In this episode, Ryan and Kip talk about how to be more funny, how to balance being serious and funny, and how to have a good time while being serious at the same time. Also, Ryan accidentally sings the national anthem in the shower.
00:01:29.760And I told my wife, I'm like, you know, it's so frustrating that there's certain people who just can't take anything seriously.
00:01:35.520And I'm thinking to myself after this, I'm like, there's probably people out there saying there's, it's so frustrating that there's just certain people like Ryan who can't just lighten up and have a joke and a good time every once in a while.
00:02:02.080And so if you're joking about everything and, and you're taking everything so lighthearted, even the serious topics and subjects, then I think you're doing yourself a disservice.
00:02:11.020But I also see the errors of my ways that if I'm serious, a hundred percent of the time, and here I am talking about being funny, but doing it in a serious way, like a logical, you know, I'm thinking this out.
00:02:20.960If you're, if you're serious all the time, like that's, that's not productive either, right?
00:25:50.080I do the same thing I would do the day before and the day before and the day.
00:25:53.740It's the same kind of question when people say, well, Ryan, now that you're 37, what would you do different from what you, when you were 36?
00:26:01.100I'm like, dude, that's less than 24 hours.
00:26:04.240I would do the same thing I did yesterday.
00:26:07.020And tomorrow, when I wake up 24 hours from now, I'm going to do the same thing tomorrow.
00:26:11.960Because I know what healthy habits are.
00:26:14.240And I'm going to, am I going to take the time, the day off on Christmas?
00:26:19.540But then the day after I'm going right back to it.
00:26:22.260Am I going to take the day off on Thanksgiving?
00:26:25.160No, I'm going to, I'm going to exercise and then I'm going to eat and I'm going to probably eat not as healthy as I normally would.
00:26:31.800And then I'm going to get right back on the bandwagon because that's what I've committed to doing.
00:26:36.220You know, the way I love looking at this, because we run into this within the iron council, right?
00:26:41.220Where guys will have poor numbers on their battle plans because they took some vacay or took some time off.
00:26:46.600And the question I posed to some of my team members is, would have, would your time off been better if you stuck to what you had on your battle plan?
00:27:00.300So let's, uh, well, I, I traveled in Europe a couple of years ago with my boys for about a month and I didn't have a gym, but guess what I did?
00:27:10.000I woke up really early and I went running.
00:27:12.920Do you think my vacation was better because I got that workout in?
00:27:37.540The best way to enjoy that holiday is probably still do those things to still do your morning routine, to still journal, to still go exercise.
00:27:45.900Like some of the people, like a lot of people, they run, you know, like five K's or whatever on Thanksgiving.
00:28:05.200I mean, that's, that's, but you know what, Kip, the other thing too, is that takes a lot of intentionality.
00:28:09.320And I think that's where people fall short is they don't plan.
00:28:12.340They're like, well, I'm going on a vacation and they get to where they're going and they're like, oh, I wonder, I wonder if there's a gym here.
00:28:17.740Why didn't you think about that a week ago or a month ago when you planned it?
00:28:21.280Or I hear people a lot of times, Ryan, how do you keep track on your diet when you're, when you're traveling?
00:28:42.920So don't tell me there's not any healthy alternatives.
00:28:45.420It's just you being lazy and unintentional.
00:28:48.400And I'm not saying this to Joe necessarily.
00:28:50.320I'm just saying if somebody uses that as an excuse, they're just being unintentional about their life and they're going to experience results less than they're capable of.
00:29:01.420So I like that he, I like that he added a hundred pushups in his workout or as in his, his regimen, because he's that again, that shows intentionality.
00:29:49.040And when we want to talk about leaving lasting impact, it's when you stay and you stick to your commitments and you do those things when it's not convenient.
00:30:20.040Chris Elder, as entrepreneurs yourselves, what steps did you take before leaving the comfort nine to five jobs to get your wife's on board and yourself mentally ready for the risk inherited in entrepreneurship?
00:30:33.460I really like this question because a lot of the quote unquote gurus will say, burn the boats, burn the bridges, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:30:40.260And then you ask them, how'd you do it?
00:30:42.020They're like, well, my situation was different.
00:30:53.020The way that you do this, again, to come back to intentionality is you are very deliberate and you are very intentional about what it is you're trying to accomplish.
00:31:07.280So let's talk about getting yourself prepared and getting yourself in the financial position.
00:31:11.220When I started Order of Man four years ago, I wasn't, there was no avenue or no path to making money.
00:31:17.900And I went seven months of podcasting every single week and doing blogs and posting on social media and all the things that we're doing.
00:31:25.620Seven months without making a single dime.
00:31:27.720But I also had another job and I started making money with Order of Man.
00:31:33.080We can talk about how that is another time.
00:31:35.440But two years into it, I realized, man, I am making some pretty good money in the business that I could potentially replace this other income.
00:31:47.760And so I, so two years into the business of Order of Man, I went full time and I had a financial planning practice and I still stayed engaged in that.
00:31:55.620And I also had some residual income coming in.
00:32:00.280And it was only, like I said, I've been doing this for almost four years.
00:32:03.560We're three and a half, a little over three and a half years now.
00:32:06.660I just sold my practice two, three months ago.
00:32:10.000So I had a very secure position in place.
00:32:13.120I had a lot of residual income coming.
00:32:16.120I sold the financial planning practice.
00:32:17.480I have capital in the bank account to make sure that I handle emergencies and other costs that come up associated with business.
00:32:24.300But I'm telling you, if you're trying to get yourself into that position, you need to replace your income or get close to or have enough money in the bank that will get you to the point where you can replace your monthly.
00:35:30.420If you agree that you would make her your partner, and when you make somebody your partner, you have an obligation to open it up, to share your heart, to share what it is you're doing, to share the victories, the setbacks, and prove that you're worth being a partner.
00:35:46.260Whether that's a business, a marriage, or any other relationship that you enter into.
00:36:57.080And in some cases, you could bust your tail, work for corporate America, and be an amazing contributor to a company, and that has no exact correlation to your ability to keep your job.
00:37:11.500But when you work for yourself, there's almost an exact correlation between Ryan busting his tail and doing a great job and him increasing his income.
00:37:28.700And so I think a lot of it comes down to mindset.
00:37:31.120And I just totally agree with Ryan that a lot of this has to do with taking the necessary steps and have a plan and communicating the plan, too.
00:37:41.060Like, I think sometimes guys go, I'm going to start my own business.
00:38:33.760Like, I was telling my wife the other day, we were on a date, and I don't know, somebody cut me off or they were driving slow or something.
00:38:41.060And I'm like, get out of the way, you idiot.
00:39:46.380And I made a post on Facebook today and I said, here's what I said.
00:39:50.040Something to the effect of, if the current version of yourself couldn't kick the past versions of yourself's ass in every way possible, physically, mentally, emotionally, intellectually, you're doing it wrong.
00:40:03.720Look, the point of growing up and getting older is to get better in every way possible.
00:40:12.140There's the quote, no man steps in the same river twice for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.
00:40:18.080So, you're going to be changing whether you like to or not.
00:41:01.400Now, if you have to become a new person for somebody else to accept you and you're moving in a direction that you feel is not in your best interest, I would say, no, you don't want to do that.
00:41:19.340But I think very rare is the time when the people that you're surrounded with who love you and care about you, their goals are at odds with yours.
00:41:52.820Maybe you have a boss who is not doing things right or maybe there's some integrity or character or maybe some illegal activities and he's going to want you to change in order to move in a direction that's going to benefit him.
00:42:08.000But it's not the direction that you want to go.
00:42:10.180So is it okay to change for that individual?
00:42:14.720Now, on the other hand, if you have a boss who is inspiring and he's motivating and he's uplifting and he wants to serve people and he wants to make a boatload of money while he's serving other people and bringing a valuable service to market and he's teaching you and he's leading you and he's hiring people and he's paying his taxes.
00:42:31.740Should you change for that individual?
00:42:33.960I would say, yeah, that's a guy who I'm inspired by.
00:43:04.100Michael, we're going to jump to your second question.
00:43:05.880Ryan, how, when, and why did you come up with your vision?
00:43:11.700Not just order of man and I see, but with your whole life.
00:43:15.420Every day, every single day I come up with my vision.
00:43:18.280There isn't one aha moment where it's like the heavens part and the clouds part and the angels sing from above and sing, hallelujah, you found your vision.
00:44:19.660I want to know what life is all about.
00:44:23.580I want to know why I'm here and what purpose do I have and what happens to me when I die and what happens to me when I serve other people and how do my kids grow up?
00:44:31.880Like, I want to know all of that stuff.
00:44:34.980And because I want to know what it is, I think about it every single day.
00:44:42.740And when I didn't think about that stuff, I was in a, I was not in a good place because I was so fixated on the day-to-day activities, the mundane, monotonous, boring, tedious tasks of life.
00:44:59.000And there was no purpose or significance behind what I was doing.
00:45:03.080So I think about it every day and every day I get a little bit better.
00:45:07.040Sometimes I take a step back because I mess up, but I fix it because I recognize it and try to correct the behavior and think about that new vision and what's going to pull me towards that.
00:45:22.300Another question by Dennis Morris in the Iron Council.
00:45:25.420He says, something I've been working on since the uprising without much success, without much success.
00:45:30.860How can someone go from finding satisfaction in external praise to having confidence and satisfaction based off intrinsic factors?
00:45:40.040In short, I feed off external praise, but I would rather find greater motivation from within myself.
00:45:45.280I think it's okay to feed off of external praise.
00:45:48.060I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but if that's exclusively what you're looking for, that could be a problem because that it's external, meaning that you can't control it, right?
00:45:57.460You can't control when somebody is going to praise you or when they're not.
00:46:00.200You can't control when somebody is going to like your post or comment on a post on Facebook or not.
00:46:04.680Those are a lot of things outside of your control.
00:46:07.160So how do you find this internal confidence and satisfaction?
00:46:12.360Well, I think that comes back to the previous question, which is vision.
00:46:20.120So the first step in the battle plan is creating a vision for yourself.
00:46:22.560And when I talk about vision, I'm talking about the way that you feel, the way that what you experience in life, the way things happen.
00:46:30.700Bring you to life, you know, like you're just experiencing it with all of the senses that you have available, smell, touch, hearing all of it.
00:46:38.340The more clear that you can get in that vision, then you work backwards into objectives.
00:46:42.360Now that I have this vision, what is it that I want to accomplish?
00:46:44.680You know, I envision for myself being strong and healthy and capable and that if I ever got into a car accident, that I could handle myself and pull the car hood off my wife.
00:46:54.240And if there was a natural disaster that I would be able to provide and protect over my family and we would make it through that natural disaster.
00:47:01.500And then I can go outside and I can jump around on the trampoline with my kids and they'll complain to me about being tired before I even get to that point.
00:47:09.680Like these are all the things that I envision for my life.
00:47:13.640Now I have this vision and it's very real for me.
00:48:01.140What do I need to do over the next 90 days in order to ensure that I can run a marathon in order to ensure that I will reach that vision I have for myself?
00:48:10.260Well, I probably ought to run every day.
00:48:12.920I probably ought to cut out the processed sugars.
00:48:16.820I need to get some training, some running coaching and training.
00:48:20.120These are all things I can do on a daily basis.
00:48:21.580When I do those things, because I've articulated what it is, when I do those things, I'm intrinsically motivated and uplifted and inspired and satisfied and fulfilled because I've identified what's important and I'm working towards what's important.
00:48:37.780That's how you take care of yourself by earning it, by doing the work that you've identified as important to you.
00:48:45.340I think the most discouraging time in a, in a man's life is when he has some sort of vision for himself.
00:48:52.880And I, every man out there has some sort of vision for the future.
00:48:57.000The most discouraging time you'll ever find in your life is when you have a vision for your future and you're not doing the work required to achieve that vision.
00:49:07.380That disparity, that gap between vision and execution poses a very real problem for a lot of men.
00:49:27.960There wasn't, there wasn't anything I was doing in order to, to be worthy of that recognition.
00:49:33.140And so I became right with myself and the praise and recognition takes care of itself, certainly.
00:49:38.580But I try not to get consumed in that more so than how do I feel about the task I did today?
00:49:43.580You know what, Ryan, it's, I was thinking when you're saying that, you know, the, I think it's a phrase in the Bible where, where much is given much is required, right?
00:49:53.280And it's funny is I've since over the years have applied that to knowledge, meaning where you have gained that vision, where you know what you should be doing as a man.
00:50:07.980And if that security gap is there, then there's a problem, right?
00:50:15.680So what is required for us to act on it?
00:50:18.400And if we don't act on it, it's going to eat us up because we know what we should be doing and we're not doing it and we're living out of integrity.
00:50:25.940And so I, where much is required, you know, I think much is required for you to now live into what you've learned to now act upon what, you know, you should be doing.
00:50:37.460And, and Dennis, like to Dennis's point, I mean, I think at least for me, the greater motivation within myself is conquering oneself, right?
00:50:48.820Like accomplishing the things that probably no one knows about, right?
00:50:53.480Ryan getting that 15 mile run in, right?
00:50:56.900No one's around praising you going, Oh, Ryan, you got 15.
00:51:00.060No, you came home and how did you feel?
00:51:22.660I think that's a hundred percent, right?
00:51:24.040You just, you aren't consumed and worried about what other people are thinking.
00:51:30.680You just, you just don't care as much because you're so comfortable with where you are that you're just not consumed with what other people worry about.
00:52:40.980What I try to do though, is tie his act, his actions to a consequence, both positive and negative.
00:52:50.440So when he slacks off and he dinks around, then he doesn't get to achieve what it is that he wants to achieve.
00:52:57.580And I show him that, and I illustrate that.
00:52:59.720And I take things away from him when he doesn't do what he's supposed to do, because he needs to understand that there's a, there's a connect between the choices you make and the consequences that follow.
00:53:09.180And I positively reinforce that as well.
00:53:12.100When he does what he needs to be doing and he does it right, then he is rewarded naturally for the things that he does.
00:53:19.280And the more that you can make that connection, the better off you're going to be.
00:53:21.840The other thing is let him experience it in a way that's meaningful and significant to him.
00:53:27.480So I had this conversation with my wife.
00:53:29.560In fact, I talked about this with Jocko as well.
00:53:31.840A couple of weeks ago, my wife really wanted to have my kids involved in piano.
00:54:26.080And we're not going to have to bang our heads or his head against the wall to get him to piano.
00:54:30.480So that's what we're, that's what we're in the process of doing.
00:54:33.320Now there's going to be days he doesn't want to play, but he is able to see now because it's something that's actually meaningful and significant to him.
00:54:39.480If you're just talking about, you've got to be disciplined and do your homework.
00:54:42.680You've got to be disciplined about making your bed.
00:54:45.800What kid in their right mind is ever going to want to be disciplined about that?
00:55:18.220And, and so now I know that's what motivates him.
00:55:21.320So I can talk to him in a context of saying, Hey, if you want to be part of the brotherhood, you have to live by the code of the brotherhood.
00:55:28.840And the code of the brotherhood is that you show up to practice and you work hard and you play hard and you learn your assignments and you do your assignments and you take care of the team and you sacrifice what you want for the betterment of the team.
00:57:36.840I would add – I mean I think the fact that he said strength and conditioning programs is key because that's what you want.
00:57:42.960Strength and conditioning programs, right?
00:57:44.500You don't want to do bodybuilding movements mostly just because you're going to lose flexibility.
00:57:48.120And James Gardner, one of my coaches, it's funny is he mentioned once to me that you get big guys, right, that are kind of shredded, huge muscle guys coming into the gym.
00:57:59.720And we fail to realize that with all that muscle, you don't get bigger organs.
00:58:10.400Your heart is working overtime, right, to pump blood to all those muscles.
00:58:15.660And so I think martial arts kind of exposes the need for your optimum performance, for your height, for your genetics, you know what I mean, and everything.
00:58:27.880And so I think the more – the stronger you can be but maintain leanness and well-conditioned, the better.
00:58:35.060And both strength and conditioning programs do that very thing.
00:58:40.180I mean I see these guys who are bodybuilders, and while I appreciate their discipline and their dedication to their craft, I wonder how practical it really is.
00:58:54.380You grab their arm and you just barely put on a Kimura or Americana and they're tapping instantly, right, because their joints, they have no – they have limited movement, right?
00:59:04.960And so a lot of those guys you can – now, don't get me wrong, we're probably going to get someone to argue here immediately based upon what we're going to say, saying, no, you can be flexible.
00:59:13.280I'm just generalizing most guys, right?
00:59:52.560I'm shorter, but I'm just – I'm broader in the shoulders and arms.
00:59:56.740And you just have to figure out what's for you, right?
01:00:00.200Your specific conditioning, your specific strength, and then build a martial arts style around you and then continue to get better and evolve and grow.
01:00:11.360And you and I will probably never move the same.
01:00:15.580And it's just the way it is, and you have strengths and weaknesses, and I have strengths and weaknesses, and we just figure out what's best for us.
01:01:15.780And the way those – a lot of those exercises work is like you're supposed to maintain a pace on that row, right, for a period of time, right?
01:01:23.660If you go on there, you just bang out 10 hard rows, and you're like, man, that wasn't that hard.
01:01:28.100No, it's about longevity and maintaining momentum, right?
01:01:31.580There's a guy on Instagram, and while we're talking here, I'll find him, but he works out basically in the park.
01:01:38.220And the guy's physique is incredible, but he just does like crazy stuff in the park.
01:01:41.860Like, he'll be in the park, and he picks up big boulders, and he shoulders them and runs for 200 meters, and then he climbs a tree or whatever.
01:01:50.100Like, you don't need a whole lot to move your body and give yourself a workout.
01:02:29.860And because I'm a logical person and I think the way that I think sometimes it's difficult for me to rely upon faith.
01:02:38.280And if you look at what faith is, faith is in believing in something that you don't have physical or tangible evidence in, in which to believe.
01:02:46.060That's a very difficult thing for a left brain oriented analytic type person to wrap their head around.
01:02:52.660And there's other people who are like, I don't need to know.
01:03:02.000And here's what I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't have to be either or.
01:03:07.660It doesn't have to be one or the other.
01:03:10.640It's not that either God exists or science is the solution.
01:03:15.400It could be frankly that God has used science and that he operates under a set of principles and parameters that we understand and we know.
01:03:26.440And he's used those scientific formulas and principles and laws to rule the world and the universe.
01:05:21.700I purposely, since you picked out moves, man, I kind of felt like I wanted to pick out one.
01:05:26.640So Robert Thompson had a great question.
01:05:28.440I think it's a good way to wrap up the call.
01:05:31.180His question is, in my journey since joining the Iron Council and Order of Man, after all the positive changes I've made on my own, in my own life, and seeing others among us do the same,
01:05:41.020is it wrong that I feel disdain for the average person in society or society in general for not seeing the value of striving to be the best version of oneself as possible?
01:05:58.600And I believe it's wrong to think poorly about another individual for the choices they make in their own lives that don't have anything to do with you.
01:06:06.900Would you say, though, Ryan, that this is a little bit of, like, a problem that shows up for us, right?
01:06:14.760Like, when you're focused on trying to become a better person, like, not that the natural man is a good thing here, right?
01:06:22.840But I think it's very natural, right, for Robert to kind of start feeling this way, even though it may not be what we should be doing.
01:06:53.160I don't know what's going on in their background or their belief system or even their life to give me the ability or permission, I guess maybe is the better word, to judge what that individual is doing.
01:08:49.860But I, but I think there's huge power in having empathy, right?
01:08:53.720To your point, Ryan, I don't know their story, right?
01:08:56.180We don't know what they've dealt with.
01:08:58.460We don't know what troubles they've had to deal with as, as children or how they are raised or the conditions in which they were brought up.
01:09:05.080Like we don't know those things, if anything, and it, and I kind of reiterates that the phrase we use in iron council a lot of just being a lighthouse, right?
01:09:13.500Sometimes, you know, we use this, the tugboat lighthouse mentality.
01:09:17.620The problem with the tugboat is obviously you can't change people.
01:09:20.980But the other problem is it implies that they're wrong, that you need to change them.
01:09:26.680And if they don't, then like something's wrong with the scenario.
01:09:30.020Like guys, I mean, I would assume like the way you change is by being a lighthouse and, and, and making things possible, right?
01:09:38.600Create possibilities for others to see a way of being right.
01:10:03.440But I am very careful of looking at another man's scenario and just reaching out to that individual and saying, Hey, I noticed this, you got to fix this because that's not, it's not solicited.
01:10:13.920That's, it's never a good idea to give unsolicited advice.
01:10:16.380Now, if somebody comes to me, whether it's through listening to this podcast or joining the iron council or being in our Facebook group or messaging me directly for advice, they are now soliciting my feedback.
01:10:27.720And in that opportunity, I have a moment, a chance to say, Hey, you know what?
01:10:32.780Like, here's one thing that I recognize one guy in particular.
01:10:35.220I remember his name is John Gilliland.
01:10:37.160I had a picture come up on Facebook this morning, a two-year memory.
01:10:39.780And, and it was a picture of me and him and 18 other guys at the initial uprising.
01:10:45.180The very first one, we called ourselves the terrible 20, in fact, and I saw him and, and it triggered a memory.
01:10:53.380And that memory was two years ago at the uprising.
01:10:55.360He came out there and he was in a dark place, man, a really, really dark place two years ago.
01:11:01.140And he came up to me about two, three days into the event.
01:11:03.480And he said, Hey man, can I get some feedback from you?
01:11:06.820And he says, I just want to know what, how you perceive me.
01:11:11.980Like, how do you, like when you first see me, he's like, I know you don't know me well, but when you first see me, like, what is your first perception?
01:11:17.980What is your perception of me this weekend?
01:11:21.020That's a hard, that's a hard question that he wants an answer to.
01:11:24.580And he wants a genuine answer, but he solicited it.
01:11:27.300And so I shared, I said, here's the things that I recognize in you over the past 48 hours that are, that are positive, that I admire, that I respect about you.
01:11:34.400And here's some things that I see where potentially you're, you're falling short based on my limited perception.
01:12:00.900I don't know if he would have been ready.
01:12:02.000There was a time in my life where I wouldn't have been ready to receive the information that we're sharing through this podcast and movement.
01:12:09.160So don't, don't, don't assume that, you know, what somebody is going through and don't assume they're ready to hear what you have to share.
01:12:15.500Just work on serving yourself and the people who are requesting your help.
01:12:19.160And, uh, I think you will fall prey to this trap less often.
01:12:22.680And again, this is not judging even Robert.
01:12:25.760It's a natural trap to fall into that, to judge other people.
01:12:28.800And quite frankly, it's, it's in a lot of ways, it's good because it's kept us banded with the right people and attracted to the right people and kept us safe in a lot of ways too.
01:12:37.660It's just a border that you are a line that you need to be very, very careful of not crossing.
01:12:52.020I mean, just everybody's in a different place.
01:12:53.780And you know what, even if you shared advice that would greatly benefit and enhance their life, if they're not ready, it doesn't matter.
01:13:02.780I had a trainer when I was in the financial services industry.
01:13:05.160And he said, he said, Ryan, you can't say the right thing to the wrong person.
01:13:09.520You can't say the right thing to the wrong person.
01:13:11.600And I'm not saying that individual is wrong or bad or anything else.
01:13:15.440All I'm saying is that if an individual isn't ready, there's no phrase, there's no word, there's no analogy or metaphor or parable that you could use that would enhance their life.