Order of Man - Salvaging Sinking Marriages, Career Check-Ups, and Overcoming Isolation ｜ ASK ME ANYTHING

00:00:00.000 when you learn to become the best version of yourself for yourself, that ironically gives

00:00:07.700 you the greatest opportunity to reconcile in your relationship. And you know what? You may never.

00:00:13.040 That might be completely beyond your control, but you will be the best man moving forward in your 0.96

00:00:18.920 life for your business, for your kids, for your community, for another woman to come into your

00:00:23.680 life. The alternative is to just do nothing, to be frustrated and throw in the towel and tell 1.00

00:00:29.220 the world and yourself how bad she is and why she was wrong

00:00:32.580 kip what's up good to have you back uh sean filled in masterfully for you last week and so

00:00:39.880 uh he always does a phenomenal job but it is good to have you back and i enjoy our conversations as

00:00:44.320 well yeah yeah sean's a stud i uh as long as he doesn't do too good right and then maybe he'll

00:00:51.980 kick me out of my spot or maybe even kick you out of your spot i mean who knows right

00:00:56.820 i mean i'm not opposed to that either but i don't know maybe you can sabotage him somehow or

00:01:00.920 something like send him something in the mail that he loses his voice or i don't know loses

00:01:05.040 cognitive thinking or something you know but yeah try to destroy his reputation online maybe oh

00:01:10.560 that's a good way to do that yeah i mean nobody believes anything anymore though because everybody's

00:01:16.560 trying to do that anyways i had this funny this this uh woman make a post or a response to a post 0.75

00:01:24.040 that i made yesterday i gotta pull this up because it's actually kind of hilarious and she and she 0.81

00:01:28.360 said i was talking about just isolation and um being alone learning to be with yourself and she

00:01:34.720 said probably alone because you're a racist but whatever that's what she said and i wrote her back 0.66

00:01:40.840 and i said you're probably right because you know white people are really hard to find in montana 0.90

00:01:45.520 it's like when people make accusations anymore and i think this is actually going to be a big 0.95

00:01:52.160 problem moving forward nobody believes anything as the saying goes everything is fake and gay

00:01:58.080 right it's like everything is and what happens is when we start slinging insults around and using 0.76

00:02:05.920 words that actually have real meaning then it loses its meaning so you see it with racist you

00:02:12.460 see it with fascist uh this is even a big part of the whole me too movement years ago where

00:02:18.840 you know people are just slinging accusations around just willy-nilly and it actually undermines

00:02:26.740 women who are legitimately victimized by sexual abuse it's it's a really horrible thing and even

00:02:35.900 with ai you're gonna see it more and more it's gonna get really bad i mean we've all done it now

00:02:40.940 where you watch a video you're like is that is that real and we can't even tell the difference

00:02:46.320 now, give it a couple of years. Totally. Well, it reminds me of that quote from Mike Tyson,

00:02:52.280 right? Um, I'll, I'll have to find this Ryan. It's so good and it has to do it. Well,

00:02:56.240 I'll just paraphrase, but he's like, social media has allowed everybody to get ambitious

00:03:01.820 and courageous because they don't get punched in the face. And, and, and so you get digital

00:03:07.900 courage and we got digital courage with email. We got a little bit more digital courage with text,

00:03:13.440 probably an increase of digital courage when it's an ai video i created that talked shit 0.99

00:03:20.420 versus me talking shit yeah right and and to your point it just waters down everything 0.95

00:03:25.360 you know yeah so we'll see we'll see how it goes but we need to stay vigilant um speaking of 0.91

00:03:31.980 vigilant i need to i need to give you some coaching here kip and i hope i can do that publicly

00:03:37.460 on air. What the hell? Let's go. Disneyland. Come on. Oh, Disneyland. Okay. I was like, man,

00:03:44.260 I thought it was going to be a legit coaching. No, this is legit. This is legitimate. Don't

00:03:48.700 ever do that again. Don't ever let me see you do that again. Well, that may be outside of my

00:03:54.800 control, but, uh, you know, Asia's got a little bit more sway than I do. That's weird. I don't 0.99

00:04:00.020 get that, but yeah, it's fine. Yeah. I actually, it was, I was going to start a website called,

00:04:04.600 i was just going to call it dad and and it was an acronym dads against disneyland and then i 0.95

00:04:11.020 wanted to expand it and call it dads and then it would be dads against dumb shit so it would 0.90

00:04:17.440 include disneyland and other things that we don't want to do that we're forced to do it'd be a 0.97

00:04:23.260 support group for dads having to suffer through what their wives and kids want to put them through

00:04:27.540 a support recovery group yeah that's right buddy did you guys have a good time though

00:04:32.780 um you know how it is it's well i think it's bittersweet like there's some magic to it

00:04:38.140 especially with little kids right yeah just like lit up and it's so special you know until you get

00:04:44.040 in a line that's like two hours long right and it's just like this is craziness man so um yeah

00:04:50.440 i'll be honest i leaving this time i told asia i'm like it kind of lost its uh luster a little

00:04:56.920 bit maybe we lost his charm yeah it's lost his charm and it's because the girls are older that's

00:05:02.940 really what it comes down to i think yeah and i don't i mean i don't know i'm sure it used to

00:05:06.380 everything used to be better or it might just be me getting old and having a bit of nostalgia

00:05:10.760 with it but everything is so overly commercialized and you got the long lines and it's maximized for

00:05:17.160 generating revenue and it's just not magical anymore nothing is you know i yeah i actually

00:05:25.700 i take that back so this last weekend i was able to go up to montana and see what montana knife

00:05:31.860 company built up there their new facility oh my goodness it is so cool impressive it is so cool

00:05:39.440 i want to say roughly 50 000 square feet i could be way off on that i went to a uh vip and friends

00:05:46.380 and family dinner the night before there was 600 people multiple thousands of people there the next

00:05:53.080 day. And then, um, I went up to Glacier and spent a day and a half up there. Yeah. And I ran into a

00:06:03.260 couple older couples probably in there. I would say maybe late 60, 70, somewhere in there. And

00:06:11.140 we just got talking. I told him I was up for Montana knife company and you know, 60, 70 year

00:06:16.660 old couples aren't necessarily their target demographic, but both of them knew what it was.

00:06:22.560 and they were so proud of what Montana knife company was building. They're like, Oh, we want

00:06:26.400 to go see their place. And I mean, this place is incredible. All the machinery they're making all

00:06:32.620 of their knives. They're sourcing the steel in America. They're building them in America. They're

00:06:37.120 hand grinding them there at the shop. Um, I wouldn't even say shop anymore. It used to be a

00:06:42.660 shop. Now it's a manufacturing facility. It's just so cool to see what they've done in.

00:06:47.720 i think it's been about eight years or so somewhere right in there maybe maybe even a

00:06:55.080 little bit less than but man pretty incredible to see what they're doing so guys go support

00:06:59.300 i mean i know they're sponsors of ours but they're friends of mine that's how i got introduced to

00:07:03.760 them um i just had a text thread with josh he's the he's the founder then i just told him hey

00:07:10.080 thanks for letting me be just a sliver of your story i really i really glad to come up and he

00:07:13.880 said man you've been with us from the beginning and i have i met him before it was montana knife

00:07:18.980 company they were they kind of were getting started a little bit at soren x's winter strong

00:07:24.940 and we talked and had conversations josh helped me build a knife it's actually sitting there on

00:07:30.220 my nightstand right now like i love these guys and to see what they're doing is inspiring so go

00:07:35.140 check them out that's all i wanted to say on it i love it i love it all right man you want to get

00:07:39.920 some questions well i wanted to share something real quick and do something a little different

00:07:43.460 and I do want to get into questions, but, um, I made a, I made a post today and I, I was just

00:07:47.880 curious about what keeps men up at night, because when I talk with men on the daily, I hear a lot

00:07:54.860 of things about what men are struggling with. And if you guys are struggling with any of these,

00:08:00.380 what I want you to know is you don't have to struggle. I think there's this

00:08:06.200 idea that has permeated the man's space, if you will, where life is, it just has to be hard or

00:08:17.180 it is hard and men are built to shoulder the weight. And I use some of that verbiage

00:08:21.760 and we are, there's going to be difficult and challenging things that come into our lives,

00:08:26.860 but we don't need to make it unnecessarily hard on ourselves. And there are solutions.

00:08:31.740 there's groups there's books there's podcasts there's um building a band of brothers there's

00:08:39.220 having hobbies there's getting in shape there's so much that you can do

00:08:42.680 that would avoid a lot of this so i just wanted to go through a couple of these things so

00:08:47.840 this one comes maybe i won't mention the names because it was in a story and so they didn't say

00:08:53.440 i can mention the names but one is not knowing his purpose uh this one says money a solid career

00:09:01.100 being useful and his cat as well. That's an easy fix. Just get rid of the damn cat and get a dog

00:09:07.400 like a man. Uh, so we just solved 25% of your problems right there, dude. Just get rid of the 1.00

00:09:16.560 cat. Um, it's kind of like in, have you seen that guy that does jujitsu and he's like, just stand

00:09:23.780 up just stand up yeah yeah the stand-up guy yeah yeah just stand up it's so funny um or there's a

00:09:32.460 skit old skit on saturday night live i don't know if it's steve martin or who it is but he's a

00:09:39.220 therapist and people are coming in and and they're complaining about their life he's like stop doing

00:09:44.240 that just stop it just stop um let's see one says the what ifs with each current event it creates a

00:09:54.380 new question and possible outcome yeah that's a lot because there's so much going on in the world

00:09:58.980 right now um one guy says i'm scared shitless to raise my kids in this world yeah for sure i can't

00:10:08.160 control the world so that's tough yeah um whether i can provide for my family one guy says a lot

00:10:16.480 uh i would say on that i i get it i i know you're probably telling the truth but i would say the

00:10:24.980 more specific you can get the more capable you are of solving your problems so um this one says that

00:10:32.500 i don't let my daughter down by not giving her the tools to deal with the world so another one

00:10:37.600 about the world and what's going on in the world, going all in on my purpose. If I'm doing enough

00:10:43.720 to be a good husband and father, like these are all things that I'm sure everybody listening to

00:10:49.680 this, here's one, this one's brutal debt and whether I'll ever see my sons again. So I'm

00:10:54.680 assuming maybe a nasty divorce and custody battle, but it's heavy. It's heavy. And I don't mean to

00:11:00.980 start off on a negative note, but we have tools and we have resources and we've been doing this

00:11:05.880 for 11 years to help men solve these problems you and i kip we can't solve them we can give

00:11:11.920 tools and resources and the conversations and instruction and everything else but at the end of

00:11:16.760 the day um you listening you need to solve it you need to get in the game but one thing i don't want

00:11:24.840 you to do is and i see way too many men do this is sit back on their haunches and just wait maybe

00:11:32.560 my circumstances will get different. Maybe something external will happen. I'll get a

00:11:37.560 promotion or I'll find a woman, uh, or I'll win the lottery or whatever. And it just doesn't

00:11:44.760 happen. So go out, make yourself into something, assert yourself into the world, be assertive

00:11:52.740 and start getting after it. And hopefully we can give you some answers today. That'll help you do

00:11:56.320 that. I love it. Ryan, let me ask you this. Do you feel, is it the struggle that is so difficult

00:12:03.600 or is it struggling alone? That is more of the issue. Do you get what I'm asking?

00:12:13.280 Yeah, I think I do. What I've experienced personally and what I've seen a lot of men

00:12:20.600 experience is the idea that nobody gets it. Yeah. Nobody understands. Nobody knows what I'm dealing

00:12:28.940 with. No one is around to help me. Nobody's here to support me. Nobody knows what I'm going through.

00:12:34.020 Nobody knows what keeps me up at night. And that's wrong. Because I can tell you that there

00:12:42.240 are millions of men around the world who are struggling in the exact same way. An early

00:12:49.420 catalyst for order of man is I went through, I went through a really early separation with my

00:12:54.300 ex-wife. We were married for 18 years and about a year, was it a year? No, it was, it was my son,

00:13:03.540 my youngest, or excuse me, my oldest son was a year. And we went through a brief separation

00:13:07.800 as we were working through our stuff. And I remember talking with a handful of friends about

00:13:15.100 the separation and what I was going through and, you know, some of the things about my dad and

00:13:21.100 the business, just talking about the things that were going on. And it was amazing to me as I did

00:13:27.280 how many men said, oh yeah, my wife and I went through a separation or I went through a divorce

00:13:33.500 or my dad wasn't around or my business is struggling. And it got me thinking, everybody

00:13:39.080 is struggling. Everybody is suffering in some way and men just aren't talking about it.

00:13:45.100 And I'm not, I'm not here to say we need to sit around the fire and sing kumbaya and rub each other's backs.

00:13:51.160 And yeah, we need to take action. Yeah. Right. I mean, that's what, that's the plight of modern therapy is it's very feminized, but therapy for men is direction oriented and it doesn't have to be done in a stuffy office space with somebody who's trying to psychoanalyze you.

00:14:07.960 it could be done with friends on the jujitsu mats it can be friends going to do a spartan race or

00:14:14.920 going golfing or going hunting or getting out into the world and doing something significant

00:14:21.440 and meaningful building rebuilding a car together starting a business together

00:14:27.180 the more that you do that together that's therapy for men and i think what you said about

00:14:34.160 being alone, even if you're in a room full of people, most men feel pretty isolated. They really

00:14:40.960 do. Yeah. And, and I think that isolation often comes as a result of not being surrounded around

00:14:47.720 like-minded men. Right. And that's what makes the iron council so powerful. Um, and I have to call

00:14:53.920 this out, you know, we have a, an event coming up, geez, what were we talking about? Like within a

00:14:58.600 week or so the men's forge and you can learn more at themensforge.com but this is a gathering of men

00:15:05.060 that are like-minded that are struggling that are trying to improve in their lives trying to be

00:15:10.960 better husbands be better fathers everything on the list that you just read mark my word there

00:15:16.920 are men there dealing with those up at nights the power of the event is input right from experts

00:15:24.200 across multiple spectrums that address those issues and then banding with like-minded guys

00:15:30.320 that are willing to shoulder that with you a little bit, hold each other accountable,

00:15:35.680 right? And support each other. And that's what we're, you know, that's what we're talking about.

00:15:40.820 You know, what's funny is over the past couple of weeks, I've had a handful of guys reach out

00:15:44.760 with concern about going to the event. Like, I don't know. I don't know if I'm ready or I don't

00:15:49.060 know if I'm in the position or I don't know this. I don't know that. I don't know how much I can

00:15:51.820 participate in i've had like four or five guys reach out and my response to all of them was the

00:15:56.260 same oh no you are going and you're not going to think of excuses not to go you're going to start

00:16:02.260 figuring out reasons to go and fortunately all of these guys are like yeah yeah you're right i said

00:16:07.440 if look i understand the self-doubt i understand you might not feel comfortable you might be going

00:16:12.660 alone what like what i understand that what i don't understand is why you wouldn't work to put

00:16:18.560 yourself in a position that you know is going to be better for you when you do it. So if those guys

00:16:24.240 are feeling like that, I'm sure there's plenty of other people feeling that way as well. And so stop

00:16:28.400 looking for reasons not to excel and thrive and succeed and start looking for excuses and reasons

00:16:34.480 to excel and thrive and succeed. I love it. All right. We're going to jump in our questions. John

00:16:41.700 Preston's kind of kicking us off here with a reference actually to the iron council. He says,

00:16:47.080 in Think Again, the author, Adam Grant, he says you should regularly have career checkups twice

00:16:52.980 a year. My question is, who do you do a career checkup with? What is included in the career

00:17:03.660 checkup and what questions should be asked? Thanks, Hawk. Yes. Well, so you can look at a

00:17:10.920 couple of different categories. I have about three or four people, I would say, that I turn to.

00:17:17.080 um, to bring up these specific challenges that I might be going through. And what I've noticed

00:17:22.860 is that it's, it's not really broadly done. It's more acute. For example, if I have a concern about

00:17:31.080 marketing, I might reach out to somebody in my sphere of influence who I know is a good marketer,

00:17:36.140 Montana knife company, for example, and I can reach out to Brandon and say, Hey, Brandon,

00:17:40.160 here's, here's the exact issue I'm dealing with. Here's, here's what I'm working through.

00:17:44.400 do you have any solutions and it's really really important when you're asking for people's time

00:17:50.780 that you do them the respect of being specific with your questions i've actually got a call

00:17:56.840 with connor beaton a lot of guys know connor with man talks i've got a call with him not until may

00:18:01.700 because we're both so busy but i'm not going to go to that meeting with him just without what

00:18:08.500 without being prepared. I'm going to go with a handful of questions, maybe five, 10 questions,

00:18:15.440 hyper-specific on the areas that I feel like could be shored up and get his opinion and his feedback.

00:18:23.360 If you go in there randomly, not only are you not paying that person the respect they deserve for

00:18:27.980 giving you their time and attention, you're just not going to get great answers. You've heard me

00:18:33.340 say in the past, the quality of your life is determined by the quality of questions that you

00:18:36.840 ask. So whatever your pain point is, if it's marketing, if it's sales, if it's technology,

00:18:42.400 if it's research and development, if it's invoicing, if it's fill in the blank, then

00:18:48.460 get hyper specific on what questions and use AI for it too. That's a really good use of AI, by the

00:18:54.880 way. Hey, I have a problem with marketing. What are some good questions to ask myself or a mentor

00:18:59.780 that would help me shore this area up? And AI will help you with that. That's what AI should be used

00:19:05.780 for. And then you actually talk with real human beings who are going through real stuff, who can

00:19:11.220 navigate the human dynamic of doing business. So I'd find peers. I'd find people who are doing

00:19:21.600 better than me. You know, another one that comes to mind immediately is I could, I could text

00:19:26.320 Bedros Koulian right now. And I've done this, by the way, I was thinking about bringing somebody

00:19:31.720 on to manage our store. And I reached out to Bedros and I told him, I said, Hey, here's what

00:19:35.440 i'm thinking about doing here's my plan here's my strategy and he's like well hold on do this 0.80

00:19:40.360 instead try this because we tried this before it doesn't work but we've grown a fuel hunt his

00:19:46.000 main organizations and businesses and this is how we've done it man it was invaluable and i almost

00:19:52.600 didn't make the call because pedros is busy yeah but i called him with a very very specific question

00:19:59.200 And I also told him what I was already doing and what I have tried that didn't work.

00:20:06.660 That is what you do when you want to give somebody respect.

00:20:10.460 Hey, Bedros, I'm doing this. 0.66

00:20:13.100 I'm thinking about doing this. 1.00

00:20:15.320 I'm concerned about this.

00:20:17.660 What do you think?

00:20:19.520 And then he gave me the advice.

00:20:21.460 And here's the next step.

00:20:22.540 I actually implemented the advice and followed up, I'm sure.

00:20:27.200 And that's the last step.

00:20:29.200 Hey, Bedros wanted to let you know, just hired our store manager. Here's the compensation package. Here's how it works. Here's what I did based on your feedback. And he, he might, I don't even remember now, but he might've just given me a thumbs up or a good job, right? Or whatever. And that's all it took. But you have to complete the cycle to complete the loop. A lot of people don't do that. And that's really disrespectful.

00:20:52.720 i mean i i grew up doing that when i was a kid i remember opening christmas presents and my mom

00:20:58.780 had a notepad and you open christmas presents and she said you know aunt aunt susie gave you a

00:21:05.400 ugly sweater and uncle bill gave you a pack of baseball cards and and then she would write all

00:21:12.660 of them down and then for the next two or three days i was sending out thank you cards to everybody

00:21:18.400 who gave me a gift because that's what a decent human being does. They complete the loop. And

00:21:24.940 it's the same thing when you're doing this coaching is if you're not completing that,

00:21:28.540 then you're not sending the thank you card that is deserved for the person who gave their time

00:21:31.900 and attention to you. So there's a few ideas. I love it. You know, John, I'll give you another

00:21:37.420 one. I mean, what are we talking about here? Right. Career checkups. Like how are I, how am

00:21:41.040 I doing? Right. How am I progressing? How's the career going? Maybe some feedback. That's kind of

00:21:46.820 what we're talking about here. And what's interesting about this, and I'd love to get

00:21:52.080 your additional thoughts on this, is some of this is a psychological safety issue, right?

00:21:58.060 You can ask for feedback, but John, if I'm asking my employees, like, how am I doing? But I've

00:22:03.300 attacked them in the past when they try to give me feedback, it's going to be wasted on them and

00:22:09.680 or wasted on me. They're not going to speak up. They're not going to be honest with me, right?

00:22:13.440 And so relationships is a critical element of this, right?

00:22:16.760 And people's safety and feeling that they can be honest with you.

00:22:20.220 So that's critical.

00:22:21.960 The one thing I'd add just as another food for thought here is what I call assertive

00:22:26.720 feedback.

00:22:27.500 And so let's say, Ryan, you're a peer of mine or you're an employee or a peer within

00:22:33.760 the organization or even my boss.

00:22:35.860 This is what I would, this is what assertive feedback looks like.

00:22:39.020 I'd go to Ryan and say, Ryan, what are the most critical things and objectives that you're

00:22:44.480 working on right now? So I'm getting really clear what's most important to Ryan. And he could say,

00:22:50.400 oh man, marketing or helping the store, you know, increasing membership or whatever. Right. And I

00:22:56.080 get really clear on that. And then I say, in what ways am I adding to the difficulty of you

00:23:04.580 achieving that objective in what ways am i potentially getting in your way and making it

00:23:09.840 more difficult for you and then you're like well kip you bug me all the time and you do this and

00:23:16.440 i'm like okay got it and now in what ways can i assist better or what am i doing that is

00:23:25.080 contributing or helping and then i communicate what i'm hearing is blah blah blah ryan i'm going

00:23:32.580 to commit to doing this better and then you can confirm if that's accurate or not you do that

00:23:40.200 all kinds of magical things happen number one happens is i understand ryan better ryan feels

00:23:47.120 like he's understood better yeah i got some feedback of what i'm doing well i got some

00:23:51.860 feedback of what i'm doing not so well i've communicated and provided clarity of what

00:23:57.960 pivots and I'm going to make and got confirmation from you that it's going to provide some value to

00:24:03.460 you. And then we execute. It's interesting. It, it feels like it's all about service and it is,

00:24:12.740 but it's feedback on how do I lead and serve better? And that is way more powerful than

00:24:21.180 Ryan. Could you give me feedback on my top five talents and what I do? Well, like who gives a

00:24:26.280 shit what my talents are does it help you is it moving the needle is it progressing the team if 0.96

00:24:32.320 it's not why are we even talking about it right and so really focus on how we're impacting and 0.53

00:24:39.780 what we can do and what adjustments we can make yeah i mean even before you started saying that

00:24:44.580 i wrote i wrote this question down as a question not to ask and that is what feedback do you have

00:24:49.800 for me that's such a horrible question i don't know what that means so kip if you came to me as

00:24:55.960 my peer supervisor i'd be like uh you seem like you're a hard worker um i like having our

00:25:01.740 conversations and uh you seem like you're a good team player that does nothing to help anybody

00:25:10.380 and so you need to tighten up your questions so that's why i liked what you said i hadn't i hadn't

00:25:15.260 really thought about those questions before i wrote that down but you nailed that perfectly

00:25:18.320 the better questions you ask and even more specific you know even if you just wanted to

00:25:23.320 get more specific is, Hey Kip, I'm really trying to improve my cadence and the way that I speak

00:25:31.080 my voice. Do I have any, you know, little, little ticks, for example, that I do or words that I fall

00:25:40.700 back on as a buffer or weird, awkward pauses, or do my stories resonate? See what I'm doing.

00:25:47.380 I'm actually getting more specific about what type of feedback that I'm looking for. And that gives

00:25:52.660 you an actual truck a track to run on that will help provide what it is i'm after but don't just

00:26:00.000 randomly say hey what feedback most people are going to give you positive feedback because they

00:26:04.720 don't know how you're going to take constructive feedback yeah and then you got worthless feedback

00:26:09.660 you maybe even get some positive affirmation like oh they said i did great when reality oh yeah

00:26:15.020 that's true we just didn't write the ask right question right yeah that's true good point okay

00:26:19.620 what's next all right carnell tate it doesn't take long for us men to know when a woman is

00:26:25.400 marriage material if you found a woman how should a man prepare and financially plan a proposal

00:26:32.440 and the events leading up to and after marriage i am prepared to give my significant other the

00:26:39.360 greatest chance of success in the next year or so so before i propose are there any rules of thumb

00:26:45.420 well yeah i mean first congrats on finding a woman that you want to spend spend spend your

00:26:51.920 life with that's amazing and i'm really excited for you i think that's a huge step and i think

00:26:56.360 it's a value add to your life every statistic out there suggests that's the case regardless of what

00:27:02.120 all these guys say about getting married you'll be happier you'll and this this is scientific by

00:27:07.180 the way you'll be happier you'll live longer you'll make more money you'll be more fulfilled

00:27:13.700 just look at every statistic for married people and it completely obliterates the never get

00:27:20.640 married argument so take that for the way you want to take it uh what i would do what i would

00:27:27.680 suggest is in the next however long before leading up to this proposal is you really

00:27:34.880 start to wrap your head around how she processes financial decisions and if she's willing to work

00:27:41.540 with you on that. Because if you're thinking about these things right now, I think that it's

00:27:45.880 safe to assume you are a man who is very aware of finances. Managing your money correctly seems to

00:27:54.960 be important to you, which means that you're going to be vigilant about it. And you need to make sure

00:27:59.340 that she's on the same page or at least will work with you. Because if she grew up with what I call

00:28:05.020 money demons, negative self-talk around money, bad and destructive financial habits that were

00:28:12.080 taught to her by her mom and dad, scarcity thinking, not tracking, using shopping sprees as

00:28:21.540 therapy. That's going to be really difficult for you to overcome. I would also start talking with

00:28:27.720 her about future goals and plans that take money. So where would you like to live? Do you want to

00:28:34.720 stay at home or would you want to be in the workforce? If that's the case, how are we going

00:28:39.480 to do that? If you want to stay at home on one income, if we're doing two incomes, are we putting

00:28:45.260 our bank accounts together? Is that important to you? Would you want to keep them separate?

00:28:49.000 Do we have our own funds? Do we keep it all together? Who budgets, who tracks it? How does

00:28:53.760 it get spent? How do you make your spending decisions? What do you do when you're stressed

00:28:57.760 out? Do you spend money unnecessarily? These are all questions. I wouldn't write them all down and

00:29:02.920 then just like grill her one night on all these things but these are questions when appropriate

00:29:07.720 that you should bring up so if she if she says uh you know uh carnell i went out and i bought

00:29:15.940 i bought this i went i went and bought some new clothes and i'm a little worried they're

00:29:20.680 you know it's too much or too expensive or something a good question to ask would be

00:29:25.120 well how do you make those decisions

00:29:26.760 and then just let her decide or let her say what it is. And then that gives you some insight into

00:29:34.940 how she views money. And she might just say, I don't know. I just spent in the spur of the moment

00:29:38.960 and I don't even think about it. Okay. That's a little red flag that we need to make sure to

00:29:43.460 address because I promise you that's not going to go away when you get married. It's just that now

00:29:47.360 she's got more money to spend your money as well as hers. So I would really spend a lot of time

00:29:55.060 over the next, I think he said, year or so, getting to the root of how she handles money.

00:30:01.680 And if she's the woman that it sounds like she is, she's also going to be very engaged in how you do

00:30:07.900 it. She's probably going to want you to lead in that aspect. And so lead and say, hey, babe,

00:30:12.280 you know, here's my goals. I want to have savings built up. I want to invest $10,000 a year. I want

00:30:18.960 to keep our debt as minimal as possible as we're getting our family started. I'd like to have money

00:30:24.220 set aside when we, when we build and grow our family. Uh, I would like to put money aside for

00:30:29.980 a future deposit on, on a home. I'd really like to keep a budget. It's important to me. So you

00:30:35.260 tell her all the things that are important to you and let her come to you. And if she wants to be

00:30:41.100 led by you, as long as you're leading, she'll let you do it. Yeah. Carnell has a perfect example or

00:30:48.180 a project right now, right? Is plan that wedding. Yeah. Right. Yeah. What's our budget? What are we

00:30:54.120 going to spend on? How do we make these decisions? Like you have a perfect scenario right now is,

00:30:59.300 is preparing to get married and, and use this as your test bed project of how you're going to

00:31:05.240 manage the budget and set the tone. He said, he said something interesting. Read this part back

00:31:11.040 to me. He said something about, I'm prepared to give her the best opportunity or something like

00:31:15.260 that. What was that line? Yeah. I am prepared to give my significant other, the greatest chance

00:31:22.780 of success in the next year or so before I propose? Well, I love that line. I love that line.

00:31:32.840 There is so much confidence in that. There is so much leadership in that. There is so much

00:31:40.080 knowing your worth and what you bring to the relationship in that. We live in this environment

00:31:47.580 where everybody's afraid to put themselves out there

00:31:51.040 and take responsibility and lead and assert themselves.

00:31:55.340 And then you got Cornell coming in and like,

00:31:57.740 I'm prepared to give her the greatest opportunity

00:32:00.300 for success in the next year.

00:32:02.180 That's what you're supposed to do.

00:32:03.800 That is, that line right there is amazing.

00:32:07.500 That really stood out to me.

00:32:09.540 Yeah, certainly in a good mind thought process.

00:32:13.520 He talked about financial plan.

00:32:15.380 he also mentioned should a man be a man prepare period and financially plan so other things

00:32:24.100 outside the financial realm that you would recommend for him you know in this stage of

00:32:28.780 the relationship oh i i think the biggest one is do we've talked about this before kip do you have

00:32:34.800 a good sparring partner art well i'll say it this way do you have a good sparring partner and are

00:32:40.520 you a good sparring partner and the way and focus on yourself first so the way that you are a good

00:32:46.100 and what i mean by sparring partner is that you guys are bound to get into disagreements and

00:32:51.720 potential arguments and frustrations with each other because why wouldn't you you've got this

00:32:56.600 woman who has spent decades learning things in a culture in an environment different than the way

00:33:04.800 you have been doing not right or wrong necessarily but different so how do you not clash of course 0.64

00:33:09.700 that's going to happen but when you guys get married and even now the whole goal is to work

00:33:15.440 together in unison in harmony that her strengths are shoring up your weaknesses and your strengths

00:33:21.640 are shoring up hers and together you make a whole you make something greater than the sum of its

00:33:28.200 parts so when those moments of conflict arise how are those handled because if you can't handle

00:33:37.560 those respectfully with emotional clarity and resilience and, or she can't, the relationship's

00:33:46.080 not going to work. It just isn't. So even in those moments of frustration and contention,

00:33:51.840 which are bound to happen, are you still working together? Meaning is she challenging you in a

00:33:56.760 constructive and positive way? And are you doing the same? And if you can keep your mind on that

00:34:00.780 in those disagreements, you guys will be fine. So what that means for you is you need to be

00:34:06.740 emotionally regulated. Not that you don't have emotions, but that you can regulate them. So when

00:34:13.180 you're angry, it's okay to experience the emotion of anger, but you need to figure out how do I

00:34:20.320 manifest my anger? When you're sad, how does that manifest? When you're scared, how does that

00:34:25.840 manifest? You know, if you're angry, do you get verbally abusive and loud and scary? That'll be a

00:34:31.620 problem. When you're afraid, do you run away or do you attack? Because both of those could be a

00:34:38.360 problem. So you need to spend a lot of time right now thinking about how you manage and regulate

00:34:44.180 your emotions because that's what she needs from you. And you also need to be evaluating that in

00:34:49.040 her. And so when she gets out of line, you have to say, hey, babe, I love you, but I will not be

00:34:56.500 treated the way that you're treating me right now. If you want to have a good discussion without

00:35:01.920 resorting to personal attacks or without name calling or raising your voice, I would definitely

00:35:06.380 love to have that conversation with you. But if you're not going to do that, then we're not going

00:35:11.780 to have this conversation. I know what I'm about to say is going to ruffle some feathers, but you

00:35:17.060 need to train her to respond to you properly. And we all do that. We, we, we train people how

00:35:26.060 to treat us. Everybody around us. Yeah. Yeah. It's not just her, everybody. You need to train

00:35:30.940 your kids how to, how to respect you. You need to train your employees and your colleagues and

00:35:35.240 coworkers, strangers, even, you know, I don't, I don't let strangers do whatever they want around

00:35:41.580 me. There's rules that I have in place and they're reasonable. I'm not an unreasonable person, but

00:35:46.220 i train how people treat me and she should be doing the same for you by the way so when she

00:35:54.200 has those things come up you need to check you need to check it nope we're not doing that this

00:35:59.660 is how we're going to communicate this is how i will communicate and then you be that example

00:36:03.740 and then you hold a line on the way she communicates with you so that emotional regulation

00:36:07.680 piece for both of you is going to be really important and you've got some time to establish

00:36:13.060 some rules and boundaries between each other. Yeah. Love it. All right. Corey hand, um, as a

00:36:20.820 follow-up to your travel post, how do you work through being alone to find the liberation you

00:36:27.060 described? How did you find some peace with your hatred of being alone? Yeah, that's hard. I made

00:36:34.260 a post online about spent the last three years being spending more time alone in the last three

00:36:40.460 years than I have my entire life. And I wrote down there that something along the lines of,

00:36:45.700 you know, others were my validation, the same as alcohol was my medicine. And I began to realize

00:36:52.460 that when I was alone, I was, you know, miserable and I was in my head and I was frustrated and I

00:36:58.160 felt worthless and unworthy of love. I think I had mentioned not, not worth more than a rock

00:37:04.840 sitting in the dirt, you know, just worthless. Um, and so, yeah, it's been hard, but it's a bit

00:37:11.600 of inoculation. You know, the more that you get exposure therapy, if you will, the more you're

00:37:16.220 exposed to it, whatever your fear is, the less scary it becomes, you know, and that's a scientific

00:37:21.820 phenomenon. People can get over the phobia of snakes and closed and confined spaces and the

00:37:28.140 dark and every other phobia that they may be dealing with through controlled, uh, exposure

00:37:34.080 therapy. But for me, a lot of journaling has been helpful. And in those moments, I really set time

00:37:41.380 aside to reflect and think about what I'm feeling right now. What am I experiencing? Why am I

00:37:46.560 experiencing that? Also learning to be more still and grateful for the things around me. So when I

00:37:53.340 was up at Glacier by myself, I got this little cabin. There was a little hot tub on the deck and

00:37:59.260 and overlooking a lake a beautiful view and I just focused on what was in front of me

00:38:06.660 that's it just I just focused on what was in front of me instead of what wasn't so I'm like

00:38:12.580 oh look at that view or look at how clear the water is or this hot tub is amazing like I would

00:38:18.360 like to have a hot tub at my house how could I do that how much would that cost like just thinking

00:38:22.960 about all of the good things instead of all of the the gaps so to speak as you've said in the

00:38:28.000 past with the gap and the gain. If you spend all your time thinking about what you don't have,

00:38:33.120 it's really going to be prominent in your world. And you're going to feel completely unworthy and

00:38:38.240 unloved. But if you spend time thinking about what you do have, man, technology, the views,

00:38:46.020 the friends that I did get to see. And that's another thing too. Go make new friends.

00:38:51.140 you know like I so I went to this restaurant right before I was leaving to go to Glacier

00:38:57.660 and again I'm alone there's nobody with me so I go to this restaurant I just wanted some some

00:39:02.680 breakfast and and and the lady said this place was good so I went I ordered a breakfast burrito

00:39:08.920 and I went into the dining area to sit down and all the seats were taken inside and there was a 0.99

00:39:15.880 woman sitting at a table of four, but she was the only one there. And I said, Hey, look, I know this

00:39:21.900 is weird. Do you mind if there's no other seats? Can I just sit here at this table with you? And

00:39:26.880 she's like, yeah, sure. And so we talked for a minute and then her husband came up and he taught

00:39:31.020 like, we just had a great conversation. She's a, she's a meteorologist. She works for a local

00:39:37.120 news station in Missoula. He's a computer programmer. And we had a great conversation

00:39:43.440 for 45 minutes or whatever on everything and nothing they gave me a few pointers on where to

00:39:47.880 go it was it's pretty amazing when you're alone you can go make new friends you can have good

00:39:52.820 conversations you can work on your skill development of striking up conversations you

00:39:57.740 can overcome fear it's actually kind of fun if you make it fun if you just wallow and just

00:40:04.340 throw yourself a little pity party it's horrible and i used to do that yeah this is probably a

00:40:11.740 different angle of this question, but it reminds me of the book. Um, is it new, uh, Newport that

00:40:18.240 wrote the book, uh, deep work. Yeah. And, and one of the things I got from that book that I thought

00:40:24.460 was fascinating is how often we're constantly distracting ourselves from just sitting and in

00:40:32.380 this, this immediate dopamine hit constantly. And, and anyone that works in an office setting that

00:40:38.060 sits in front of a computer, you know this. You have things that you should be doing.

00:40:42.860 And what do you do instead? I'm going to check my email. Why? Why are you checking your email for?

00:40:47.620 Why are you doing it right now? Because there's some immediate payoff. Oh, look, I got some stuff

00:40:53.980 done, right? I did some emails. Someone walks by. Oh, I'll say hi to them, right? We do these things.

00:40:59.980 And so just be aware that we're constantly seeking just excitement and hits of dopamine.

00:41:08.420 And it reminds me of my seven-year-old.

00:41:12.540 He's in this space of just constant entertainment.

00:41:15.800 He just wants to be doing something always, you know.

00:41:19.240 And over the weekend, I remember at one point, I'm like, just sit.

00:41:24.880 Just sit.

00:41:26.820 Clear your mind.

00:41:27.460 Just, yeah, but dad, I'm like, don't.

00:41:29.980 Don't talk.

00:41:30.880 Don't nothing.

00:41:32.060 Stop talking.

00:41:33.700 Yeah.

00:41:34.160 Just try sitting there, you know?

00:41:36.640 And so these things take reps is what I'm trying to say.

00:41:39.260 Yeah.

00:41:39.700 Right.

00:41:39.920 If you, if you want to be alone for the weekend and, and get centered, it probably takes a

00:41:44.180 lot of reps during the week of a typical day, right?

00:41:46.860 How often are we grabbing our phone for input, input, entertainment, entertainment?

00:41:50.940 It's like, man, maybe just practice sitting and being with yourself, whether it's grounding

00:41:57.200 in your backyard or meditating or whatever, just look for these opportunities to work that muscle

00:42:03.120 a little bit. I like that you brought up dopamine. We actually talked about this, I think, on last

00:42:08.480 week's AMA. Sometimes people like to take jabs and pop shots at my former alcohol abuse as an

00:42:17.880 indictment against me and my character today. And I understand it's easy to point out. I put it out

00:42:24.580 there it's easy to it's easy to mock and and attack like i get it but there isn't a person

00:42:30.960 out there who isn't addicted to something through their through their dopamine even if it's not what

00:42:38.020 you would traditionally consider a vice like drug or alcohol abuse or pornography or gambling or

00:42:43.720 or sex more socially accepted addictions is all right it is i mean i mean look let you know to

00:42:50.700 anybody who who's saying that to me it's like cool let me look at your phone screen time on a daily

00:42:57.120 basis what is it six seven eight nine hours a day and you're telling me my behavior is the only

00:43:05.300 problem I'm not telling you it wasn't but I'm also saying that you are doing the same thing all of us

00:43:11.040 are addicted to these little devices and all it is is chemistry that's what's so weird to think

00:43:15.820 about everything is chemistry from addiction and dopamine release even love is chemistry

00:43:22.960 it's it's hormones that ignite a and i don't know the exact a feeling hormone yeah that's all it is

00:43:30.500 it's not real even it's so weird to me even pain pain is not real pain is not a real thing

00:43:37.580 it's just a little signal that is sending up to your brain interpreting it as painful

00:43:45.820 It's not real. And so it's, it's the reason I bring that up is because you can rewire your

00:43:52.800 brain, but you have to get rid of the addiction and you got to find a way to get dopamine in a

00:43:58.920 more constructive, positive way. Like going to glacier by yourself and hiking and exploring

00:44:05.080 the surrounding and saying, Hey, God created this. This is pretty amazing. And you can get

00:44:10.120 a little dopamine spike by doing that or going to the gym or having a new conversation with somebody

00:44:17.200 but actually doing it in the real world yeah yeah caleb johnson i'm going through a marriage

00:44:25.660 separation right now and i'm focusing on myself like everyone said i should my question is do you

00:44:31.280 think i can repair my marriage by becoming a better family leader emotional control communication

00:44:37.980 fitness stability and more which seems to be the key from what i've seen or do you think that there

00:44:44.100 is more that needs to be done i don't think caleb's gonna like my answer because the answer is

00:44:50.960 i don't know yeah we don't know you i don't know you i don't know the story i don't know

00:44:58.060 your wife i don't know how she's taken the circumstances that have taken place over the

00:45:04.320 years. I don't know any of that, but here's what I do know. So that's my, that's my message of

00:45:10.220 despair a little. And I want to be really honest about that, but here's my message of hope.

00:45:15.780 It's the only thing you can do. It is the only play in your playbook. I got a good friend,

00:45:21.980 his name's Keith Yaki. And as I was going through my separation and then, and then my divorce

00:45:27.380 is I asked similar questions. And so I'd know why you would ask that question.

00:45:34.040 i've asked that question a million times as i was going through that can i repair this can i fix this

00:45:38.320 can i do this and he said ryan you're gonna be a lot better off when you stop asking yourself that

00:45:45.060 question because what you're doing is you're behaving in a new way to manipulate somebody else

00:45:52.820 that's what you're doing yeah yeah you're trying to manipulate her into falling back in love with

00:45:58.900 you or to take you back or to try again. And it's understandable why we do that. There's real world

00:46:05.100 consequences to this. But what he had told me is he said, when you learn to become the best version

00:46:11.620 of yourself for yourself, that ironically gives you the greatest opportunity to reconcile in your

00:46:19.700 relationship. And he said, and you know what? You may never, that might be completely beyond your

00:46:25.280 control, but you will be the best man moving forward in your life for your business, for your

00:46:31.580 kids, for your community, for another woman to come into your life. The alternative is to just 1.00

00:46:37.620 do nothing, to be frustrated and throw in the towel and tell the world and yourself how bad she is and

00:46:43.020 why she was wrong. There might be some truth to that, but how does that serve you? So Caleb, what

00:46:49.980 I want to tell you, and I know this is really hard to hear, stop doing what you're doing for the

00:46:56.260 marriage and for her. And frankly, even for your kids. Now you can use that. I think the kids is

00:47:02.460 fuel a little bit to remind you why it's important you do the work, but stop doing it for other

00:47:09.280 people. Start thinking about, for example, when you go to the gym this morning, because it sounds

00:47:15.960 like you're doing all the work you should be doing. You should get on the scale or look in

00:47:21.060 the mirror or just even ask yourself, how do I feel? And take pride in knowing that you did that.

00:47:28.460 When you get a new sale at work or pick up a new client or complete a task or a project in your

00:47:33.680 career, don't go looking for validation from other people. Validate yourself. Hey, I did that.

00:47:39.700 i made that happen i busted my tail i worked hard i sacrificed to make that happen

00:47:46.660 you know when when when you have some physical accomplishment or achievement be grateful that

00:47:53.080 you did it and stop looking for validation from other people man when you start doing that you're

00:47:59.040 going to be unstoppable and maybe you've salvaged the marriage i don't know maybe you don't

00:48:04.540 so was it worth less time focusing on yourself doing it for the right reason if you knew with

00:48:11.960 100 certainty the marriage wouldn't work out would you stop doing it if the answer is yes

00:48:18.080 you're doing it for the wrong reasons

00:48:19.660 yeah i love it be the better family the term cable abused right better family leader be the

00:48:29.240 better family leader why because you should because it's the right thing to do it's what

00:48:33.860 a man would do this is the right thing to do yeah yeah that's enough it's enough and if it's not

00:48:39.840 it's not yeah and it's so look i hate i hated that when i was going through my divorce like i wanted

00:48:47.360 somebody to say yeah yeah oh absolutely you can definitely salvage this and then i there were

00:48:52.320 people in my life who would say that and i would talk with them and it would make me feel really

00:48:58.380 good for a minute oh cool okay i'm good i'm good and then the ones who were actually honest you

00:49:03.540 were honest with me it wasn't always fun to hear but you're like yeah ryan i don't know but i think

00:49:09.220 what you're doing is right i think you should do this i think you should focus on this and i didn't

00:49:12.840 like to hear that that was way harder to hear but that was honesty and that's what i want to build

00:49:18.260 my my life around the truth and the truth is yeah maybe not caleb so what i was gonna say so what i

00:49:28.300 don't mean so what as in flippantly i mean so what do the work anyways yeah and caleb one way to

00:49:35.120 i mean just some fuel right because we talked about there's some motivational fuel that you

00:49:39.460 could use here is be the best version of yourself right and so if it results in saving the marriage

00:49:45.180 awesome but it's going to result in you being a better version of yourself which is going to

00:49:50.780 probably be a better marriage in the future so there is a positive light to you showing up more

00:49:56.960 powerfully. So just do it. And if it works out, awesome. If it doesn't, then you're more set up

00:50:03.140 now for that next relationship. Yeah, I think so. A hundred percent. All right. Proficient

00:50:11.020 lion 80 39. Hey, how do you know when to pull the plug on a sinking marriage, a lot going on

00:50:19.640 and to unpack, but in the blended family and are having significant issues with parenting style

00:50:25.280 approaches with two teens one biological of each of us my stepchild's choices is the big issue

00:50:32.540 and my wife refuses to take action nor wanting or allowing me to step in and make decisions

00:50:39.860 a lot more going on but it seems to be the biggest issue yeah i my my first advice on that is always

00:50:50.300 like do more, just do more, keep working, keep talking, keep communicating, keep having

00:50:55.680 conversations, keep leading, keep working on yourself, building influence, like always

00:51:00.940 do more because the last thing that I would ever want is to look myself in the mirror

00:51:07.260 in a year, five years, 10 years and say to myself, Ryan, you could have done more. You

00:51:13.460 should have done more and in my situation my marriage what the ending of my marriage was not

00:51:20.460 my decision but if I was dropped into the same scenario the exact same way I would do it the

00:51:27.720 exact same way that I did it which means that at a minimum I can look myself in the mirror and say

00:51:32.680 hey you know what you did everything that you possibly could and it still wasn't enough and so

00:51:38.360 that's not on you anymore it's not and it's a great way to afford yourself grace because you

00:51:45.380 did all of that work that's my first advice if you feel like you can look yourself in the mirror

00:51:51.500 and say that and you're running up against deal breakers

00:51:56.220 then maybe it's time to start talking about that and i know people are going to be mad they're

00:52:01.940 going to hate me. But that's the reality. And especially, especially if she doesn't want you

00:52:08.420 to be a father in the kids' lives, I don't know how you do that. I had a relationship where a

00:52:17.020 woman told me that she didn't want to hear my parenting advice. She didn't want to even hear 1.00

00:52:24.400 it. And you know what I did? Ended the relationship. Cause I'm, I'm, I would be being a

00:52:30.960 really ship. If I can't give you advice, I'm applying for the job. You won't let me do the

00:52:37.360 job. Therefore I'm applying for the wrong position. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, that would be a deal

00:52:45.720 breaker for me. But again, I'm not telling you that I'm just saying like, if you've done all

00:52:50.740 the conversations and you've had all of that and, and also are you doing it properly? Let's be

00:52:55.920 honest. Okay. Are you being an asshole about it? Are you being overly demanding? I don't know if

00:53:02.260 you are, you may not be, but ask yourself this. In fact, don't even just ask yourself, talk to

00:53:07.860 your close friends. Say, Hey guys, like, look, this is a situation. You've seen it. You've heard

00:53:13.140 me talk about it. Here's where I think I'm being reasonable. Here's where I might be unreasonable,

00:53:18.400 but I want to know what your opinion is. Cause those guys know you better than Kip, you and I

00:53:24.460 know him. And they might say, yeah, bro, like she's open to your feedback, but every time she

00:53:32.500 gives her opinion, you're a jerk to her about it because it's not your way. And I don't think it's 0.99

00:53:36.540 that bad. That's good feedback to get. It may not be accurate. It may not be the only thing you make

00:53:42.760 your decision on, but it might give you some perspective into how you're communicating with

00:53:46.440 her effectively or not. So let me first relate. I would have to say that parenting styles on

00:53:56.320 one of our teenage sons, which was my wife's son and not my, it was my stepson probably was the

00:54:05.800 closest item that almost broke our marriage. So first off, I'm relating to your, to your

00:54:13.300 hardship. Like I've been there like super difficult. Obviously we don't know you. I don't

00:54:19.360 know the nuances, but I'll share what worked for us and where we went wrong. So the first thing is

00:54:25.760 where we're, where we went wrong is I didn't honor the differences of a mom and a dad's

00:54:33.320 parenting. We believed that we needed a parent the same and we didn't honor the differences of

00:54:42.020 feminine and the masculine. And because of that, when she was focused on emotional support and

00:54:49.240 love, I took it as she's being too soft. I need to come in harder. I would come in harder. She

00:54:56.780 would come in softer because I'm coming in too hard. And we're clashing just constantly on how

00:55:04.700 to deal with this kid. And it's her baby. And by the way, there's a whole psychological thing here.

00:55:10.260 And I don't, I'm not saying this is true, but let's just make this up is, do you don't

00:55:16.500 think that there's some guilt from her perspective that he's not with his dad and that she's

00:55:22.200 trying to overcompensate for the hardship of his life?

00:55:26.680 And then when you come in hard, she might be kind of dealing with this nuance and balance

00:55:32.220 of that.

00:55:33.180 Absolutely.

00:55:34.620 Or you don't think you're coming in harder because it's not your biological son.

00:55:38.560 you absolutely are and anyone listening that says oh no you love your kids the same biological or

00:55:45.160 you're or you're non-biological you're lying it's not the same it's different yeah of course now

00:55:51.140 you shouldn't treat it different right we try to be fair and reasonable but it's not the same 0.95

00:55:56.120 so deal in reality it's harder and now what are you going to do about it so that's where we went

00:56:02.980 wrong. We saw that we didn't honor the feminine and the masculine side of this. And, and, and

00:56:09.000 the pendulum swung super just back and forth between us. Here's the second part. I approach

00:56:18.020 my relationship with my son from the perspective of he needs to be acting in line with what I deem

00:56:26.180 as important before I can have a relationship with him,

00:56:31.420 which means that I was leading him through authority

00:56:35.820 and not influence.

00:56:39.980 Your best chance of speaking into someone

00:56:44.540 and coaching someone is through influence, not authority.

00:56:49.120 The minute I tried to control him,

00:56:51.720 it was, you don't love me, you don't appreciate me,

00:56:54.540 you're just trying to get me to do xyz and guess what if i were honest with myself he was absolutely

00:57:02.360 right i was i was withholding love affection and kindness and love from him because he wasn't

00:57:09.160 acting the way i wanted him to act i was stonewalling him and he knew it and let's be

00:57:15.820 honest his behavior offended me why why did it make me so angry because i said i didn't want

00:57:21.820 that for him? No. Cause it made me look bad. Yeah. I didn't want my neighbors thinking I had a

00:57:27.620 wayward kid. That was a dipshit. He was hurting my reputation. That's what I was concerned about. 1.00

00:57:32.840 And he knew it. So get back to loving them the way they are in spite of their actions,

00:57:42.080 learn, understand their frustrations, what makes them tick, get back to your humanity.

00:57:48.980 and only then will you really be in a solid position

00:57:53.040 to influence them.

00:57:54.920 Don't try to control them.

00:57:56.740 The minute you try to control them,

00:57:58.160 you're just gonna be pushing those kids

00:57:59.840 or that kid further and further away.

00:58:02.920 So focus on the relationship and your mindset

00:58:06.080 and how you view them, focus on influence.

00:58:08.640 And then you and mom need to get on the same page

00:58:10.960 and the same page is that you don't parent the same way.

00:58:15.240 That what she brings to the table is magical

00:58:18.160 and perfect and you're incapable of doing. And what you can bring to the table, she can't bring

00:58:24.280 and how you do it together to create a stable environment that's loving and caring for both

00:58:30.840 kids. Yeah. I heard an interesting theory. I've not been in this situation, so I'm not speaking

00:58:37.940 from experience, but it was an interesting theory. And I want to hear what you have to say about this.

00:58:41.360 And I'm sure it's not universally true, but it's interesting. I was talking with a guy who

00:58:47.200 got remarried and he had he had his kids and she had her kids and they blended the family

00:58:53.160 and they were having a hard time with how to discipline the kids and who does what

00:58:59.680 and they I think they were talking with a therapist or somebody and the therapist made

00:59:03.620 a suggestion and the suggestion was this that the the man does not administer the discipline

00:59:12.040 to his stepchildren. And the woman does not administer the discipline to her stepchildren.

00:59:19.400 So they would be, they would talk together. They would get on the same page. They would work

00:59:25.080 through the issues and decide collectively, Hey, here's what we're going to do for the discipline

00:59:30.540 and the structure of the family. And then the biological parent spoke to their biological

00:59:35.120 children. And, and that's how they worked it out. Now, I don't know if that's a long-term solution

00:59:41.360 or if that's even ideal, but what do you, what would you think about that? Kit? What comes to

00:59:46.920 mind when I say that? What comes to mind is I think there's a, there's, we, there was a flavor

00:59:52.920 of that where we knew, but you know, what's interesting about it is we kind of lean in that

00:59:58.480 direction, not intentionally, but then I pause and I go, you know what, Ryan, we lean in that

01:00:05.000 all over the place. I know which parent is better to discipline my daughter Kulani. It's me,

01:00:13.980 not her mom. Why? Because her mom butt heads, both biological arse. So I think you kind of learn

01:00:23.020 like what parent is more ideal to maybe be dropping hammers and what parent kind of swoops

01:00:29.380 in a little bit sometimes and can speak some clarity and coaching. And I don't know if it's

01:00:36.600 biological. I don't know if I draw the line on just biological. I would draw the line on

01:00:41.040 which is the right one, period, even with biological kids. Because I've seen that even

01:00:46.440 with our biological children. I think maybe that applies more early on in the relationship or the

01:00:52.740 marriage, you know, where, where that transition has got to be incredibly difficult. And of course

01:01:00.420 she's going to be mama bear to her kids. And of course you're going to be protective of yours

01:01:04.680 early on. I think that makes a lot of sense, but maybe later, like your risk. Yeah. You're a risk

01:01:09.780 for sure. Cool. Let's take one more kit. If we've got one more. All right. Yeah. Uh, Nathan Hensler,

01:01:15.860 I struggle with the stoic concept of not letting other people's actions affect my emotions.

01:01:21.760 At least you are aware of it, when most people aren't.

01:01:27.720 I'm a fifth grade teacher and get pretty snappy when my expectations are followed or not followed,

01:01:35.300 I'm assuming he meant.

01:01:36.800 I know they're just kids, but it seems unable to keep my cool.

01:01:40.240 What strategies or questions can you do in the heat of the moment to keep your cool?

01:01:44.480 I get my principal involved when it gets bad, but I need to figure this out without administrative

01:01:49.340 help.

01:01:50.220 Thanks for all you do.

01:01:51.160 props for teaching a bunch of fifth graders that sounds like personal hell but good for you

01:01:58.080 i don't even like my my own kids half the time let alone other people's kids totally totally

01:02:05.420 um well you know at first my my first reaction was to go to your concept of expectations there's

01:02:13.880 some things that you should have some expectations about and maybe your expectations are a little

01:02:17.680 faulty for 10 year olds i don't know that's a possibility so consider like unfair expectations

01:02:22.980 on that yeah i mean i've done that i know i've done that even with my own kids my oldest son

01:02:28.000 is so mature he's always been so mature for his age you know and so at eight nine ten years old

01:02:34.260 he was probably operating at the maturity level of a 12 or a 13 year old and so what would happen

01:02:41.800 is i would hold him to the standard of a 12 to 13 year old and then he'd do something dumb that

01:02:46.600 an eight-year-old would do and I'd be so baffled and really come down hard on him until my ex

01:02:54.280 reminded me Ryan he's eight I'm like oh yeah that's what eight-year-olds do so there's that

01:03:02.240 and and knowing that if your expectations are too high because look if you if you used to teach

01:03:08.240 eighth grade and now you're teaching fifth grade you're probably viewing those 10-year-olds

01:03:15.340 through the lens of 13 year olds. So be aware of that, I would say.

01:03:24.220 And ask yourself, is there something that I can do in the classroom, in the setting,

01:03:30.120 especially with boys, because they're going to get rowdy and they're going to get rambunctious

01:03:33.540 and they're going to be distracted and they're not going to want to do the things that you're

01:03:38.740 teaching them. Are there opportunities for learning outside of the standard sit down,

01:03:44.920 shut up color within the lines let's read this curriculum because work with where they are yeah

01:03:50.260 it's gonna work really good for the girls relative to the boys because women are just naturally 0.89

01:03:54.980 they're they follow rules better number one and number two they mature quicker there was this

01:04:00.280 interesting video i saw the other day and i want to say it was maybe about that age sixth or seventh

01:04:07.160 grade somewhere in there and it said the different it might even been younger and it had a set of 10

01:04:11.980 boys and a set of 10 girls and the teacher was playing music and the girls were marching in

01:04:18.740 lockstep like all of them were in unison and then it panned over the boys and they're all

01:04:22.640 limbs all gangly and all over the place and they can't get on cadence and it's they're going at

01:04:27.980 the same time and the boys are just rowdy and the girls are look like a military marching unit

01:04:32.420 and they were using that as some sort of experiment that was way off base i can't even

01:04:37.960 understand what they were trying to say. The, the real lesson is that women follow directions better 1.00

01:04:43.860 and they mature quicker. Like there's not much more to it than that. Yeah. Boys don't want to 1.00

01:04:49.900 fall. They'll, they'll do the opposite just because they want to do the opposite. It's not

01:04:53.940 even that they don't get it. They just will actively do the opposite thing that you tell

01:04:57.580 them to do. And they're just not as mature as quick. So look at your expectations. The other

01:05:04.400 thing i would do is at 10 years old they they can understand these conversations and so what i would

01:05:13.640 do is i would go back to the drawing board first before you start addressing your stuff and

01:05:19.100 communicate what the expectation is and get them involved in it hey guys look the expectation is

01:05:25.360 that we're gonna you know when you when we come in we sit down and we're gonna be quiet and we're

01:05:29.420 going to read and everybody's going to take turns reading. And if you're out of line, then you lose

01:05:35.280 privileges. And the privileges that you lose are X, Y, and Z. Okay. So that's how that's going to

01:05:42.080 work. And then after lunch, we come back, back in from recess or from lunch on time. If you're late,

01:05:48.400 you're going to have a little additional work to make up for you being late back into the classroom.

01:05:52.860 Like you can have these rules with these kids. I mean, they're 10, they'll understand them.

01:05:58.680 my youngest son just turned 10 he would understand that um so communicate the expectations get their

01:06:05.200 buy-in you can even ask them hey guys if we're late from recess what what should be what should

01:06:10.620 be the outcome what should be the result of that and they'll tell you they'll come up with ideas

01:06:15.160 um so i would write those down somebody very clear somewhere very clear and then i would just hold

01:06:20.060 them to that i really would i would just hold them to it religiously no exceptions so if a kid comes

01:06:26.540 in 30 seconds late it's like hey 10 push-ups let's go and that's what i would do for the boys is i'd

01:06:32.840 give them some sort of physical it's like hey clearly being outside playing was important to

01:06:37.040 you so go ahead and give me 10 push-ups and then you can join us as a class again um the girls it

01:06:42.940 might be something a little different for the girls it'd probably be a little bit more isolating

01:06:47.160 because they're relational so it's like hey if you're late you got to go sit over there for 10 0.98

01:06:51.560 minutes or whatever and you can have those rules in place i think um but as far as as far as the

01:06:59.320 losing your cool a couple of things number one why are you letting 10 year olds get the better

01:07:08.460 of you and that's a that's a question that i would really hold on yeah can you hear me still

01:07:13.860 yep yeah i got you why are you letting 10 years old 10 year olds having having power over you

01:07:19.980 And I'm not even asking that rhetorically because that's exactly what's happening. You're letting a 10-year-old dictate you, a grown man's behavior. Why? What goes through your mind or even your subconscious when one of those kids disrespects you or speaks out of turn or doesn't follow their instructions or any number of things that they could be doing every day?

01:07:49.980 i would assume it's a level of disrespect i would assume perceived right yeah good great yeah good

01:07:57.600 clarification yeah you're perceiving that they're disrespecting they're not they're just being kids

01:08:02.800 and even if they are deliberately disrespecting you they're probably doing it to be cool in front

01:08:09.120 of the class has nothing to do with you yeah so i would really start asking yourself why do i feel

01:08:16.700 this way. And what I would do is I would have a journal at school in my desk and, and I would

01:08:23.020 call it, you know, my expectation journal or my frustration journal or whatever. And anytime I

01:08:30.020 feel myself getting fired up, getting heated, I would, I would write it out. Hey, and I, I wouldn't,

01:08:38.020 I wouldn't use names because if it's in the classroom, there's some like privacy issues

01:08:43.060 and things like that. So you have to be a little careful, but Hey, one of the boys in class today

01:08:47.360 made this comment and I got frustrated and here's how I handled it. And here's why it frustrated me.

01:08:56.120 And here's how I evaluate my score on how I performed. And so maybe in that instance, you

01:09:01.940 write down, um, like on a, on a scale of neutral, you give yourself, I was a plus one. I was a little

01:09:09.860 better than neutral i think i handled that pretty well or maybe it's a minus one like hey i was

01:09:14.280 neutral but then it kind of escalated and i lost my cool and i barked at him and so that's a minus

01:09:19.020 one and so write down your score and then the next time it happens write it down write it down

01:09:24.760 write it down write it down now go back at the end of the week and look at it and say okay what

01:09:28.640 do these things have in common what keeps coming up who are the culprits because here's another

01:09:35.020 thing that might be happening there might be a certain behavior in one or two kids in the class

01:09:40.760 that really fire you up because of some crazy situation you had when you were in fifth grade

01:09:48.340 that the kids did and it just infuriated you and now you're taking that story and you're dumping

01:09:55.820 it on little timmy who has nothing to do with how you were treated when you were 10 it sounds silly

01:10:01.200 It's not. I promise you that happens all the time. So if you start seeing like, I really don't like

01:10:07.720 little Timmy because of his haircut or because of his clothes that he wears or because the way that

01:10:14.360 he says this one little thing, why, where did you learn that? Why does that bother you? Where did

01:10:20.020 you pick that up? That'd be good information for you to know, but you can't do it unless you dock

01:10:24.280 yeah for sure you know this reminds me of a just a couple weeks ago i'm driving the kids to school

01:10:32.500 and my son he's seven and he has a tendency right now that he corrects everything so if i'm like

01:10:41.080 what time is it and i'll be like oh it's nine but it's actually like maybe nine he'll be like

01:10:46.120 no it's not it's nine oh seven and i'm like oh you know and it just irritates me irritates me

01:10:53.180 I say something. Oh, don't put your wrappers on the ground. Oh, it's not on the ground. It's,

01:10:56.600 it's on the, it's on the chair. Right. And sitting on top of the toy. Yeah. It makes me

01:11:04.060 super frustrated. Right. And, and I lashed out on him. I, you know, I'm like, Hey, you're being

01:11:09.420 disrespectful, blah, blah, blah. I drive him off and I'm driving the car and I'm like, no,

01:11:15.620 he wasn't being disrespectful he's curious he's well it's not really nine do you think he's sitting 1.00

01:11:24.320 in the back seat going oh man i just want to you know my dad he's not a smart guy he's a moron i'm 0.99

01:11:29.380 gonna correct no he is he is in this he's a sponge of knowledge and he's questioning everything 0.99

01:11:37.420 do I not want a kid that questions things that's curious that's disruptive of the information that

01:11:45.940 he's getting from people or do I want a kid that's a broken spirit that stays in line does

01:11:51.300 what he's told which one exceeds in life man and here I am almost on the verge of belittling him

01:12:01.940 for being that way, shame on me as a parent, right? And, and, and I think we get into that

01:12:11.660 position. Why? Because we lose sight of what we're doing. We think, and I'm not saying this

01:12:17.800 is the case for him, right, Nathan, but you might lose sight that what you're doing is

01:12:24.240 a good teacher is what? Fifth grader staying in line, listening, following the rules.

01:12:29.660 that's not teaching that's not your objective your objective is what

01:12:35.060 to drop knowledge into these kids so they become great adults guess what that's messy

01:12:44.080 and sometimes we lose sight of the big picture of what we're trying to do

01:12:48.380 for these tactical wins we'll do this as parents dirty rooms right maintaining a clean home getting

01:12:55.100 our kids to follow the rules and we're losing sight of what man i'm raising adults here how do

01:13:01.580 i do that and sometimes we'll we'll take the tactical wins and diminish the strategic win

01:13:08.320 for these short-term gains and so be careful of that let these kids flourish and guess what

01:13:14.940 it's messy that it's not in line that's not how learning works learning is in the struggle and

01:13:21.080 the difficulty and the chaos right and and sometimes it's just not easy to do it that way

01:13:27.160 and we lose sight of what we're doing i think that's well said yeah i think that's really well

01:13:33.440 said that whole correction thing is crazy like i that one gets to me as well but that again that

01:13:38.920 goes to perceived disrespect like you don't correct me i'm the adult you don't correct me

01:13:44.560 in front of it like but that's the perceived disrespect that's interesting yeah well it was

01:13:50.020 all my creation i was just going to say props to nathan you know we need more guys teaching we need

01:13:57.080 more men and in positions like this and so i just want to give props for nathan for being a fifth

01:14:03.780 grade teacher i think it's awesome i think it is too just remember and it's going to be boys that

01:14:09.480 are causing the problems right we know that it's not i'm sure it's not the girls in your class that

01:14:14.240 the issue it's the boys just remember what it was like for you to be 10 you know and and here's

01:14:21.200 another thing you could do think back on your favorite teachers and your least favorite teachers

01:14:27.540 and try to model your favorite teacher's behavior why were they your favorite they were

01:14:32.640 they were fun fun engaging i had this teacher it must have been in sixth grade mr drake he was cool

01:14:41.360 his son was a professional snowboarder and so there's snowboarding pictures all over the wall

01:14:46.860 in his classroom and then I remember I remember this forever we had to do this project and we had

01:14:52.600 to make this paper mache mask of a famous person and we had to draw from a hat so we didn't know

01:14:57.940 who we're going to get but we had to draw from a hat and I got Genghis Khan and so I had to make

01:15:03.020 this paper mache mask. And then we had to wear the mask while we told a biography of the person

01:15:11.480 that we were. And it had to be like a five minute thing. And you had to read it from memory. You

01:15:17.320 couldn't, you couldn't read it. You actually had to read it from memory. It must've been,

01:15:20.820 actually it must've been eighth grade. It was eighth grade. I loved it. Like it was so cool.

01:15:25.920 I got to make this thing. I got to get up there in front of the class and present and talk about

01:15:30.520 Genghis Khan and wear the mask. And everybody was like having fun with it. And there was like

01:15:35.620 Abraham Lincoln and Jackie Robinson. And it was awesome. But all of my favorite teachers,

01:15:41.820 I had, there was one teacher, her name was Mrs. Sloshberg, the most first grade teacher name ever.

01:15:48.500 Mrs. Sloshberg. Of course that was her name. And she, she rewarded the kid who was the best kid

01:15:56.320 the day before and all that that kid had to do was go grab her shawl out of the closet and bring 0.51

01:16:02.660 it to her to her desk and give it to her so she could put it over her shoulders while she taught

01:16:07.480 uh class made them feel special oh they were whoever like i got it a couple times and i was

01:16:13.480 like yes i get to bring mrs sloshberg the shawl today so it's like think about that kind of stuff

01:16:20.820 and mimic that. Yeah. Yeah. The teachers, the best teachers are the ones where you knew they

01:16:27.060 cared about you. Yeah. Yeah. You know, not the ones that controlled you or taught you amazing

01:16:33.400 things. It was the one that you knew cared. And when you know someone cares about you, what you

01:16:38.860 do, you show up more powerfully. You want to do good because you want to honor them. Yeah. And

01:16:45.920 There's so, so much powerful in that, you know, so a call to action.

01:16:49.280 We mentioned this earlier, right?

01:16:50.820 But you guys need to take action on this.

01:16:52.900 If you're going to join us at the forge, um, the men's forge.com that's April 23rd through

01:16:59.900 the 26th.

01:17:01.720 Once again, the URL, the men's forge.com to sign up.

01:17:05.100 And of course, connect with Mickler on Instagram and X at Ryan Mickler.

01:17:12.600 I mean, we have many ways to connect, right?

01:17:14.620 youtube facebook etc but connect with ryan on his socials and and once again the mensforge.com

01:17:20.200 if you want to join us um coming up on april 23rd through the 26th awesome thanks kip appreciate

01:17:25.820 you brother good questions today guys hopefully we gave you some things to consider i know there's a

01:17:29.560 lot going on with guys and their concerns clearly um these are good questions these are real world

01:17:34.780 scenarios i know there's a lot more you guys have so hopefully we're giving you some perspective

01:17:38.940 and insight uh we'll be back on friday until then go out there take action and become a man you

01:17:45.100 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.

01:17:48.080 You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.

01:17:52.120 We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - April 15, 2026

Salvaging Sinking Marriages, Career Check-Ups, and Overcoming Isolation ｜ ASK ME ANYTHING

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