:16:38.080 And then you have what I would call mentees, which are those men that you are either directly

00:16:44.460 or indirectly helping them, leading them, teaching them, training them, coaching them the

00:16:49.960 same way your mentors are mentors are for you.

00:16:53.240 Yeah.

00:16:53.860 Yeah, absolutely.

00:16:54.580 So it hasn't been easy, right?

00:16:58.220 I mean, obviously I don't think, um, it's been easy sailing, right?

00:17:03.400 There's commitment up front for you to be committed to see this through.

00:17:06.440 There's unknown major risk, right?

00:17:09.080 Eventually at one point you're like, I'm going to go all in on this thing.

00:17:12.560 Um, and when you're creating it and even back then, I would assume the modeling of what

00:17:18.740 order of man eventually became, there wasn't much out there, right?

00:17:22.580 To, to say, oh my gosh, like they're killing it all, I'll model after them.

00:17:26.320 Right.

00:17:26.540 So you were, I think you were trailblazing to, to some extent in this space.

00:17:31.640 Was there times for you where you're like, maybe this is a bad call and you're like, I'm willing

00:17:40.160 to give up or maybe I should never cross your mind.

00:17:43.360 You're always like all in on it.

00:17:45.380 I never, I mean, I had self doubt.

00:17:47.220 Like, I don't know how to do this.

00:17:48.620 I don't know how to like, what the hell?

00:17:49.840 Like, how do I figure this out?

00:17:51.180 That's why I had self doubt for sure.

00:17:52.720 But I never once thought, okay, that's not fair.

00:17:55.840 There's one time and I'll explain here in a minute, but outside of that, there has not

00:18:00.140 been a moment where I'm like, oh, you know, I just shouldn't be doing this.

00:18:04.460 That thought outside of that one time never crossed my mind.

00:18:09.720 Um, let me ask you this really quick before you share that one time.

00:18:13.220 Why is that for you?

00:18:14.540 Is it because of the passion alignment with your conviction to what order man stands for

00:18:21.660 that, that really allowed you to, I don't know, just be hyper convicted to the movement.

00:18:29.720 And maybe that's probably the PC answer.

00:18:32.140 Like, that's probably the, like, if, if I was running for politics, that's probably what

00:18:36.180 I would say.

00:18:36.560 Like, oh, I'm just so passionate about it.

00:18:38.480 And I'm just a hard headed son of a bitch.

00:18:41.920 Like, that's it.

00:18:43.240 Like, I'm so stubborn.

00:18:44.320 Like, I'm going to see this through.

00:18:45.840 I don't care.

00:18:47.000 Yeah.

00:18:47.340 Yeah.

00:18:47.640 I would, I would, it would be insulting to myself if I just stopped doing it because

00:18:54.140 it was hard or wasn't fun all the time.

00:18:57.040 I don't even think I could look myself in the mirror if I did that.

00:18:59.960 Now, there are reasons to quit things.

00:19:02.800 There are reasons to pivot and make adjustments.

00:19:05.040 And I have, right?

00:19:05.700 I just, I just did, for example, from wealth anatomy podcast to order a man podcast.

00:19:10.640 So you might say, well, you quit wealth anatomy.

00:19:13.000 Sure.

00:19:13.660 Say whatever you want to say.

00:19:15.100 I don't look at it like that.

00:19:16.340 I look at it as a, as an evolution, a pivot.

00:19:19.680 So there are, yeah.

00:19:20.660 So there's legitimate reasons that, that you, you can quit.

00:19:25.720 You're, you're allowed to do that.

00:19:26.880 Um, but those are few and far between most of the time men quit because it is hard or it

00:19:33.560 is uncomfortable or it is scary.

00:19:35.980 Um, or they don't have their other aspects of their life in order and they're obligated

00:19:39.680 or forced to quit.

00:19:40.680 So yeah, I think I'm just stubborn.

00:19:43.500 I'm just a pain in the ass sometimes when it comes to that, which is good.

00:19:47.120 Which has worked out.

00:19:47.840 Yeah.

00:19:48.140 Yeah.

00:19:48.540 Yeah.

00:19:48.740 Superpower in some cases.

00:19:49.980 It's like anything, any man who's listening to this can say, well, my, my, my strength

00:19:55.900 is, you know, X, Y, and Z.

00:19:57.400 And it's like, well, what's your weakness?

00:19:58.540 X, Y, and Z.

00:19:59.500 It's the same.

00:20:00.680 Yeah.

00:20:01.160 It always is.

00:20:01.800 So yeah, the, the one, the only time that I ever thought, okay, maybe I shouldn't do

00:20:06.780 this.

00:20:07.120 And I thought, well, I could sell it or I could, I don't know.

00:20:09.980 I didn't really get that far, but I was like, maybe this is not for me is actually when I

00:20:13.380 went through my divorce and, um, my struggles with alcohol abuse because I got to the point

00:20:19.500 in that dark time that, um, you know, maybe I'm not the guy to lead this.

00:20:25.520 Like I'm, uh, you know, here I am struggling in my own personal life and I'm trying to give

00:20:31.720 guys tools and resources to help them succeed in their life.

00:20:36.120 And I'm not even doing a great job myself.

00:20:39.440 And I, I let a lot of, a lot of self negative self-talk creep in.

00:20:45.120 And I also lot, uh, allowed a lot of negative external talk creep in.

00:20:50.960 And, you know, people were really upset when I shared that news and, and rightfully so

00:20:57.640 I took a lot of flack and some of it was really was warranted.

00:21:00.780 Absolutely.

00:21:01.340 I would have felt the same way, but what I realized when these people were talking about,

00:21:07.520 you should just go fix yourself.

00:21:09.400 You should just sell the business, put like, go do your own, like whatever, whatever they

00:21:14.300 said, I kept having this reoccurring thought that, well, I questioned what, what is, what

00:21:21.480 was the purpose of the movement?

00:21:23.660 And the purpose of the movement is to equip men with the tools and skills and conversations

00:21:28.000 they need to be able to be better fathers, husbands, business owners, community leaders.

00:21:33.700 Was I disqualified from doing that through my own personal failures?

00:21:37.480 I don't think so.

00:21:38.480 In fact, if we disqualify any other guy in the iron council, if they failed, no, right.

00:21:45.500 If anything, I felt like, and I had a, it wasn't an aha moment.

00:21:50.120 I mean, it's something I really sat with for months, if not years, but I, but I had this

00:21:56.020 thought that actually maybe I'm more qualified because now I have a level of empathy and understanding

00:22:03.400 for men dealing with divorce, for men dealing with substance abuse or alcohol abuse that

00:22:10.620 I didn't have before.

00:22:11.500 In fact, and I think a lot of people would attest to this.

00:22:14.540 I was very short.

00:22:16.000 I was very judgmental.

00:22:17.900 I was very harsh and critical on people that I felt like weren't doing what they ought to

00:22:24.060 be doing and weren't doing it the way I was doing it.

00:22:27.040 And yeah, I can still be that way at times, but I'm a lot more empathetic to a guy who's

00:22:32.420 like, Hey, you know what?

00:22:33.360 I stepped out on my wife and so here's the deal.

00:22:35.740 Now I never had any, you know, infidelity issues and I'm not justifying or rationalizing

00:22:41.600 that behavior by any means, but okay, let's talk about that and get to the bottom of that

00:22:47.440 and figure it out.

00:22:48.140 Or a guy who's like, Hey, my wife wants to leave because she can't deal with my alcohol

00:22:54.040 abuse or my pornography addiction, or you fill in the blank with your vice of choice.

00:22:59.280 It's like, okay, you know, like love the sinner, hate this, hate the sin.

00:23:04.900 Right?

00:23:05.500 Like I can, I can agree that the behavior is, is poor behavior, but still empathize with

00:23:12.880 a guy who's tempted to, you know, drink or cheat or like whatever.

00:23:21.180 And so I, I feel like I'm more qualified actually, but I, if I'm being honest and we'll get raw

00:23:28.260 here a little bit, I do feel like I do feel inferior in inadequate at times because I don't,

00:23:35.880 I'm not in a marriage, you know?

00:23:37.220 And I, and I've always said that that's a big component of a man's life, a committed relationship.

00:23:42.100 And I'm not, I'm not in that relationship.

00:23:45.460 So I try to be honest about it.

00:23:48.380 And people say, well, you can't talk about marriage.

00:23:50.440 Of course I can.

00:23:51.620 Why can't I?

00:23:52.800 Of course I can.

00:23:53.520 I was married for 18 years and guys will see it and say, guys will say this.

00:23:57.440 Well, you're not married.

00:23:58.240 So you can't talk about it.

00:23:59.020 I'm like, well, let me know when you get to 18 years in your marriage and then you can

00:24:03.080 chastise me about it.

00:24:04.280 Cause an 18 year stint.

00:24:05.800 And I'm joking about that is pretty good by relative modern standards.

00:24:10.520 So when you get to 18 years, you and I can talk about that.

00:24:15.040 But until you get there, yeah, you don't get to chastise me, especially if I'm being

00:24:20.340 honest.

00:24:20.820 And that's the thing that I do try to do is, and that I haven't always been when I give

00:24:27.440 marriage advice, it's not like, oh, do this thing.

00:24:29.980 This will, this is guaranteed to work.

00:24:31.800 It's, Hey, here's what I was doing and it worked.

00:24:35.480 Here's what I did that didn't work.

00:24:37.780 If I were to do it over again, here's what I would do.

00:24:40.740 Here's what women tend to respond well to.

00:24:43.800 Here's what they don't respond well to.

00:24:45.360 And I try to give my own personal experience.

00:24:47.100 So it's not me saying that I'm perfect, that I know it all.

00:24:50.740 And then I have everything figured out.

00:24:52.240 Clearly I don't.

00:24:53.480 It's just an honest assessment and reflection about my strengths and weaknesses.

00:24:58.720 Yeah.

00:24:59.120 I think you've always done really well at not propping yourself up as the expert, right?

00:25:07.360 We, we, every week we get a talk and, and often the sense that I get or I, how I feel

00:25:12.900 is we're just sharing ideas, right?

00:25:16.180 It's the power of the conversation for guys to consider for themselves, right?

00:25:20.100 And you've done a great job from that perspective, but there's still a pressure, right?

00:25:24.140 That comes with this.

00:25:25.000 I mean, what, what's your last podcast numbers?

00:25:28.340 What, what are they up to?

00:25:29.220 Cause we, we had a conversation a couple of years ago and it was really high then it was

00:25:33.080 what is higher than I realized, but just so guys understand the breadth of, of people

00:25:38.780 listening, what were you up or were the general numbers at?

00:25:42.400 I want to say it's about 1,650 episodes somewhere in there.

00:25:47.980 I don't, I don't know the number exactly, but that's interesting because people will ask

00:25:51.880 me and you know, like how many episodes have you done?

00:25:54.820 What are you down?

00:25:55.320 And I know some of that stuff, but also it doesn't matter.

00:25:58.740 And this goes back to what I was saying earlier.

00:26:02.760 It, it matters in that I like getting feedback so I can figure out like how to grow it, how

00:26:08.100 to put content out there that's relevant, make information.

00:26:11.360 But you'd be doing it regardless if it was 1 million or 80 million.

00:26:15.760 Right.

00:26:15.940 So people say, Oh, what are you going to do to celebrate your 2000th episode?

00:26:19.960 Do another one.

00:26:23.740 It's not a, it's not a, that's like in jujitsu, you know, let's say you, you got your black

00:26:28.820 belt, what, two, three years ago now.

00:26:31.220 Yep.

00:26:31.720 Yeah.

00:26:32.020 Three years ago.

00:26:32.540 Three years.

00:26:33.040 So, you know, if somebody would have come up and said, Hey, you know, like, what are you

00:26:37.980 going to do now?

00:26:38.560 You're like, I'm going to go train tomorrow.

00:26:40.940 What am I going to do now?

00:26:42.900 I'm going to keep doing the same thing.

00:26:44.960 The trophy isn't.

00:26:46.320 And that's what a belt is, right?

00:26:47.540 It's the trophy.

00:26:48.180 It's an, it's a, it's an acknowledgement of effort and competence.

00:26:53.120 Um, and it, and it's special.

00:26:54.820 Like it is important.

00:26:55.680 You know, I watch, I watch, I watch black belts get their black and they get emotional

00:26:59.060 and people who don't train don't understand it, but it's an emotional thing.

00:27:02.940 You spent, you know, 10, 12, 14, 15, 20 years of your life, whatever getting to this

00:27:09.560 point.

00:27:10.020 Um, it's special, but it's not that special because you'd be doing it regardless.

00:27:16.660 Like you training tomorrow with your black belt is not training different than yesterday

00:27:21.940 with your Brown belt.

00:27:24.120 It's the same.

00:27:25.260 And that's what you're going to keep doing.

00:27:26.760 I think I love that analogy.

00:27:29.280 Go ahead.

00:27:29.860 Oh, good.

00:27:31.020 Well, I was going to say, I was just going to laugh about it because I totally had someone

00:27:34.540 ask me, they're like, so now what?

00:27:36.500 And I'm like, now what?

00:27:38.440 Right.

00:27:38.800 I'm going to, I got to quit.

00:27:40.000 Right.

00:27:40.420 Like, well, yeah, but you got your black.

00:27:42.080 And I'm like, oh, you misunderstand.

00:27:44.760 Right.

00:27:45.080 Like that's a milestone.

00:27:47.240 Sure.

00:27:48.240 But I wasn't training for it.

00:27:50.080 Right.

00:27:51.100 I'm committed to something bigger.

00:27:52.580 And that's what I'm hearing you say is like, Hey, 80 million downloads, 8 million downloads,

00:27:58.080 1 million downloads.

00:27:59.000 I'm committed to the thing.

00:28:01.160 Right.

00:28:01.640 Not necessarily the outcome.

00:28:03.600 And we're focused on the importance of the conversation and the movement itself.

00:28:07.780 Yeah.

00:28:08.220 Yeah.

00:28:08.580 And, and that's, that's how I would suggest that people look at the activities they're engaged

00:28:13.080 in their relationship.

00:28:14.020 It's like, don't try to get to 20 year anniversary, just do the things that will get you to a 20

00:28:20.000 year anniversary.

00:28:21.460 You know, when it, when it comes to training your body, you know, you, you don't really

00:28:26.800 need to look at doing that, that 500 pound deadlift, just do the things that will produce

00:28:33.140 a 500 pound deadlift.

00:28:34.620 And then when you get there, then ramp it to 520.

00:28:38.100 The thing that people like that, cause I'm a person like that.

00:28:41.960 I think Kip, you're a person like that, where we can get focused on like, what's next, what's

00:28:48.580 next, what's next, keep going.

00:28:49.980 What's next.

00:28:50.540 The trap that we, as men who are like that fall into is that we very rarely honor and

00:28:57.780 acknowledge our efforts.

00:28:58.720 And we ought to do that more.

00:29:00.000 And that's something that I'm focused on is being proud of the fact that yes, we did 1500

00:29:06.400 episodes or another one that we often miss is we have to be careful of dismissing what

00:29:15.280 other people are excited about, even if they're excited about us.

00:29:19.020 Right.

00:29:19.460 So if Asia and your kids come to you when you got your black belt and they're like, dad,

00:29:25.080 you're awesome.

00:29:25.740 We want to take you out to dinner.

00:29:26.940 And they make you posters at your belt belt ceremony.

00:29:29.780 And like, they just, they're just so excited.

00:29:32.640 And then you're like, no, no, no, it's not a big deal.

00:29:34.740 Like, it's just, I just got to go back to training.

00:29:37.200 It's not a big deal.

00:29:37.840 Then to me, as a leader, you're dismissing their enthusiasm and you're telling them what

00:29:44.480 they think is important is not.

00:29:47.080 So part of the celebration and people don't think about it like this is letting other

00:29:51.980 people be happy for excellence, especially the people in your life.

00:29:57.400 They want to honor you and you need to let them do that.

00:30:01.060 How often do we hear from guys who they don't, they don't know how to take a compliment,

00:30:07.360 for example, right?

00:30:08.860 So you might say, and you've, you've done it a couple of times in this podcast, Ryan,

00:30:12.400 one of the things that you're really good at is this.

00:30:14.840 I don't say no.

00:30:16.320 I say, thank you.

00:30:18.740 Yeah.

00:30:19.200 Thank you.

00:30:19.640 You know what?

00:30:20.160 That means a lot coming from you.

00:30:21.460 I appreciate that.

00:30:22.380 Even if I didn't believe it in myself, who am I to tell you what you acknowledge as good?

00:30:28.620 Who am I to deny the gift that you want to give to me of the compliment?

00:30:33.100 It's, it's like downplay my feelings.

00:30:35.280 Exactly.

00:30:35.600 You're invalidating what they're thinking.

00:30:37.400 And it's like, let's say it's your birthday and I come up to your place and I, there's

00:30:42.700 a box that I have for you.

00:30:43.780 And it's this beautifully packaged box.

00:30:45.440 And I wrapped it real nice.

00:30:47.060 And I knock on the door and you open the door.

00:30:50.480 I'm like, Hey, happy birthday, Kip.

00:30:51.840 And you look at the box and you give it back to me and you slam the door in my face, which

00:30:58.440 would be funny, actually.

00:30:59.340 Um, you would never do that, but that's what you do when somebody says, Hey Joe or Bob or

00:31:10.360 Steve, you know, I just want to tell you like, congratulations on the promotion at work or

00:31:15.300 congratulations on finishing the marathon or Hey man, I noticed how you lead your family.

00:31:20.580 And I just want to tell you, it's really inspiring to me.

00:31:23.500 And then you shut the proverbial door in their face and you're like, eh, no, it's nothing.

00:31:27.260 I don't, yeah.

00:31:27.820 If only you knew, no, it's not a big deal.

00:31:30.740 No, just say thank you and have a good moment with people who are trying to honor and celebrate

00:31:36.680 you.

00:31:37.420 That's how I look at it.

00:31:38.400 Yeah.

00:31:39.180 I love it.

00:31:40.580 There has to be pressure with this.

00:31:43.300 Like in the small role that I play, I feel pressure.

00:31:49.600 Um, when has, like, how do you deal with that?

00:31:54.500 Right.

00:31:54.940 Because there's, there's, and I think obviously in your circumstance with the podcast, with,

00:32:00.520 with the iron council and leading that, I think there's elements that we can learn from

00:32:06.580 you, right?

00:32:07.280 We feel pressure as men, right?

00:32:09.080 Whether it's providing for our families, leading community, or if we have leadership

00:32:14.140 positions within our work or we're small business owners.

00:32:17.680 Yeah.

00:32:17.820 And so I'd love to talk about like, how do you deal with the pressure that comes with it?

00:32:23.980 I mean, I always, I haven't always dealt in a healthy way with that.

00:32:26.840 That's part of the catalyst for my excessive drinking years and years ago is I felt like I

00:32:32.640 needed a reprieve.

00:32:33.580 And I've talked with a lot of current and recovering alcoholics that started drinking

00:32:38.520 for the same reason.

00:32:39.520 Substance abuse, drug abuse is probably very much the same.

00:32:42.600 An escape.

00:32:43.380 To remove themselves from the, to escape the pressure.

00:32:46.260 Exactly.

00:32:46.760 Of the situations that they're in.

00:32:48.380 Yeah.

00:32:48.520 So we as men have to be very careful of the release mechanism that we're using.

00:32:54.380 It could be alcohol.

00:32:55.580 It could be drugs.

00:32:56.180 It could be pornography.

00:32:56.940 It could be, uh, sex or masturbation.

00:33:00.740 It could be, um, gambling.

00:33:03.140 It could be binge watching Netflix.

00:33:04.640 It could be even being a workaholic or a gym rat.

00:33:06.800 It could be any of those things taken to the extreme.

00:33:09.080 It could be suicide.

00:33:10.040 Yeah.

00:33:10.320 I mean, and the extreme of it is ultimately suicide, right?

00:33:12.820 Is, is the exiting of the pressure.

00:33:15.160 Yeah.

00:33:15.340 Right.

00:33:16.080 So I think it's really important.

00:33:17.220 You ask yourself, why am I engaged in this behavior?

00:33:19.420 And why am I creating a life that I have to run away from or numb myself from, or what

00:33:25.460 is it about my life that creates that for me?

00:33:28.060 So for me, it's having good men in my corner that I can turn to.

00:33:31.680 You're one of them.

00:33:32.460 You know, if I'm feeling the pressure of something, I've called you many times about certain

00:33:37.900 pressures I'm dealing professionally and personally with and, and having that outlet

00:33:41.660 has been good.

00:33:42.380 Um, journaling is really good for me.

00:33:44.500 That's something that I have not done a whole lot of them up until about, about three

00:33:49.260 months.

00:33:49.860 I'm pretty religious with journaling every day about my thoughts and ideas.

00:33:54.460 And people will ask me all the time, like, I don't know how to journal.

00:33:56.680 Well, what do you mean?

00:33:57.640 You don't know how to think or write.

00:34:00.140 You don't know how to write words.

00:34:01.740 You don't know how to think about things.

00:34:04.480 Well, I just don't know what to write about.

00:34:05.700 Yeah, you do.

00:34:06.780 You write about the things that you're thinking.

00:34:09.080 Men are, we're constantly thinking what problems are presenting themselves.

00:34:13.160 What's the issue?

00:34:13.760 What am I stressed out about?

00:34:14.660 How am I going to make the mortgage payment?

00:34:16.420 What is my kid's game schedule?

00:34:18.040 Am I going to be able to make it?

00:34:19.020 Like we're always thinking.

00:34:21.040 So just write those things down.

00:34:23.040 You'd be amazed at how much better you can process information when it's out of your head.

00:34:28.820 It's so stupid in here.

00:34:30.160 I don't know why this is the case, but I don't feel like we can just solve our problems by

00:34:36.060 ourselves up here.

00:34:37.300 It doesn't work.

00:34:38.880 There's just too much.

00:34:39.960 Once it has to like leave your mouth or leave your hand on paper for it to get processed

00:34:47.540 better for whatever reason.

00:34:49.560 It might have something to do with the hormonal and physiological differences between men and

00:34:55.340 women.

00:34:56.300 So women are really good relationally.

00:34:59.340 And that's not to say that men can't be, but women are naturally relational.

00:35:03.420 I mean, even look at the way that they, they sit and they stand when they're talking to

00:35:08.620 each other.

00:35:09.080 What are they doing?

00:35:09.960 They're looking at each other in a circle, right?

00:35:12.980 They're aged.

00:35:13.980 They're at dinner together or they're sitting on the couch and they're having coffee together,

00:35:18.120 but they're relational.

00:35:19.780 And, and the, the conversations are taking place and they're bouncing from topic to topic.

00:35:25.820 And this is why men get so frustrated.

00:35:27.260 They look at the woman in their life and they're like, what the hell?

00:35:29.360 Like, I'm, give me something to focus on.

00:35:32.260 But women, again, generally, and I'm not even criticized this, their, this is their superpower

00:35:37.080 to create relationships is that they can talk and switch from topics to topics and relate

00:35:43.740 and empathize and feel it and then share their own stuff.

00:35:47.420 And they're doing this in this circle.

00:35:49.720 But if you look at the way men relate, it's always in a line and it's outward or inward.

00:35:56.060 We're either facing a common enemy or a common pursuit.

00:36:00.820 And so even at the drive, let's say you get a bunch of buddies, you're like, Hey, let's

00:36:03.540 go to the driving range or let's go shoot.

00:36:05.440 What are you doing?

00:36:06.020 You're standing in a line facing, you're not facing each other.

00:36:10.440 You're standing in a line or in a football match, a football game.

00:36:14.140 Um, you're like the offensive line is shoulder to shoulder, literally facing the enemy, the

00:36:22.740 other team.

00:36:23.620 That's how men work.

00:36:25.160 And so we have these ideas that bounce around in our brains.

00:36:30.560 It needs to be directional because that's what men are.

00:36:33.620 So the only way you turn it into direction is by getting it out of this place where it's

00:36:38.120 just an echo chamber bouncing around and put some directionality to it.

00:36:41.880 That might be talking with a friend that might be journaling.

00:36:44.960 Like I'm talking about, and then acting on something and stripping away all of the other

00:36:51.160 nonsense and noise where women can take in a lot of information.

00:36:56.060 This is why they're better multitaskers taskers as well.

00:36:59.600 Men can't multitask like women can because we need to be fixated on the problem.

00:37:06.740 And that's all we can focus on.

00:37:08.720 I was, I watched this video.

00:37:10.700 It was a, it was a, it was an owl.

00:37:12.860 It was on Instagram was an owl.

00:37:14.860 And the caption was like the, the moment that this cute barn owl turns into the apex predator

00:37:21.480 that it is.

00:37:22.460 And its eyes are really big and it's videoing this barn owl.

00:37:27.040 The eyes are really big.

00:37:28.100 And then all of a sudden it sees something and its eyes squint and they dilate and they

00:37:33.660 narrow and focus on whatever it is.

00:37:35.420 And the owl looks just menacing.

00:37:37.920 And it was just a switch of seeing a rat or something and getting ready to attack.

00:37:44.600 That's men.

00:37:46.640 Everything focuses, it narrows.

00:37:48.880 And this is why when we're solving problems, women often feel like they're being neglected

00:37:53.720 because they are absolutely they are because we're not focused on that.

00:37:58.980 We're focused on what, and this is why women get upset about a man going out to earn a living

00:38:04.520 because he's like, I don't feel like I'm important.

00:38:06.780 And it's not that you're not important.

00:38:08.620 It's that we're predators.

00:38:10.120 We are focusing on the task at hand and you are not it right now.

00:38:14.720 So we need to do a better job at that as men, but also women need to understand the nature

00:38:19.140 of our behavior.

00:38:21.260 Yeah.

00:38:21.700 So let me, let's paraphrase, right?

00:38:24.400 And see if there's anything else you would add on to this is dealing with the pressure,

00:38:27.800 right?

00:38:28.100 Is obviously, you know, journaling is one of those things, right?

00:38:33.380 Surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals that you trust, you can communicate with in

00:38:38.440 anything else that you would add to that dealing with the pressure.

00:38:41.880 Yeah.

00:38:42.300 Like do something about it.

00:38:45.380 Yeah.

00:38:45.940 Take action.

00:38:46.700 Right.

00:38:47.520 Yeah.

00:38:47.920 Like whatever the pressure is, sometimes, sometimes doing something is just saying,

00:38:53.020 no, I have to do that quite often, you know, I, because guys that are part of the organization

00:38:59.020 or even if they're in the iron council, they'll be like, oh, Ryan, we should do this.

00:39:02.900 And my, my response used to be yes.

00:39:07.300 As a default.

00:39:08.220 Yes.

00:39:08.420 That sounds cool.

00:39:09.000 Let's try it.

00:39:09.440 And my response now is no, as a default.

00:39:12.720 And so it, so anymore, it's more no, no, no, no, no.

00:39:18.600 Yes.

00:39:19.060 That's interesting.

00:39:19.840 No, no, no, no.

00:39:22.580 So no, is it?

00:39:23.740 No is direction because now I don't have to think about that anymore.

00:39:27.380 Uh, so a lot of my job has become discernment and, you know, I look at the way people give

00:39:34.220 feedback and, you know, sometimes I get frustrated because it's, it can be frustrating, especially

00:39:39.160 the way it's given at times, but for the most part, unless it's just blatantly disrespectful

00:39:44.980 or just somebody being a jerk on social media, I try to honor that because it's just somebody

00:39:51.340 who's really vested in what we're doing.

00:39:53.720 They're excited about it, or it's a vote of confidence in me.

00:39:57.020 If one of the guys in the iron council comes to me with an idea, even if it's not a great

00:40:01.160 idea, but he comes to me with an idea, I'm like, Oh, this is a guy who's vested in what

00:40:05.280 we're doing.

00:40:05.960 This is a guy who actually cares about the mission and what he's proposing isn't necessarily

00:40:12.440 going to work, but I can separate that from knowing that he's excited, enthusiastic about

00:40:19.200 what we're trying to accomplish.

00:40:22.260 Hey man, I'm just going to take a quick break from the conversation.

00:40:25.120 You're going to get sick of hearing from me today, but wanted to tell you, we have this

00:40:28.480 great event called the men's forge taking place April 23rd through the 26th outside of St.

00:40:33.960 Louis.

00:40:34.640 We've got Frank Schwartz, GS Youngblood, Dwayne Noel, myself, Larry Hagner, and a few other

00:40:40.440 guests coming out to speak and to spend the weekend with the men who are going to be there

00:40:46.740 to learn, to push themselves, to test themselves, to forge themselves into better fathers, husbands,

00:40:51.940 business owners, and community leaders. This is not one of those events that you see everywhere

00:40:56.120 where you're just getting beat up and yelled at by some special forces operator, which has its

00:41:02.260 place. It has its time and a place, but you see so much of that. This event is going to be

00:41:07.380 physical, but it's also going to be mental and emotional. And we're going to teach you the skills

00:41:12.380 and tools that you need to thrive in the roles that you play in your life. And you're going to band

00:41:17.000 with other guys. We have firesides each and every night. We have a ropes course, an obstacle course.

00:41:21.660 We're doing some jujitsu. And of course you have the speakers who are going to be there

00:41:25.160 presenting, engaging, eating the most delicious food you'd ever have. And we've got an incredible

00:41:30.700 venue where this is going to be held. So guys, check it out. Go to themensforge.com,

00:41:35.500 themensforge.com and get registered for our event April 23rd through the 26th. And we will see you

00:41:41.640 next month. Yeah, I see that. Do you ever feel that, that there's maybe a dangerous or a pendulum

00:41:52.220 swing of danger associated with order of man? Like, and not that you're intended, like you're

00:41:59.660 intending there to be a negative message, but do you feel like there's ever a dangerous side of it

00:42:04.540 where guys latch on to this movement and they go, they swing it in a direction where like, whoa,

00:42:10.740 whoa, whoa, whoa, right? Like that's not the intended outcome and guys have a tendency. It's

00:42:15.200 almost like, and I'm not saying you suggest this, but it's like almost like the red pill movement,

00:42:19.760 right? To, to talk about masculinity. Is there an element of that that you think is present with

00:42:26.740 order of man or iron council that concerns you that you feel like you have to kind of keep in

00:42:31.640 check or dial in, or is there a risk? I think the red pill movement, the Meg Tao movement,

00:42:37.040 and I've been talking about this for 10, 10, 10 or 11 years now is a real danger to society. It paints

00:42:43.760 women as the, as the villains. Now, can they be villainous? Yes. Just like men can, but they're not

00:42:50.500 broadly villains, right? Yeah. It's the equivalent of third wave feminism. It's not third wave feminism

00:42:59.920 or whatever wave we're on now, fourth wave or whatever is, is not about equality for women.

00:43:08.980 It's about being better than men. And so how do you do that? You put in an, you put half of the

00:43:16.140 population down, but men are starting to do the same thing when they get into the red pill and the

00:43:22.540 Meg Tao movement in, involuntary celibates, incels, where it's, it's no longer about how they're showing

00:43:29.240 up as men. It's about how horrible women are and why they're rotten in society and stay away from

00:43:35.440 women and they'll mess everything up. Can they? Yes. Just like men can, but that's different than them

00:43:41.540 just naturally being the villain. Like we work harmoniously together. So I think that's one of the

00:43:47.580 dangers. And that's actually one of the, um, the misrepresentations sometimes from women about

00:43:55.460 what I do. You know, when, when I went through my divorce, it was finalized just a little over

00:44:02.160 three years ago. Now, you know, as I got back into dating, it's, it was weird for me because I have

00:44:08.380 such a large footprint on social media, whereas most guys going into dating, they don't, they don't have

00:44:15.880 that. So you can't set that new in a new relationship. You're like, Oh, they don't know

00:44:22.440 me. I can reinvent myself. It's like, uh, sorry, already done. Exactly. Which I think is a good

00:44:28.300 thing because the filtering process is better because if a woman isn't interested in what I

00:44:31.720 have to say, she can find it out pretty quickly and determine whether or not this is something that

00:44:36.480 I should pursue or not. Um, so, but I have to ask this question. I know it's a little bit of a derail

00:44:42.160 and maybe, maybe address what you're going to address and we can come to this though. But like,

00:44:46.500 how do you deal with, um, I watched that YouTube video from 10 years ago. Yeah, I was wrong.

00:44:53.080 Right. But that, that shit is documented. It's cemented in the interwebs. You know what I mean?

00:44:59.420 Oh yeah. That's tough too. Right. Cause we evolve and change. Yeah. And I've had that a little bit

00:45:04.400 where, you know, like I remember one of the very first women that I dated after my, after my divorce,

00:45:11.860 and she was, if I remember correctly, she had talked to one of her friends or something and

00:45:16.820 they had found my, and that's what women do. They're going to look up your stuff on, even if

00:45:20.200 you don't have this footprint, they're going to find out who you are. Yeah. And that's fine. Like

00:45:24.740 they should, they have reasons to protect themselves. But her friend said, this guy is married.

00:45:31.500 And she's like, no, he's not married. But it looked at the time, it looked like I was because

00:45:37.340 I was married for 18 years. There's pictures of, of me and my ex all over the internet. There's

00:45:42.240 podcasts that we've done together that are all over the internet. Like it's everywhere. So it's,

00:45:47.820 it's hard when you, when you deal with some of that stuff. Um, or you know, the thing about like,

00:45:52.700 oh, you said this video, you said this thing 10 years ago. Yeah. I don't, I, I don't let that be an

00:45:59.700 issue. If somebody brings it up, I'm like, oh yeah, I did say that 10 years ago when I was wrong

00:46:03.960 and that's it. I don't put much emphasis on it and people will push back. They're like, oh, well,

00:46:09.160 you know, you said this thing on this one podcast five years ago, five years ago. If I haven't

00:46:15.200 changed my opinion about something, well, not even that, but just if I haven't changed my opinion

00:46:20.740 about something in five years, what the hell have I been doing for the last five years?

00:46:25.260 Do any of us, should any of us have the exact same opinion about anything over a five-year

00:46:31.780 timeframe? I know, I don't think so. So I think it's important that, that I do change. I don't

00:46:38.800 take videos down. I mean, I might've taken one to three or five posts down over my life or over the,

00:46:44.680 over the past 11 years. But outside of that, no, I keep everything up. And if people have a problem

00:46:51.120 with it, then we can talk about it respectfully and we can discuss or we're not like, I don't have

00:46:58.320 any problem with that. I can't because I have so much information out there anyways. So somebody's

00:47:03.100 going to find something I said and make an issue of it. I'm sure. Um, but I, what was, I can't

00:47:09.240 remember what the, I had a point on the previous question. I'm sorry. I derailed you, man. Well,

00:47:14.160 I think we're, we're mostly talking about, um, you know, the dangerous aspects of how we might swing

00:47:22.520 a little too far in one direction or the other. Yeah. So I think there is a, uh, it's not a risk.

00:47:28.320 It's just the reality that people will fall into my stuff and make assumptions about it being red

00:47:33.880 pill until they actually see that I like women and I respect women. And I think that they're an

00:47:39.760 integral part to society. I think there's a lot of misbehavior on, on women's part. And I think

00:47:44.920 there's a lot of misbehavior on men's part. Like nobody's perfect. And so if I see misbehavior from

00:47:49.960 men, I'm going to call it out. Even if, if it's in myself, if I see it in women, I'm going to call

00:47:55.340 it out the same way I would call it out to a man, but it's not generally like women are bad or so.

00:48:01.060 So there's that. Um, and then there's just horrible advice, right? Like there's just advice

00:48:06.920 and men's movements are popping up everywhere. You know, Andrew Tate, for example, has some good stuff.

00:48:13.820 I think he prescribes or excuse me, he diagnoses prop problems, societal problems with men fairly

00:48:21.880 well. And I think he prescribes pretty the, the, the medicine, the fix pretty improperly.

00:48:30.300 So you have to, you have to look at what these people are doing and really decide if this is a,

00:48:39.060 if this is the right thing or not. And you can get a glimpse into their life to the degree that

00:48:44.640 they're willing to show it online, you know, but there's, there's also another problem, you know,

00:48:50.200 and I think it's the guys like Tate and, um, uh, like the Paul brothers, Jake and Logan Paul,

00:48:57.580 um, they, they, they present a problem too. And I think they're entertaining. The Paul brothers are

00:49:05.380 entertaining. Uh, I like what Jake has done with his direction of boxing. Um, they're,

00:49:11.520 they're genius marketers. There's no doubt about any of this, but you have to take everything with

00:49:17.020 a grain of salt and you have to ask yourself, is that the life that I want to live? Now, some of

00:49:21.120 you would say, yeah, because they've got the cars and the girls and the notoriety and the, and the

00:49:25.980 money. Well, if that's what we think it means to be a man, then I think we're chasing empty

00:49:31.320 emptiness. That's what it is. Just emptiness. Superficial. Very superficial. It's what it's

00:49:39.640 worse than superficial. It's just empty. It's devoid of any purpose or meaning or satisfaction

00:49:44.680 in life. But if we prop these people up as the pinnacle or the epitome of masculinity,

00:49:50.900 then it's very easy for young men who are confused, who are growing up in fatherless homes,

00:49:55.460 who are growing up being raised primarily by women to look at that and say, well, I guess that's how I'm

00:49:59.400 supposed to behave and it isn't. But the guys who are actually, the guys who you should actually

00:50:05.880 look up to are not even guys like me. It's the, it's the dad who's coaching your son's baseball

00:50:12.820 team. And he's there religiously sacrificing his own time with his family and being involved with

00:50:20.400 his son and your sons and taking them on team trips and pizza parties after the game and the end

00:50:25.260 season celebrations. Or it's, it's, you know, your, your pastor at church who pours into his

00:50:32.360 congregation and he leans in and he starts a men's group or he starts a pornography recovery program in

00:50:39.820 the church, or he's rallying all of his congregation to do charitable work and donate money. Or, you know,

00:50:48.140 maybe it's the school teacher who, uh, you know, struggles because he's teaching, uh, you know,

00:50:55.180 a bunch of fifth graders that aren't even his that come from broken homes and just little shits at

00:50:59.860 times because of their home environment. And he's busting his ass. He's paying for school supplies

00:51:05.420 himself and he's showing up early. And then when he's done with that, he goes and coaches after

00:51:09.880 school is done. These are the guys that you should look up to. And they're not, you know, they're,

00:51:14.780 they're, they're dads, right? They're wearing jeans with, you know, white new balances and

00:51:19.520 their shirts tucked, their polo shirt tucked in. And, you know, they're out mowing the grass on

00:51:24.060 Saturday. And so you look at them like that guy's not cool. No, he is cool. Actually. He may not look

00:51:29.660 like Andrew Tate, but he's trying to take care of his family. He's out mowing his lawn. He's, he's

00:51:35.120 mowing his neighbor's lawn. He's serving his communities, coaching. So yeah, it's not sexy, but those are the

00:51:41.160 guys that we ought to be looking at. And they're everywhere, everywhere. If you just pay attention

00:51:46.820 and put yourself in the right places. I love that, man. And it's so true that they're all the silent

00:51:53.560 heroes, right? That don't get the recognition that they probably deserve. And they're not focused on

00:52:00.200 the recognition because that's not the purpose and the mission. Yeah. They're not even on, they're not

00:52:04.960 even on social media. And if they are, it's like, it's like Jill and Bob Jones on Facebook. It's like

00:52:11.500 a joint account, right? So like, those are the guys that we ought to pay more attention to.

00:52:17.100 It's the people that, you know, and there's a great scriptural reference by your, by their fruits,

00:52:21.700 you shall know thee. And so you can look at their children and you can look at their, their marriage

00:52:26.680 and you can look at the way they're growing their businesses. And you can look at the way, I mean,

00:52:30.000 you can even look at the way their, their home is manicured and taken care of. And that tells you

00:52:34.520 something about a person. So we ought to look for those kids. Totally. Totally. You know, in the 11

00:52:40.000 years, Ryan, what's something that irks you maybe that people keep getting wrong around the message

00:52:48.420 around, around the mission and the message of order of man and the iron council that you feel like

00:52:54.060 people keep missing from time to time? I think it's really easy. I think this was my own doing

00:53:01.960 and I'm trying to be more aware of this. I think it's really easy for us to focus on what we as men

00:53:08.920 naturally gravitate towards. Like our motto is protect, provide, preside. And I believe that with

00:53:15.340 every fiber of my being, that's our job. But what I often miss is the softer,

00:53:21.840 more intangible nature of masculinity, right? When I think of protect, what do you think of? Oh,

00:53:30.660 I need to learn how to shoot a pistol and I need to, I need to learn how I need to do jujitsu and

00:53:35.320 martial arts. Or when you think about provide, it's like, I need to make money and be out of debt and

00:53:39.160 provide vacations in the new car. When I think of provide, it's like, okay, I need to lead my family

00:53:45.120 and give them direction and help them be successful. What I need, I'm not putting this on

00:53:52.260 other people. I need to do a better job at communicating this. When I talk about protect,

00:53:57.020 for example, preside. Well, let's talk about protect first. So, you know, instead of it being all only

00:54:05.780 about that protection that we as men naturally gravitate towards, are you creating a safe environment

00:54:12.040 for your wife to communicate effectively with you? Like, are you, are you protecting the sanctity of

00:54:17.360 your relationship by not flirting with other women or, or, or even having women that you follow,

00:54:23.420 like hot women on Instagram? Like, why are you following that person? You're not protecting the

00:54:28.780 sanctity of your relationship. You're opening it up to threats that in any other context, we would

00:54:34.020 clearly recognize it's a problem. Yeah. But our focus is protect physically, right? And then all the soft

00:54:41.780 stuff of protect, we, we have a tendency not to touch. Right. Yeah. Provide again, it's not just

00:54:47.680 about the, the physical provision, but are you creating and providing a safe environment for your

00:54:53.620 children? Um, are you providing opportunity for them to learn, uh, outside of school, even about skills

00:55:03.260 and the way the world works, uh, or even to go back to provide or excuse me, to protect. Are you

00:55:10.960 protecting your children from horrible music and degenerate shows and potential exposure to

00:55:20.180 pornography? Are you providing that? If not, you should be. So there's a softer nature. I don't

00:55:26.020 want to say softer. That's not the right way to say a more intangible nature of what we do that can be

00:55:30.540 really challenging for men that we need to focus on. And I'm committed to doing that. So that might be

00:55:36.260 some more well-roundedness that you see in the future moving forward. Yeah. Well, uh, you talked

00:55:43.980 about two of the P's. How about preside? What comes to mind for you on the intangible side of presiding?

00:55:49.480 Well, one of the things that comes to mind instead of being so directive is just asking really good

00:55:53.720 questions. And, and I've tried to be better at that. And, and I'm a professional question asker.

00:56:00.200 That's what I do for a living. I have conversations and I ask questions. So I'm a lot better than I was

00:56:04.940 11 years ago, but instead of directing my children, for example, I don't, I don't need to do that as

00:56:12.320 often as I thought. It's sometimes just asking really good, thoughtful questions so they can

00:56:17.260 come to their own conclusion. And granted, as they get older and my children are getting older,

00:56:20.580 it's like more realistic that I do that. But when one of my kids comes to me with a problem,

00:56:25.640 it's very simply, man, that's hard. What are you going to do about it? How are you going to fix it?

00:56:29.340 What do you think you should do? What, what kind of problems would that present? What would be a good

00:56:33.380 solution? To me, that's presiding. You're, you're guiding, you're helping them come up with

00:56:39.140 solutions to their own problems. Even when we go on hikes, my, my youngest, none of my kids really

00:56:44.400 like to hike. And maybe that's partly my fault because we never did it much up until relatively

00:56:49.380 recently. And so I'll go on a hike and I'll take my kids and my youngest will like be trailing behind

00:56:54.100 me. And I'm like, Hey bud, come up here, come in front of me. And he's like, well, I don't know where

00:56:59.840 to go. I'm like, well, lead the way I'll follow you. And every once in a while he'll turn around.

00:57:05.180 He's like, what do you think dad? Like this way? I'm like, what do you think? He's like, well,

00:57:08.920 this looks cool. Let's go this way. And sometimes we come to a dead end and he's like, Oh, I guess

00:57:12.460 we've got to turn around. Yeah, we can turn around. That's no problem. And so it's just creating

00:57:16.780 little moments where the people under your care, I just, I say your people, you're giving them

00:57:24.680 opportunities to lead. That to me is being a better leader than doing it yourself. Anything

00:57:29.520 else would be being a dictator. And, and trust me, there's times where you need to be the dictator,

00:57:35.560 right? If your house is on fire in the middle of the night, you have to be the one to say, kids,

00:57:41.480 grab, grab your bag or whatever. And let's hit the back door or like whatever. That's a,

00:57:47.120 that's a dictating moment, but those are few and far between. Even within the iron council,

00:57:53.560 I hope I try to do a good job at this, which is to decentralize command, let people make decisions,

00:58:01.860 let them be involved. Like I don't, there's some days where I can actually make meetings,

00:58:06.960 but I choose not to because I'd rather have somebody else do it because I believe in them.

00:58:11.040 It gives them an opportunity and it gives the guys they're communicating with a different look

00:58:17.020 than what I can provide for myself or what I can provide. So I think these are all elements of

00:58:21.740 presiding, uh, presiding leading that we don't often reflect on. Yeah. Yeah. Really focused on

00:58:28.360 influence, creating opportunities for growth, um, and less about authority. Right. Well, even this,

00:58:36.320 even this podcast Kip is a great example of that. I'm giving you an opportunity to interview me. Now

00:58:43.820 I'm not saying that's the prize being able to interview me. I'm saying it's even though it is,

00:58:51.060 no, it's, it's, um, absolutely. It's good for you. Yeah. It's, it's good for you to stretch. I know

00:58:59.460 what you do for a living. I know the business you're trying to grow. This is good for you.

00:59:04.100 And if I can create an opportunity like that, even if it's something small as having an hour long

00:59:08.660 conversation. Now, granted, I'm not, I don't feel like I'm doing you a favor. I feel like you're

00:59:12.820 doing me a favor, but I still recognize that this is a good experience for you. It's a developmental

00:59:18.360 opportunity. Totally. What I love about this, Ryan, is I feel like this all, this is the difference of

00:59:25.160 thinking tactically versus strategic. And I, and I always use the, the analogy of the kid's room being

00:59:32.820 clean, right? When I use authority to get a clean room, what's the focus? The focus is a tactical

00:59:39.780 wind, right? The room being clean, but strategically, what's my objective as a dad? Raise kids into

00:59:47.640 adults. Oh, got it. So it's not about the room. Oh, it's about creating an opportunity for them to

00:59:54.540 learn, to figure it out. And then all of a sudden, once we focus on the strategic, we realize, man,

01:00:00.320 all the time we have a tendency to use our authority or our role of, as a presider to get

01:00:07.460 tactical controls of short-term wins at the cost of the long-term objective.

01:00:13.840 It's more necessary, the higher the stakes, I would say. Right. And that's why that emergency

01:00:20.320 scenario worked because the stakes are really high that if you don't get results, I want compliance in

01:00:26.420 that moment. I don't need your commitment. Yeah. We don't have time. Right. Yeah. I need your

01:00:31.100 compliance. And the best way to get compliance in those moments is to develop commitment outside of

01:00:37.960 those moments where they actually trust you and they know you're going to lead well. One of the

01:00:43.000 things that you often hear from women quite a bit actually is, oh, I just lost trust in him. Whether

01:00:48.840 they vocalize it or their behavior shows that they just lost trust. And why is that? Because the man

01:00:54.360 said he would do X, Y, and Z. And he did it a thousand times. He promised to do it. And he

01:01:00.220 didn't, you know, a guy will say, Hey, I'm going to start a business, babe. What do you think? And

01:01:03.480 then the guy will come to me and be like, she, she wasn't on board with me. I'm like, okay, well, why?

01:01:08.420 Well, she said, because the last three businesses I started, I didn't really commit fully and I failed

01:01:12.760 and I wasted 20 grand. It's like, okay, well, that's a pretty good reason to be skeptical about what

01:01:19.160 you're saying now. So I think it is crucial that we develop that trust in the, in the, the credibility

01:01:26.020 and the commitment before we need compliance. And we will, we will need compliance in certain

01:01:33.060 moments. Yeah. You know, it's a little bit related to this, the, I don't know, what term did we end

01:01:39.880 up deciding on softer on the softer side of, I said intangible the mission. Yeah. The intangible.

01:01:45.940 Is there any, is, is, would you say those intangibles, that's what guys get wrong the

01:01:54.500 most or, or is there other elements like, you know, you're 11 years in, right. And I, and I have

01:02:01.020 to ask this, it's like, what are you, what are guys constantly getting wrong that like, it's just

01:02:07.640 not landing or, you know, that they need to take action on that. You wish that, that guys listening

01:02:14.540 to the podcast or even guys in the iron council, they struggle with that. You just wish that they

01:02:19.280 would figure out better. I mean, that's definitely part of it is these intangibles is part of it. I

01:02:26.060 would say, I would say an, an, another thing would be to stop focusing so much on what's beyond your

01:02:34.180 control, right? We are constantly as men wrestling for control of scenarios that are beyond our grasp.

01:02:39.700 And so we'll, and we're wasting time on those things. And so we'll stay up to date on everything

01:02:46.540 that's going on with the war in Iran and everything that's going like what, what Tucker said to the

01:02:51.400 nth degree and follow every account on social media about what camp, what, what marathon Cam Haynes

01:02:59.360 ran last month. Like, I don't care. I like with Cam, I want him to be successful and I'm excited

01:03:06.960 because I like Cam we're friends. Like I, I don't, how does whatever race he ran impact me unless I'll

01:03:13.760 give you this caveat to go back to the comparison thing, unless it inspires me to do it myself. And then

01:03:19.780 I should care about that. Yeah. But what am I going to do about Iran? Like why am I spending five

01:03:26.360 hours focused on that? Or why am I spending five hours focused on what my neighbor Joe said when

01:03:34.520 he was drunk last weekend? It was like, I, there's nothing I can do about that. But what I can do is

01:03:40.600 what's the cost of it. Yeah. But what I can do is I can coach my son's team. I can go to my daughter's

01:03:48.880 dance recital. I can put my arm around them when they're crying because they had a bad day or somebody

01:03:52.880 bullied one of them at school. Um, I can't have conversations with my friends and I can tell

01:03:59.440 them they're important and I can ask them questions about something they're good at. Um, that might

01:04:05.800 help me. Like those are things I can focus on. You know, I had a funny story. My second son was really

01:04:11.360 mad at me over the weekend and I was, they had a lacrosse tournament and they were playing against

01:04:19.040 a team. I think it was their second game and they were stinking it up. And I'm not a coach for the

01:04:24.900 lacrosse team, but I'm on the sideline cause I'm taking pictures. And I said something to my son when

01:04:31.980 he came out, my second son about, I can't even remember what it was, but I'd said, Hey, you need

01:04:38.540 to play differently. You need to play better. What are you doing? And he got really mad. He was already

01:04:43.920 flustered and he got really mad. And he said, dad, if you're going to be on the sideline, just be

01:04:48.880 quiet. Or he said something like that. And he's like, I'm playing hard. I'm like, then show me.

01:04:53.860 And I wasn't mad. I didn't yell anything like that. And the coach who I'm a friend, who I'm friends

01:04:58.780 with, um, the coach was like, he turned to my son and he's like, Hey, knock it off to my son.

01:05:05.380 And then I was walking by and I noticed something that the team wasn't, I was walking to the other side

01:05:10.180 of the field and the team wasn't communicating with the players on the field. So they kept

01:05:15.660 getting, uh, attacked from behind because they couldn't see. And I'm like, Hey guys, like

01:05:20.220 you need to like, tell the, tell, talk to the team so that they don't know who's behind them.

01:05:25.540 Talk to them. And I just said it in passing. And my son got mad again. He's like, dad, why

01:05:30.880 are you mad? Why are you yelling? I'm like, I'm not, what are you talking about? And so I

01:05:35.760 walked off and the coach said, come over here to him. And he benched him. Yeah. And I was

01:05:43.320 like, Ooh, I just got my son benched. That's what I thought. And, but he learned a lesson.

01:05:50.000 Yeah. And I, I actually really appreciate and respect the coach. And so I, um, I'm, this

01:05:55.320 is a really, this is too long of a story. I'll try to tighten this up. But later in the game,

01:05:59.520 I went and sat by my son and I said, Hey dude, what's up? Like, what's going on with you?

01:06:03.660 And he's like, I'm tired, dad. And we're getting beat up and I'm frustrated. And I'm not, I know

01:06:08.580 I'm not playing well. I'm just pissed. And I said, okay, that that's fair. Like fair. And I said,

01:06:14.580 well, what are you doing? You're sitting on the bench. What are you doing? And he's like, well,

01:06:17.200 the coach benched me. I said, okay, that doesn't mean that you have to sit on the bench. It means that

01:06:24.660 you don't get to play the rest of the game. So you get your shit on and you go stand on the sideline

01:06:28.840 and you support your team. And he's like, okay. And he got his helmet back on. He got his gear

01:06:33.880 back on and he went and sat on the sideline. And it was, it was a good moment. And after the game,

01:06:37.440 I came up and we kind of reconciled and stuff. And, but then I was thinking, I'm like, you know,

01:06:40.960 I actually probably owe the coach an apology because it's not my place to do that on the field.

01:06:46.480 It was not my place. And so I went to the coach and I said, Hey coach, look, I just, I owe you an

01:06:51.040 apology. I, I'm on the sideline. I get excited too. I will keep my mouth shut. He's like, no,

01:06:56.920 he's like, everything you were saying was right. I don't have an assistant coach.

01:06:59.920 Everything you were saying is right. And I said, well, that's actually what I wanted to talk with

01:07:02.900 you about. I said, I want to, I want to come help coach the team in some aspect. I don't know

01:07:07.880 lacrosse well, but I've coached for a lot of years and I want to come help the team in some regard.

01:07:12.240 Can we talk next week? Cause he's in the middle of a tournament. I'm like, I'm not going to get into

01:07:15.700 now. And he's like, yeah, let's do that. The point that I'm making is I can influence that.

01:07:21.180 I can go coach the team and I can have an influence, a positive influence in the lives of those young men.

01:07:26.920 I can't go coach the president on what he should or should not be doing.

01:07:31.840 So focus on the smallest locus of control and fully invest in those things.

01:07:38.240 Why do you think guys do it? Like, why do what, what, what, why does the average guy listening

01:07:43.500 today go, they obsess with the news and Trump and this and that, and all these things outside of

01:07:50.380 the control. What, why, why do we get sucked into this?

01:07:53.800 Because they know they can't do it, anything about it. And so it's safe.

01:08:01.320 It's way safer to just sit in the stands and cast stones at things that you have no control over.

01:08:09.900 You don't have to do anything to do that. You just have to yell and shout and be agitated and

01:08:15.780 bothered. That's all you have to do. You see it on social media all the time. People just yelling at

01:08:20.620 each other, talking over each other, criticizing this, mocking that, drumming up weird conspiracy

01:08:26.880 theories because they don't have to do anything. Like what if you were as agitated about the public

01:08:35.020 school system in your local area as you are about what's happening in Iran? Or what if you were as

01:08:42.560 worked up when you see your kid underperforming or making dumb decisions relative to what your

01:08:49.260 politician of choice is doing or saying? I'm not saying be uninformed. You should. But imagine if you

01:08:55.840 were just as fired up and worked up about why your business isn't growing as you were about why the

01:09:02.900 economy sucks and how everything is the juice. Like what if, you know, like, yeah, that's why,

01:09:09.440 because when we focus on the things within our control, we create a gap and it's the integrity

01:09:14.900 gap. It's the gap between what we're doing and how we're showing up and what we, what we believe

01:09:21.740 about ourselves or what we want to see. So when we create that gap, we have an identity crisis.

01:09:28.220 It's not catastrophic. Usually it can be over time, but we create, we create a conflict.

01:09:35.040 Yeah. Okay. That's a good way. It's a, it's a identity conflict is what it is. And nobody wants

01:09:40.640 to face that. So I'm not going to critique myself. I'm not going to talk about things that are within

01:09:46.620 my control because I'm pretty good with where I am right now. And I think that's why men do that.

01:09:51.560 Got it. Got it. I love it, man. All right. As we wrap up, um, we're at the top of the hour. So if

01:10:00.100 you're okay, just kind of closing things out. Um, what's an element of you, you know, and I just

01:10:08.140 think, I just want to pull back the curtain a little bit, right? Cause you obviously have a

01:10:11.200 persona, right? There's an online persona of who Ryan Mickler is. We talked about even from a dating

01:10:15.760 perspective, whether good or bad, right? If you're dating some woman, she's, she has an opinion.

01:10:20.380 Yeah. Right. Um, what is it that, that people don't know that, that may like how you show up

01:10:29.700 in the world does not meet that persona. Right. And then it's like, Oh man, actually Ryan is

01:10:33.940 actually this. And you has have no idea. You know, I always think of like Jocko, right?

01:10:38.120 The first time I ever met Jocko, I was like, he's really funny. Yeah. Like he's kind of goofy

01:10:43.400 and funny. And you don't, that's not the persona that you get online, right? You think he's just

01:10:49.040 intense, you know, free, you know, discipline equals freedom all the time. Right. And he's

01:10:54.140 like, I mean, he's cracking jokes all the time. You're like, that's hilarious. Yeah. So what,

01:10:58.680 what element is it that like people have wrong about you based upon online persona that they

01:11:04.820 may not realize? I will answer that question, but I want to say another person like that is

01:11:08.480 Andy Frisilla. When I first met Andy Frisilla, I thought I was going to meet MF CEO.

01:11:13.800 Yeah. Like crazy intense. Yeah. Every other words, he's like cussing and yelling at you. Yeah.

01:11:19.920 But when I went and did his podcast for the first time and interviewed him, he flew me to St. Louis.

01:11:24.260 He put me up in a hotel. I met him for the first time. He's the kindest, nicest guy. Like he can be

01:11:29.440 a hard ass for sure. But I was like, wait, and I don't think he's being disingenuine. I want to make

01:11:35.640 sure I'm clear about, and I don't think Jocko is either. He's just passionate or intense about the

01:11:39.720 thing that they're talking about is all. Yeah. And I'm not being disingenuine when I give you this

01:11:43.960 answer is that I actually, I think people are surprised about the fact that I actually do care

01:11:49.600 about people. Like I really do. Like I'm not as critical in real life as I might be online. I'm

01:11:57.780 not so black and white in real life as I am. I mean, you can attest to that kid because we know each

01:12:02.160 other, but the amount of phone calls that I take with people, like even random people on,

01:12:07.260 on Facebook who are like, I'm struggling and they're, maybe they're suicidal or they're dealing.

01:12:10.880 I get on the phone with those people. I actually care. A lot of people don't see that. And so it

01:12:15.180 is interesting when, you know, I might make a comment that ruffles some feathers. I also like

01:12:20.460 to ruffle feathers. So that doesn't bother me. Like I like poking the bear a little bit. Um,

01:12:24.900 I think it's funny. I can agitate. Um, I have to be careful of doing that cause I shouldn't, but

01:12:29.960 the, my, my, the demons inside of me or whatever, like, like to say this, it'd be funny. They're

01:12:37.300 going to, you're going to get a mad. I'm like, that sounds like a good idea. Yeah. I should do

01:12:40.520 that. The teenage boy view is like, yes, I got this devil on my shoulder here and angel. Like,

01:12:46.140 don't do that. And the devil's like, no, do it, do it, do it. I'm like devil wins this one. Um,

01:12:51.320 but no, in real life I care. Like I take phone calls. I have like meaningful conversations with

01:12:56.740 people. Um, I, I think I'm fairly generous with my, with my, my prosperity, whether it's my time

01:13:05.200 or attention, my finances, I try to be generous. And so every once in a while, somebody will say,

01:13:10.840 you know, Ryan, you're an asshole or whatever they'll say online. And somebody will pipe up and

01:13:14.180 say, actually two years ago, I was going through a divorce and Ryan called me on the phone. So what

01:13:20.900 you're saying is not accurate based on the experience I had with him. So I think people would be

01:13:25.700 surprised to know that. Yeah. You know, you expose this sometimes on the podcast, but,

01:13:32.620 but I always, I remember when I found this out about you, I thought, Oh, that's interesting.

01:13:36.560 That's not what I thought. And you said this the other day when we were recording about the hunt

01:13:41.860 expo and you're like, yeah, I don't really like going. There's so many people there on a Saturday.

01:13:47.080 Right. And it's kind of funny, right? Because here you are, you have the successful podcast.

01:13:52.020 Your whole objective is speaking to masses. And then you're like, yeah, I don't really like

01:13:58.600 hanging around a lot of people. And I think that's funny. Like, that's really hilarious.

01:14:03.460 I don't, I want to be around people who are close to my life. And one thing I do like is when people

01:14:09.600 come up to me and they're like, Hey man, are you Ryan? And I had this happen at the expo a handful

01:14:13.440 of times. Yeah. Or at the airport, you know, and people are like, Hey, are you Ryan? I'm like,

01:14:17.980 yeah. They're like, Oh, I listened to your podcast. And I try to remember their names or I try to reach

01:14:21.940 out to them on Instagram or something after the fact that to me, it's flattering. I like it because

01:14:26.480 I know that what we're doing is making a difference and that people are actually listening, which is

01:14:29.900 still 11 years later, they're listening to me. It's kind of trippy, but, but I love when they say

01:14:35.360 like, Oh man, you know, you had this one guest on, or you were talking about this one thing.

01:14:40.900 And I really took that to heart and I've been so much better because I applied that in my life.

01:14:44.400 I'm like, hell yeah. Like, that's what we want. And so when I get those personal experiences,

01:14:49.100 one-on-one experiences, it actually means a lot to me. Yeah. I love it. What's one thing that

01:14:55.560 maybe a call to action to the men listening? Like if you were a guest on this podcast, what's your,

01:15:03.520 what's your, what's your action? Yeah. I mean, we talked about, you would ask men to do.

01:15:07.960 I think I would say, get around, just get like, build, build brotherhoods, build and participate

01:15:17.180 in brotherhoods. That's what I would say. Be, be around. So many men are struggling and they don't

01:15:23.800 have to struggle as hard as they are. You know, they're down and they're depressed and they're

01:15:28.560 frustrated. And I get it. There's so many reasons to feel that way about life, whether self-imposed or

01:15:33.480 not, but having good men. And I'm not talking about like going to the, like going to the game

01:15:40.580 with a guy or like the surface levels. I'm talking about get deep into conversation. That takes time,

01:15:46.740 right? Like any relationship, it takes time to get there. And you're going to find people who want

01:15:50.000 to do that and find people who aren't. The way that you do it is you create difficult environments,

01:15:56.180 challenging environments, or you participate in challenging things. So like jujitsu or,

01:16:00.240 you know, a running group or hiking group, or you create something, you know, and you,

01:16:05.220 you actually create it. And we're going to put together a lot more resources to do that. And

01:16:09.800 then of course we've got the iron council. I love that guys can just tap into that, man. If I had that

01:16:14.140 when I was younger, getting my financial planning practice started and the amount of ideas that I

01:16:20.220 could bounce off of people and how they would hold me accountable. And even just the system of

01:16:24.560 accountability and the battle plan, I'm like, dang, but that's the, that goes back to your first

01:16:28.680 question. It's just something that I needed. And so I created it.

01:16:34.140 Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's, that comes up so often, man, right? Whenever I've seen like a young guy,

01:16:40.840 you know, join the iron council and they introduce themselves and they're like, Oh, I'm so-and-so

01:16:44.580 I'm 22. I'm thinking, and you could see it on the face of all the older guys that are all like,

01:16:50.000 man, if I had this at 22, it would be like, I needed this. I needed this, you know? And you said

01:16:57.260 something, Ryan, that I think is profound. Life's tough. It is tough, man. It's absolutely tough.

01:17:03.520 But you know when it's really tough? When you feel alone in it. Yeah. That's when it's miserable

01:17:10.760 and that's unnecessary, you know? And, and that's a different level of suffering and hardship when we

01:17:19.040 feel alone in it. And, and I, that's what I took from what you said. It's like, don't like life's

01:17:25.560 going to throw you curve balls. Don't be alone with dealing with it. There's, there's no reason

01:17:30.320 for that. Right. And, and you can create and get around guys. So yeah, worst case scenario where they,

01:17:38.260 they give you good advice or not, you're at least not alone. Right. Cause I think it's the alone part

01:17:43.660 that is really hard to deal with. Yeah. I, I think another thing along those lines, and I agree about

01:17:49.400 the loneliness is that you have to ask for something. You have to ask for help. More men need to do that.

01:17:55.000 I actually got a really interesting phone call yesterday. I won't explain the details,

01:17:58.480 but I can explain enough. I got a phone call from Pete Roberts. He he's the founder of origin

01:18:03.720 and he's like, and I haven't talked to Pete for probably a couple of months. Like we'll text

01:18:08.260 every once in a while back and forth, but origin just sponsored some really cool rash guards for

01:18:13.520 my boys' lacrosse team. And he just called, he's like, Hey, did you get them? How'd they turn out?

01:18:18.920 And I said, that really good. And he said something that he's actually never said to me before.

01:18:22.680 He's like, Hey man, I need your help with something. I was like, wait, what? And he's

01:18:27.560 like, yeah, you know how you always ask me how you can help and what you can do. I'm like, yeah,

01:18:30.960 I say that every time we talk. He's like, yeah, I'm calling it in. And I said, okay, like, what do

01:18:36.680 you need? And he told me what, and it was a professional thing that he needed. It wasn't

01:18:40.540 anything personal, but he's like, I need this. I need help with this product line that we're coming

01:18:44.240 out with. And I need to be able to talk about it and I need platforms to do it. I'm like done.

01:18:48.120 Absolutely. Of course. And, and he's like, I said, why? I said, I, what did I, what did I say? I was

01:18:55.260 like, man, I said, Pete, I'm really surprised that you asked that from me. And he's like, Oh,

01:18:59.620 really? Why? I'm like, you've never asked for anything. Like I offer all the time. You'd never

01:19:03.540 asked. You've never even, you don't even really accept it when I give it. And he's like, yeah,

01:19:07.320 yeah, yeah. I know. He's like, I have a hard time asking people for help, but then it changed

01:19:12.480 because he got a call from Andy Stumpf who a lot of people know cleared hot podcast and Andy's coming

01:19:18.060 out with a book in a month. And I guess Andy had called Pete and was very direct and said, I need

01:19:23.820 your help with the book launch and asked for a favor from Pete. And Pete's like, he wasn't put

01:19:28.980 out. He wasn't bothered. And in fact, he was flattered. And so Pete said, he, I'm just taking a

01:19:34.260 page out of his playbook. I need help. He asked me now I'm asking you. I'm like, done. I wish more men

01:19:39.680 would do that. You know, like when you're, when you're struggling with somebody, something call,

01:19:44.280 call your friend and say, Hey man, I'm struggling with this. I I've had, I've had conversations like

01:19:49.220 relationship conversations where I've called you Kip. And I'm like, Hey man, like I just had a really

01:19:53.360 bad conversation with somebody or my kid or whatever. And can I just run this past you? And

01:19:59.000 you're like, yeah. And then you share some insight. I'm like, Oh yeah, I didn't even think about that.

01:20:03.740 Or that's a great idea. And then I go implement it. And then I try to be good at this

01:20:07.220 is I come back to you and I tell you about it because I need to close the loop on that.

01:20:12.340 I just seems like the right thing to do. Um, yeah, but you can't force those connections

01:20:17.040 and those relationships unless you ask for something. Like I need a word of advice. I need

01:20:22.640 help. I need you to come pick me up. Like whatever you need, like ask. And you'd be really surprised

01:20:28.180 as men, how, how often people will help. But consider this when people ask for your help,

01:20:36.500 do you feel put out or are you flattered? I would argue that most men would be flattered

01:20:41.020 because they're being useful. So if that's how you feel when people ask for your help,

01:20:45.700 isn't it safe to assume that other people will feel that way when you ask for help,

01:20:49.880 what you're actually doing is you're complimenting somebody and you're giving them a gift.

01:20:56.220 People don't understand that. When I ask for a favor from somebody who's I've earned the right

01:21:00.480 to ask from, I'm giving them the gift of being able to serve me and be valuable. It's very

01:21:07.420 interesting. And it's something a lot of guys just overlook. Yeah, absolutely. I love it. Be of

01:21:13.320 service. Absolutely. There's the call to action. Yeah, absolutely. And ask and ask, ask for, yeah,

01:21:17.780 ask. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I mean, we talked about the iron council, but I just want to reiterate that,

01:21:24.180 right? Like, man, if you guys are, if you're listening and you're alone in it, whatever it is,

01:21:32.520 whether it's struggles at work or in your marriage or relationships with your spouses,

01:21:39.680 or you're trying to get on a path of improvement and you don't have that tribe, you don't have those

01:21:45.180 men around you. One of your obvious resources is the iron council. So, you know, look that up,

01:21:52.360 order of man.com slash iron council band with us. And if not us, right. And it goes kind of back to

01:21:58.740 what you said earlier on the podcast, Ryan, it's like, it doesn't matter what the downloads are at

01:22:03.060 because guess what? We're committed to the mission, right? And so, and the mission is to be a resource

01:22:08.420 for men to rise up and show up more powerfully in their lives, right. For their families and for

01:22:12.400 their communities. So if not the iron council, then make the group, right? Do it. I'll show you how to

01:22:18.500 do it. Yeah. And, and, and, and don't, you know, rise up, right. And focus on the areas

01:22:24.660 by which you do have control. Yeah. So for sure. Awesome. Thanks Kip. Appreciate you, man.

01:22:30.920 Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for the opportunity, man. It was, it was fun.

01:22:36.540 Gentlemen, there you go. Kip's conversation with me. That's weird to say because it's different than

01:22:41.280 what I've said for the past 11 years, but I hope you enjoyed it. I hope that it gave you some insight.

01:22:45.340 I have had people ask me about order of man and why I started it and how we continue to innovate.

01:22:50.500 And what goes through my mind is we try to build this movement and organization. So I hope that

01:22:54.640 gives you some insight. And I know there's a lot of guys trying to build their own movements as well.

01:22:58.640 So if you have questions about how I've done it or need some ideas or insight, hit me up on Instagram.

01:23:06.260 I'm most active over there and I'm happy to share the ideas that I can with you on how to be

01:23:13.440 successful in your own movement and your own right. And if you're not trying to start a movement,

01:23:17.300 you're just trying to be a better man, which is a worthy goal. Then hopefully this gave you some insight

01:23:21.300 into things to consider the differences between men and women and the pressure to perform and

01:23:26.740 how it's okay to celebrate wins, but always think about what's next. We went into a lot, as you know,

01:23:32.380 because you listened to the whole thing. So I hope you enjoyed it. We will be back tomorrow for our

01:23:37.480 time to ask you anything until then guys go out there, take action and become the man you are

01:23:41.960 meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your

01:23:47.060 life 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 - March 10, 2026

RYAN MICHLER ｜ The Origin of Order of Man

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