Order of Man - January 23, 2026


Suffer Like a Man ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES


Episode Stats

Length

19 minutes

Words per Minute

162.93698

Word Count

3,143

Sentence Count

268

Hate Speech Sentences

5


Summary

Suffering without meaning becomes traumatic. Suffering without attaching meaning to it becomes traumatic, which is the definition of trauma. That's why suffering becomes an initiation, a rite of passage, something that's going to harden you, toughen you, make you more resilient, and allow you to overcome the things that will come up in your future life.


Transcript

00:00:00.280 Suffering without attaching meaning to it becomes traumatic.
00:00:03.740 That's the definition of trauma.
00:00:05.740 Of suffering with meaning becomes an initiation, so to speak,
00:00:09.820 a rite of passage, something that's going to harden you,
00:00:12.480 toughen you, make you more resilient, make you more gritty,
00:00:14.780 and allow you to overcome the things that will come up in your future life.
00:00:18.740 So every season of pain, you should be asking yourself questions.
00:00:22.560 Again, and I talked about this a minute ago,
00:00:24.520 what weakness in my life is being exposed right now?
00:00:28.820 Suffer like a man.
00:00:30.000 Now, look, man, I know when I say that, it sounds a lot like,
00:00:33.240 be a man, act like a man, man up, stop crying.
00:00:38.800 That's not what I'm saying at all.
00:00:42.180 I believe that most men don't struggle because they suffer.
00:00:46.760 They struggle because they don't know what to do with the suffering
00:00:49.940 they will inevitably face.
00:00:52.960 So it's not just about toughening up,
00:00:55.700 although there is some validity to that in times.
00:00:58.000 It's about how do you make the suffering that you're inevitably going to go through
00:01:02.060 meaningful, significant, a catalyst for growth and change in your life
00:01:07.340 and improvement and development.
00:01:08.780 And that's what we're all about here.
00:01:10.380 So when I say suffer like a man,
00:01:12.180 I'm going to give you some context today and share five ways that you can turn your suffering
00:01:15.820 into success, where you can turn suffering into victory and growth and achievement in your life
00:01:23.180 because that's what we all want.
00:01:25.380 And I believe that a lot of guys out there would say,
00:01:28.200 well, you know, I just don't want to suffer.
00:01:29.820 And I get that.
00:01:31.160 I don't either.
00:01:31.960 But on the other side of suffering is your growth.
00:01:35.540 And you can't have that growth without some of the suffering.
00:01:39.660 And whether that's a breakup or a divorce, a loss of a job, a loss of a loved one,
00:01:46.380 just a general sense of overwhelm and frustration with where you are in life,
00:01:52.600 all of us suffer to varying degrees.
00:01:54.440 But most men don't know what to do with it.
00:01:58.200 So what they do is they numb it out.
00:02:01.280 They outsource it.
00:02:02.560 They place the burden of responsibility on somebody else.
00:02:04.960 They distract themselves from it with addiction or other women or womanizing or
00:02:14.500 video games, binge watching TV.
00:02:18.340 That's what people do is they just numb out completely.
00:02:21.420 And I don't want you to do that.
00:02:22.800 I want to make the suffering that you're going through more significant in your life,
00:02:27.180 not harder, not worse than it needs to be, but just more significant.
00:02:31.680 The other thing I've seen a lot of guys do is they wear their suffering like a badge of
00:02:35.100 honor and then they call it strength.
00:02:36.680 But that's victimhood at its purest.
00:02:40.460 Well, this thing happened to me and I'm just going to suffer for the rest of my life.
00:02:44.240 That's weakness.
00:02:45.460 That is not strength because suffering is unavoidable.
00:02:49.300 And the question isn't really if you'll suffer.
00:02:51.600 It's a matter of whether suffering is going to refine you and turn you into something great,
00:02:56.660 or it's going to rot you and just eat away at you and turn you into this pessimistic version
00:03:04.180 of who you could be.
00:03:05.480 And I think that's why we see such a growth in these men's spaces of guys like Andrew Tate
00:03:13.280 and others who are just angry and bitter and contentious.
00:03:16.100 It's red pill taken to the extreme where guys are just so mad about everything,
00:03:20.700 about life and about women and about their own suffrage.
00:03:24.220 And it's just not a healthy way to improve your life.
00:03:27.280 And I want you to know, and you know this very well, you don't avoid suffering ever.
00:03:34.300 You meet it and you carry it.
00:03:38.620 The quote is, do not pray for an easier life.
00:03:41.220 Pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.
00:03:44.140 And when we can learn to convert our suffering into something meaningful and useful,
00:03:48.420 that's when we thrive.
00:03:50.100 And so here are five ways that you can suffer like a man so that makes you stronger,
00:03:54.960 not smaller and weaker.
00:03:57.400 Number one is stop resisting the pain that you experience.
00:04:01.000 Resistance to whatever you're dealing with only amplifies it.
00:04:05.120 Whatever you give attention to is where your mind is going to go,
00:04:08.560 is where your energy and your resources are going to go.
00:04:11.040 And the more that you resist what you're feeling, it's just going to be multiplied.
00:04:15.980 Suffering is intensified by denying it or distracting yourself from it or turning resentful.
00:04:23.240 Pain in your life says that whatever you're dealing with,
00:04:26.560 again, breakup, divorce, job loss, loss of a loved one, et cetera,
00:04:30.420 that that thing actually mattered.
00:04:34.880 Okay, pain says something mattered in your life.
00:04:37.340 And suffering says, I refuse to accept reality.
00:04:41.360 You don't need to do that.
00:04:42.860 You should accept reality because a disciplined man doesn't ask,
00:04:46.060 how do I get out of this?
00:04:48.680 How do I make this as easy as possible?
00:04:51.700 What he asks are questions like, what is this demanding of me?
00:04:56.840 What am I supposed to be learning from this?
00:04:59.740 How am I supposed to be growing?
00:05:01.160 In what ways does this illustrator highlight or bring attention to my inadequacies?
00:05:08.200 Name that pain.
00:05:09.120 I'm sad.
00:05:09.920 I'm mad.
00:05:10.600 I'm frustrated.
00:05:11.280 I'm jealous.
00:05:12.140 I'm angry.
00:05:12.940 Whatever.
00:05:13.500 Name it.
00:05:14.500 Admit it.
00:05:15.580 Sit in it.
00:05:16.260 Stay with it.
00:05:17.500 Because the moment you stop fighting reality, that suffering that you're experiencing,
00:05:21.980 the losses that you have, it's just leverage for growth in your life.
00:05:25.060 So the first thing you need to do, whether you're feeling bad about whatever it might be
00:05:28.600 that you're feeling bad about, is name it.
00:05:32.660 I'm sad.
00:05:33.420 I'm angry.
00:05:33.880 I'm glad.
00:05:34.260 I'm happy.
00:05:34.720 I'm mad.
00:05:35.120 I'm frustrated.
00:05:35.740 I'm jealous.
00:05:36.300 I'm heartbroken.
00:05:38.020 Name it.
00:05:38.400 And then number two is to contain it.
00:05:40.540 You don't need to leak it everywhere, contrary to popular belief.
00:05:44.280 Suffering in your life doesn't give you permission to be reckless or cruel to other people or sloppy
00:05:51.820 with your emotions and the way that you show up in life.
00:05:54.080 Strong men, they contain their pain.
00:05:57.500 They don't suppress it.
00:05:59.600 I didn't tell you to suppress it.
00:06:01.500 They don't pretend it doesn't exist.
00:06:02.860 That's point number one.
00:06:04.300 But they also don't dump it on their wives or their kids or their coworkers or the world or their friends.
00:06:12.360 And again, containment is not about suppressing what you're feeling.
00:06:15.800 It's being discerning of who and where and when you process what you're going through with.
00:06:24.580 Not everybody has a front row seat to what you're dealing with.
00:06:27.660 And you need to decide who and why you're going to communicate these things to.
00:06:32.220 This is why a strong, healthy marriage matters.
00:06:36.840 This is why a brotherhood matters.
00:06:38.960 Because a man without containment, what he does is he turns violent, typically.
00:06:44.420 He either explodes, and I've done that.
00:06:47.040 I've done that recently, where I don't have the containment that I thought I did.
00:06:52.280 And then you end up saying things or responding and reacting to things in certain ways that you didn't even know were really existing.
00:06:58.960 Or he implodes and he self-destructs.
00:07:02.020 And that's what happens with a guy who doesn't contain.
00:07:04.180 He just stuffs it.
00:07:05.880 He just carries it around forever.
00:07:09.500 And again, he either explodes or implodes.
00:07:11.740 Now, number three is move it through your body.
00:07:14.140 This is one that I have to constantly be aware of because I can get in my head and be very logical about what I'm experiencing and going through.
00:07:22.160 And so it just ruminates and bounces around as an echo chamber in my brain.
00:07:26.160 But suffering that stays in our minds, it turns into anxiety, which I have experienced to the nth degree.
00:07:34.040 Bitterness, again, as I said earlier with the Andrew Tate types of the world.
00:07:37.120 Paralysis, where you just are so confused and overwhelmed that you don't do anything.
00:07:43.760 But strong, confident, courageous, secure men, they metabolize pain through action.
00:07:53.040 It's physical training.
00:07:57.640 It's work with visible output so it might be building something.
00:08:03.140 It's exposure to cold and to heat and to weight and effort.
00:08:09.240 It's purposeful hardship, deliberate hardship.
00:08:14.280 Now, look, the body is not a distraction from suffering.
00:08:18.860 It's actually, the analogy I use is it's actually like a furnace.
00:08:23.680 It burns the suffering clean.
00:08:25.580 Because when your body is working, you're able to break down and, again, metabolize everything that you might be experiencing in life, especially if you're thoughtful and considerate about what you're doing.
00:08:36.720 So get under the weights.
00:08:38.780 Go train jujitsu.
00:08:40.160 Go do an ice bath.
00:08:41.800 Go run a few miles.
00:08:43.940 And I can't tell you.
00:08:44.660 I was talking with my barber just the other day.
00:08:46.620 And we were talking about just going for a walk.
00:08:51.800 He walks his dog for about 20 to 30 minutes every morning.
00:08:54.100 And he said, oh, man, it's so amazing.
00:08:55.580 I can't tell you how many problems I've solved by just going on a walk.
00:08:58.860 And I'm sure if you've ever gone for a walk or taken that practice religiously, you know exactly what he's talking about.
00:09:05.320 You've got this big pressing project of work or this obstacle you can't overcome.
00:09:10.160 And you go for a walk.
00:09:11.220 And then all of a sudden, you just feel that much better.
00:09:13.580 So, guys, force yourself.
00:09:15.220 Move.
00:09:16.500 Sweat.
00:09:18.260 Breathe.
00:09:19.480 Suffer.
00:09:20.440 Physical hardship.
00:09:21.860 And that will help your mind.
00:09:24.120 Number four.
00:09:24.880 This is very important.
00:09:26.580 You have to extract the meaning from it.
00:09:30.180 I think one thing a lot of men have got wrong in the self-development world is that just life is supposed to be hard for the sake of it being hard.
00:09:37.500 And I don't think that's true.
00:09:39.960 I've often said don't go bang your head against the wall expecting that that's going to make you tougher.
00:09:44.360 It just means you're an idiot.
00:09:46.440 Banging your head against the wall doesn't do anything.
00:09:49.100 We can work smarter, not have to work harder.
00:09:51.320 And it doesn't count more if it's hard.
00:09:54.120 What counts is did you get work done?
00:09:56.340 So, when you are suffering, again, maybe it's a devastating divorce of decades potentially even.
00:10:05.900 Maybe it's you just got laid off from work.
00:10:08.460 Or you just got a call that your father passed away.
00:10:12.520 Suffering without attaching meaning to it becomes traumatic.
00:10:17.340 That's the definition of trauma.
00:10:20.660 But suffering with meaning becomes an initiation, so to speak.
00:10:26.380 A rite of passage.
00:10:28.240 Something that's going to harden you, toughen you, make you more resilient, make you more gritty.
00:10:31.560 And allow you to overcome the things that will come up in your future life.
00:10:36.120 So, every season of pain, you should be asking yourself questions.
00:10:42.260 Again, and I talked about this a minute ago.
00:10:45.220 What weakness in my life is being exposed right now?
00:10:47.960 If it's a breakup and you're struggling with that, it's like, okay, am I looking for validation through relationships?
00:10:57.580 If it's a loss of a job, is it that you maybe weren't showing up the way you should have showed up at work?
00:11:03.960 I've got a really close personal friend who's moved from an employee position to not entirely by his own making,
00:11:11.940 but has moved into becoming an entrepreneur again.
00:11:15.600 He was before, now he's doing it again.
00:11:17.960 That was something that, although I'm sure very difficult, and I know that because we had conversations,
00:11:22.680 again, to go back to brotherhood, actually was a catalyst for growth and good, positive, healthy change in his life.
00:11:29.360 You might even ask, what responsibility have I avoided?
00:11:33.520 What blame am I putting on other people?
00:11:37.800 What identity have I created around that relationship or that business or that environment that is now being stripped away from me?
00:11:46.820 Either existentially or self-imposed.
00:11:51.400 Don't waste your suffering.
00:11:54.560 If you waste it, then you're not suffering like a man.
00:11:56.940 You're just being kind of lazy, actually.
00:12:00.360 Don't waste it.
00:12:01.400 Extract the lessons.
00:12:02.380 And to the best of your ability and over time, you know, time heals wounds, but once you learn those lessons, extract, pull those out, and then you can leave the rest behind you
00:12:12.940 in confidence that you're going to be a better man, not in spite of this thing happening, but because this thing happened to you.
00:12:19.920 And number five, you guys know the motto for order of man is to protect, provide, preside.
00:12:25.760 It's to serve.
00:12:27.420 It's to be useful.
00:12:29.100 And that's point number five, is let your suffering make you more useful.
00:12:35.300 If your suffering only makes you bitter, then it failed, and you failed.
00:12:39.740 And people say, well, you know, failure is a first attempt in learning and all that kind of stuff.
00:12:45.500 And while I agree with some of the sentiment and I like the platitude, it's not always true.
00:12:52.560 Because if you fail, which by definition means you did not accomplish the task that you set out to accomplish,
00:12:58.860 then, and you didn't learn a lesson, then that was wasted, as I said earlier.
00:13:02.740 And you actually did fail.
00:13:05.020 You didn't get better.
00:13:06.820 In fact, in many cases, I've seen men, again, implode or explode.
00:13:11.500 And that suffering that they endured broke them.
00:13:16.240 It made them worse.
00:13:18.520 But again, properly metabolized, what suffering does is it gives you depth into who you are as a human being.
00:13:28.220 It makes you a more well-rounded, integrated man, not just the drama of whatever you might be dealing with.
00:13:35.760 It makes you compassionate and maybe even empathetic towards others without being weak or expecting them to just get tough.
00:13:45.000 But to have an understanding of what they're going through.
00:13:47.780 And maybe even compassion and empathy for yourself for the first time.
00:13:51.400 Many of us have been blindsided by things.
00:13:53.940 Many of us have seen suffering coming and done nothing about it.
00:13:58.220 Have some grace for yourself.
00:14:00.120 You did the best that you could with the information that you had at hand.
00:14:03.720 And now, you're going to do some things differently.
00:14:06.360 Hopefully, in a healthy, positive, constructive way.
00:14:09.180 And it gives you authority, what I call sovereignty over your life.
00:14:13.000 Without being arrogant, without being egotistical, without being bitter and contentious and pushing everybody and everything else away.
00:14:19.340 But it does regain your sovereignty.
00:14:22.660 The pain that you're experiencing is not who you are.
00:14:25.700 It's not your identity.
00:14:28.220 It's the breeding ground.
00:14:31.000 It's the raw source of material for development and growth as a man.
00:14:37.820 And look, I'm not here to blow smoke up your butt.
00:14:41.800 Like, it's hard.
00:14:44.340 It's really hard.
00:14:45.460 And all the things that I shared with you today don't necessarily make it easier in the moment.
00:14:51.560 But they will make it better over time.
00:14:53.920 Because men who suffer well, they tend to be steadier husbands.
00:15:03.200 They tend to be more engaged, present fathers.
00:15:06.700 They tend to be more calm leaders.
00:15:10.700 Because they've already met and confronted hell.
00:15:13.880 And they didn't flinch in the face of it.
00:15:17.640 They didn't cower.
00:15:19.560 They didn't ask for that pressure to be lifted.
00:15:22.460 They didn't wince or move away or flee from it.
00:15:26.440 They hunkered down.
00:15:27.720 They got stronger.
00:15:29.160 They learned the lessons.
00:15:30.600 And they got themselves back into the game.
00:15:32.740 I think a lot of people believe, a lot of men believe, that suffering isn't or shouldn't be part of life.
00:15:41.200 And you hear this a lot, specifically with regards to Christians.
00:15:43.960 And people will say things like, well, you know, if God was good, why does he have people suffer?
00:15:50.460 Because it's not a flaw.
00:15:52.940 Suffering is not a flaw in the system.
00:15:55.440 It is the system.
00:15:58.440 It is part of humanity.
00:16:01.120 It is what makes you grow.
00:16:02.740 If you approach it correctly.
00:16:05.480 The man who tries to escape whatever he might be dealing with is immature.
00:16:11.180 Get me out of here.
00:16:11.960 I'm afraid.
00:16:12.640 I'm scared.
00:16:13.740 I don't want to deal with this.
00:16:14.740 I don't have what it takes.
00:16:15.700 Those are all positions of weakness.
00:16:20.380 But the man who faces that suffering, he becomes dangerous, potent in all the best ways.
00:16:28.460 Super effective in business.
00:16:30.520 Highly effective as a father and a husband.
00:16:32.740 Very confident and calm in the face of adversity.
00:16:36.000 Guys, don't numb your suffering.
00:16:39.120 Don't perform through it.
00:16:41.640 Use it.
00:16:42.520 Embrace it.
00:16:43.460 Honor it.
00:16:44.340 Respect it.
00:16:45.060 And again, I'm not here to tell you, like, just go suffer for suffer's sake.
00:16:49.440 Like, we could all find things to do to suffer with today.
00:16:52.780 But unless it has the five things I just shared with you, then it's not suffering like a man.
00:16:56.960 It's just being dense, to put it nicely.
00:17:00.680 And it's hurting you and it's hindering you.
00:17:03.600 So ask yourself, as I close up here today, what lessons need to be learned?
00:17:08.680 What kind of man do you want to be?
00:17:10.300 What kind of man would show up in a way that you would respect and admire?
00:17:14.380 If you were looking outwards, maybe it's your father or your grandfather or somebody you really respect and admire, how would that guy show up when he would be dealing with whatever you're dealing with?
00:17:25.120 Use that as fuel to show up in a more powerful way.
00:17:28.640 And again, build the brotherhood.
00:17:29.760 And if you guys are interested in how to do that, we've got two resources.
00:17:33.060 We've got the Iron Council.
00:17:34.320 We're open through the end of the month.
00:17:36.560 So check it out there.
00:17:38.400 And I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've had conversations with guys in the Iron Council over the past 10 years with personal devastations that I've gone through from substance abuse issues to a divorce to business struggles.
00:17:53.080 And I've had an infinite number of calls at this point, it seems like, to work through it.
00:17:57.200 Not in a position of weakness, but one in overcoming the obstacles I face.
00:18:02.120 And it's powerful when you use it correctly.
00:18:04.280 Use it, guys.
00:18:05.400 Suffering is meant to harden you, to make you better, to improve you.
00:18:08.620 It's not meant to make you bitter, to make you weak, to make you cowardly, or to make you shrink.
00:18:14.200 Use it powerfully.
00:18:16.060 All right, guys, check out the Iron Council.
00:18:17.820 Also, check out the Men's Forge.
00:18:19.320 That's our event in April, April 23rd through the 26th.
00:18:22.000 We're going to talk about some of this at length at that event, themensforge.com.
00:18:27.200 All right, guys, we will be back next week for our interview.
00:18:29.560 Until then, go out there, take action, suffer meaningfully, and become the man you are meant to be.
00:18:37.280 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.
00:18:40.240 If you're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be,
00:18:44.180 we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.
00:18:47.400 We'll be right back next week for our interview.