Order of Man - Tell the Truth ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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

00:00:05.000 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.

00:00:10.460 You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong. This is your life. This is who

00:00:17.180 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.740 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Brian Michler.

00:00:27.760 I'm your host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement. Welcome here and welcome

00:00:32.840 back. Today, I want to share with you a very quick message. This one's a bit off the cuff,

00:00:37.760 but it's something I've been thinking about for, well, since the beginning of the year,

00:00:41.940 because I had a theme starting in the beginning of the year of something that I wanted to personally

00:00:46.340 improve upon, and that was telling the truth. Not that I was lying everywhere I go, but being

00:00:52.980 more truthful about the way I feel and sharing things that might be conflicting to other people

00:00:58.760 or might present some difficult or uncomfortable conversations. I'm going to share with you

00:01:05.300 how this has gone over the past several months and explain to you why I think it's important that we,

00:01:13.000 as men, learn to tell the truth more effectively, how it can serve us, what some of the pitfalls might be,

00:01:18.740 and ultimately why it's so important that we do learn to be truth tellers.

00:01:23.760 Before I get into that, guys, real quick, we've got a huge giveaway going on right now.

00:01:30.120 We're really trying to boost and promote the visibility of the Order of Man podcast,

00:01:35.780 and we're in the top 20 of the business podcasts in the world, which is a huge, huge accomplishment

00:01:42.840 considering the tens, if not hundreds of thousands of podcasts that are out there.

00:01:47.000 I want to thank you for that. It's not enough for me. I want to break the top 10. I want to get this

00:01:53.000 message to the masses. I want this movement to become a household name. Part of the strategy

00:01:58.880 behind doing that is bumping up our ratings and reviews. What we're doing on February 28, 2022,

00:02:06.020 is doing a huge giveaway if you leave iTunes or an Apple podcast rating and review. I'm giving away a

00:02:12.920 signed copy of our book, Sovereignty, The Battle for the Hearts and Minds of Men. We're giving away

00:02:18.920 an Origin USA sourced and made heavy hoodie and a brand new pair of boots by Origin. We're giving away

00:02:28.920 a Speedgoat, a Magna Cut stainless steel Speedgoat knife by Montana Knife Company. And we're also giving away

00:02:38.540 a pair of 50-pound center mass bells from Sorenex. So, guys, these are companies that are making everything

00:02:45.980 100% made and sourced in America. I support these guys. Obviously, they support what we're doing here.

00:02:52.260 The way that you enter this contest is leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, etc.

00:02:59.160 Take a screenshot of the rating and review that you leave and email that to brandy

00:03:07.720 at orderofman.com. So, again, iTunes rating and review. Take a screenshot of it. Email that screenshot

00:03:14.540 to brandy, B-R-A-N-D-Y at orderofman.com. And you're entered. We're doing the giveaway or the drawing

00:03:20.940 on February 28 at 7 o'clock PM Eastern time. All right, guys, let's talk about telling the truth.

00:03:27.620 So, I mentioned to you that I made a goal of mine or a theme is probably the best way to put it

00:03:35.540 of just being very truthful in all of my interactions. And I did that at the beginning

00:03:42.740 of the year. And I usually do that per quarter. I come up with a theme, whether it's telling the

00:03:46.440 truth or discipline or physical fitness, like whatever the theme is, I come up with a theme for

00:03:52.880 the quarter. And so, for this quarter, it was all about telling the truth. Because frankly,

00:03:56.740 there's been times in my life where I wouldn't say that I necessarily lied, but I withheld the

00:04:04.900 truth. I withheld the way that I feel about things. And when I say truth, I'm actually talking about

00:04:11.920 truth with a lowercase T. I'm not talking about objective truth. I'm talking about your perspective,

00:04:17.600 your opinion, what's on your mind. And trust me, guys, I know there's a huge difference between

00:04:22.660 truth and opinion, truth and perspective. You'll never hear me say my truth as a logical,

00:04:30.740 coherent thought, because there is no my truth. When I'm saying truth in this case is what I'm saying

00:04:37.660 is sharing your opinion, your perspective, what's on your mind. It's crucial that we do that because I

00:04:46.320 think generally, most men are afraid to do that. We'll talk a big game and we'll pretend like we're

00:04:53.400 badasses and everything else. But at the end of the day, how often have you been withholding

00:04:59.640 information or withholding the way that you feel about a certain scenario? So, to give you an example,

00:05:05.260 and I'm not going to get into specifics, but over the past couple of weeks, I've had some very,

00:05:09.860 we'll call them uncomfortable business conversations with quite a few people. And these are conversations

00:05:18.700 that I didn't want to have, that I don't look forward to having, but they've been on my mind

00:05:23.760 and they've been bothering me lately. And normally what I would do is push those feelings down, subdue

00:05:32.900 those thoughts and those ideas and not really want to have any sort of confrontation with anybody else.

00:05:41.660 But again, I made a commitment that I was going to tell the truth, talk about how I feel with people.

00:05:47.920 And if something's bothered me, I was going to bring it up. So again, over the past several months,

00:05:52.020 I've had some serious conversations that have been looming over me that I really didn't want to have,

00:05:58.580 but I decided to have them. And I can tell you that over the past several months,

00:06:05.660 having these types of conversations has been very liberating for me. It's emboldened me.

00:06:13.420 It's built my confidence. It's released some pressure that I've had or some negative thoughts

00:06:21.760 that I've had about people because I've made the decision to, instead of just well it up inside,

00:06:27.340 to actually have these types of conversations. And I think this is what men do. You know, we address

00:06:33.900 hardship and confrontation head on. We don't hide from it. We don't shirk it. And we don't say that

00:06:42.400 about ourselves. Like we don't say, well, I'm hiding from confrontation, right? What we do is we

00:06:47.080 justify it. We say, ah, you know, I'm not going to bring that up because like, what's the bother?

00:06:50.900 What's like, nothing's going to come of it. I don't want to ruffle any feathers, but really,

00:06:55.220 I think for the most part, we're afraid, right? We're afraid of having those conversations because

00:07:00.480 they're uncomfortable. They're awkward. You don't know what's going to come of those conversations.

00:07:06.520 But as I've done this as an exercise over the past roughly 60 days now, I've realized that not

00:07:13.320 only is it valuable for me to be able to express what's on my mind, but it's also valuable for the

00:07:21.120 other person. So they can know exactly where I'm coming from. If something's bothering me with

00:07:25.960 the way my wife, for example, is showing up, I need to communicate that with her, right? If it's 0.83

00:07:34.420 bothering me, I'm going to act on the way that I feel about it. And it's not right. And it's not fair

00:07:41.200 to her if I don't communicate that with her and give her an opportunity to see where I'm coming from.

00:07:46.680 And so it is awkward. It is uncomfortable. It is confrontational in many instances,

00:07:51.920 but over the past several months, the dozens of conversations that I've had that I've been putting

00:07:58.060 off have overwhelmingly been positive. In fact, there hasn't been one conversation that's been

00:08:04.880 negative because I've been willing to express what's on my mind. And that's what I want you guys

00:08:11.260 to do. I want you to tell the truth about how you feel, about what's bothering you, about what's

00:08:18.300 keeping you up at night, about what's frustrating you. There's so many men who want to share things

00:08:28.920 about the way they see politics or the way they have a relationship with their wife or

00:08:34.420 their business dealings. And they just, well, all that stuff up inside. And then they have the

00:08:41.020 audacity to be frustrated and upset that nobody sees it their way. Guys, open your mouth and share

00:08:48.320 the truth. So how does this manifest itself? Well, number one, you're going to start listening to how

00:08:54.740 you feel about what's going on in the environment around you. A lot of guys will just say, well,

00:09:01.400 I'm angry. I'm pissed. I'm upset. I'm sad. I'm mad. I'm whatever. And then they don't give a second

00:09:06.720 thought about why that's the case. Maybe if you are willing to tell yourself the truth,

00:09:14.060 you'll start to unpack and discover and explore why it is you feel the way that you feel.

00:09:20.620 All right. You're going to show up for yourself. You're also going to show up for the people that

00:09:24.820 you're trying to lead. If you're not willing to have uncomfortable conversations with the people

00:09:30.620 you're trying to lead, you're actually doing them a disservice

00:09:33.480 because you're not talking to them about what they need to know and learn and hear in order to

00:09:41.900 improve themselves. It's crucial that we as leaders open our mouths and express our feelings and our

00:09:50.160 thoughts without judgment. I don't think we need to be judgmental. There's a couple of conversations

00:09:56.740 I've had just in the past week or so where, you know, initially I may have judged somebody

00:10:01.760 and I tried to subdue that and I wasn't going to have conversations, but I reached out to the person

00:10:06.380 and said, you know, no, this is what's bothering me. And here's why it's bothering me. I don't think

00:10:10.360 less of you, but I want to express myself and tell you what's on my mind. And those conversations

00:10:15.700 have gone over overwhelmingly good and productive and helpful. And we both walk away with a mutual

00:10:25.120 understanding and more respect for each other. And that's one of the greatest fears I think men have

00:10:29.380 is that if you tell the truth about how you feel about politics or how you feel about somebody's

00:10:35.540 performance or how you're not getting what you feel like you deserve or what you need,

00:10:40.280 that somehow that's going to undermine our ability to lead effectively guys. It isn't

00:10:45.320 in my experience, it's going to foster and bolster trust and confidence and credibility and influence

00:10:53.240 that you have with the people that you're trying to lead and the people that you want to serve.

00:10:58.280 Tell the truth to other people. Now, one of the pitfalls that I see a lot of men fall into

00:11:04.320 is they think that because I'm telling you to tell the truth and because you have a desire to tell

00:11:10.140 the truth that you just get to go run your mouth. That's different. I'm not suggesting that you

00:11:16.680 need to offer unsolicited feedback to somebody. You need to be very, very careful with unsolicited

00:11:21.760 feedback because in what universe has unsolicited feedback ever been appreciated? And there's stuff

00:11:29.080 that you don't have any right to get into other people's business about. Okay. So, you know, if you're

00:11:39.540 offering unsolicited feedback to people or you don't have a right to have those conversations with people,

00:11:44.960 like I get messages quite often from individuals who say, well, Ryan, you know, you should do this and you should

00:11:49.500 do that. And the reason you're doing this is because, you know, you're, you're a loser or you failed or

00:11:54.540 whatever. Okay. Look, I mean, maybe you're, you're speaking what's on your mind and on your heart,

00:12:00.760 but what makes you think that I'm even open and receptive to that? If you're going to come across

00:12:07.040 that way. All right. And it's not just me, it's the other people that you're trying to lead.

00:12:11.860 Like you haven't earned the right to do that. Now there's other people in my life who can reach

00:12:16.720 out to me and say, Hey, Ryan, like, man, I think you're screwing up. I think that thing you said,

00:12:21.420 or the thing you were talking about was a little off base. Uh, and, um, from my perspective,

00:12:27.520 here's what I, I would suggest, or here's how it came across, but those individuals have earned the

00:12:33.320 right. They're in the position to do it. They have the authority to do it and they've earned the right

00:12:37.920 to have those conversations with me. So be very, very careful with unsolicited feedback.

00:12:42.900 And then also be very careful of just dumping all of your baggage onto other people and saying,

00:12:48.960 they're at fault, they're wrong, they're stupid, they're morons, whatever. And instead just talk

00:12:54.200 about the way that you feel. So if somebody says something negative about you, and I've had this

00:12:59.120 situation where people have said things negative about me, people that are in my circle, you know,

00:13:04.140 where I'm like, Oh, just let it slide. Like nobody, no, no, no, I'm going to bring that up. And so I

00:13:07.980 reached out to individuals and I've said, Hey, you know, you said this thing about me and I'm having a hard

00:13:12.920 time understanding again, not judgmental, but having a hard time understanding why you would say that

00:13:18.860 when you and I have had deep conversations about what we're talking about, help me understand where

00:13:25.240 you're coming from. And, and that confrontation is not comfortable for a lot of guys. It's not

00:13:32.140 comfortable for me, but I've gotten better at it. I've improved. And when we walk away from those

00:13:38.320 conversations to reiterate the point I was making earlier, we walk away with a newfound level of

00:13:43.440 respect for each other. And I've expect, or I've, I've created boundaries in my life. I've

00:13:50.800 communicated those boundaries and then I've upheld them with individuals who I feel like have crossed

00:13:56.600 those boundaries. But if I make these covert contracts about, Hey, that guy shouldn't say

00:14:01.100 this or do this or act that way, or my kids shouldn't behave this way, or my wife shouldn't 1.00

00:14:05.880 treat me this way, but I'm unwilling to communicate those things with her or them. That's my fault that

00:14:12.100 they continue to step over the line because they don't know where the line is. They don't know

00:14:17.680 what's acceptable and what isn't acceptable. And you might say, well, they should just know.

00:14:21.440 Well, they don't, they don't just know. So we need to be men and we need to communicate those things.

00:14:30.200 And we also need to ensure that if we have beef or issue with somebody that we don't go around those

00:14:36.240 individuals and backstab them and talk ill of those people, but that we speak the truth about the way

00:14:43.820 that you feel about things and you address those people specifically. Now there's one other element

00:14:50.380 of this that I really, really want to address. And that's speaking the truth to yourself,

00:14:54.380 because we have an incredible, incredible ability to deceive who we are and how we individually

00:15:03.760 are showing up. You know, we'll, we'll jump to all sorts of conclusions about why somebody else is

00:15:11.640 doing what they're doing and how they're a loser and how they're an idiot and why they, why they suck. 0.97

00:15:18.280 You know, those are the things that we'll do. And we, we won't afford them any sort of grace,

00:15:27.680 any sort of comprehension or nuance or understanding, or even empathy towards that individual,

00:15:35.360 but we'll do something in our own lives that we know is wrong, that we know we shouldn't be doing

00:15:43.540 behavior. We know we shouldn't be engaged in, and we'll make up all sorts of justifications

00:15:48.740 and rationalizations and excuses as to why that behavior is okay. So you'll excuse your own poor

00:15:57.220 performance, but you're going to hold that judgmental card over somebody else. Guys, the

00:16:05.100 first step to growth and progress in our lives is to be truthful about the reality of our current

00:16:12.660 situation. If for example, in your mind and in your heart and in your soul, you know, you need to get

00:16:20.820 in shape. The first thing you need to do is probably get on a scale and, and look at the scale, the

00:16:31.080 objective truth about your scenario. It's not comfortable. Like you don't want to crystallize. You

00:16:38.640 don't, you don't want to make tangible the fact that you're 50 or 80 or a hundred pounds overweight.

00:16:44.180 Why would you want to do that? But telling the truth requires you do that. You don't want to jump

00:16:50.440 on your, your bank account and see that you're negative 60, 70, 80, $200,000 in debt. Why would any

00:16:58.360 human being want to do that? But if we've committed ourselves to telling the truth, then the first step

00:17:05.940 is to have an objective look at where we are, not to beat ourselves up, not to call ourselves losers,

00:17:12.480 not to say that we're pieces of shit, but to say, this is where I'm starting from objectively. I'm a

00:17:18.600 hundred thousand dollars in debt. I'm 60 pounds overweight. If you don't have the balls to do

00:17:25.460 that, nothing else in your life is going to change. Gentlemen, nothing. Stop justifying and

00:17:34.060 rationalizing and excusing away the behavior and the thoughts and the way you're showing up and

00:17:42.620 instead tell the truth that you're fat. Tell the truth that you're broke. Tell the truth that you're

00:17:49.180 a drunk. Tell the truth that you are not a good father. Tell the truth that you've cheated on your

00:17:56.680 wife. And if those things don't apply, I'm not talking to you, but if they do tell the truth about it

00:18:02.820 and be honest with yourself about it so you can grow, so you can improve. If you pull the wool over

00:18:10.000 your eyes and you pretend like you're perfect and nothing's wrong with the way you're showing up,

00:18:15.980 then there's no reason for you to improve. And the problem with that is that deep down in your soul,

00:18:24.860 you know you're wrong. Deep down in your soul, you know there's a problem. And you know that you're

00:18:33.120 willfully being ignorant to that thing. And that is going to create confidence issues.

00:18:41.640 That's going to create self-esteem issues. And when you have self-esteem issues, you're not going to

00:18:47.700 show up for your family, for yourself, for your employees, for your clients, for your friends,

00:18:53.760 the way that you have the potential to show up. Clear the air, start from scratch. One of my favorite

00:18:59.900 quotes, I'm going to paraphrase a bit. I believe it comes from Bruce Lee. He says, no, not Bruce Lee.

00:19:06.700 Is it Bruce? No. I was thinking about Bruce Lee earlier. I think it comes from maybe Gandhi. I don't

00:19:12.360 know. You guys are going to have to look it up. I'm all Bruce Lee to Gandhi. I don't know how I got there, 0.87

00:19:16.520 but it's either one of those guys or somewhere in between. Okay. And he says, each night I go to bed

00:19:23.400 and I'm paraphrasing and I die. And when I arise in the morning, I'm reborn.

00:19:31.480 Guys, today you have a clean slate. You have the opportunity to be somebody different than you were

00:19:38.920 yesterday. But if you continue to fool yourself and trick yourself and hide from confrontational

00:19:47.960 conversations and the things that are bothering you, then you're going to be the guy that you

00:19:52.600 were yesterday. You don't want that. Nobody listening to this podcast wants to be the same

00:19:58.200 person that they were yesterday. Nobody. Because if that was the case, you wouldn't be listening to

00:20:04.580 this podcast. You're listening because you want to get better because you want to improve

00:20:09.360 because you want to do more in life. And so today, when you are reborn, as you wake up,

00:20:17.000 commit to telling the truth. If something's bothering you, share it.

00:20:22.340 If you see something that's wrong, bring it up. If you know your behavior or your performance is less

00:20:28.900 than adequate, address it. Face it. Head on. Like a man. That's what we as men do. Little boys hide and

00:20:37.580 they run and they are scared and they cower. And men are scared too. Right? We're afraid.

00:20:48.340 We don't like to talk about it, but we are. And it's okay to be afraid. It's okay to have that emotion.

00:20:54.480 It's not okay to do nothing about it. Speak the truth. Share what's on your mind. Talk about the

00:21:01.960 important issues. Start from objective reality in your own performance. You know, I see a lot of guys

00:21:09.120 hiding behind anonymous social media accounts. I'm like, what is wrong with you? Like, what is wrong

00:21:14.900 with you? Don't hide. Well, Ryan, I have to because, you know, I might lose my job. Okay. That's a

00:21:23.400 problem. You're telling me that you can't speak the truth because you're afraid you're going to lose

00:21:28.660 your job. Like just sit in that for a minute. Is that how you want to live? That you're so beholden

00:21:38.080 to somebody else or getting a paycheck from somewhere else that you can't actually speak

00:21:43.000 what's on your mind. What a horrible, tragic way to live your life. You might be there now. And if

00:21:51.520 that's the case, do something about it so that when we talk about this next year, you aren't in that

00:21:56.600 exact same position, build up your financial, uh, your wealth, pay off your debt. So you're not

00:22:02.960 beholden to credit card companies and other, uh, uh, creditors like get like make yourself

00:22:09.940 sovereign. That's the book I talked about in 2017. I believe it's like, make like sovereignty,

00:22:16.120 the battle for the hearts and minds of men. Everybody wants control over you. And if you're hiding

00:22:20.340 behind anonymous Twitter accounts or social media accounts, and you can't speak what's on your mind

00:22:25.260 and you're afraid to tell your wife how you feel, and you can't have any sort of confrontational

00:22:30.120 conversation with an employer or, or, or client because you're afraid of the ramifications,

00:22:37.540 then you've made yourself subject to those people. And that's the antithesis to what it means to be a

00:22:43.500 sovereign man. It all starts with truth guys. And again, I'm not talking about truth with a capital

00:22:52.080 T. Okay. We all have our perspectives and sometimes they align and sometimes they don't. I'm talking

00:22:57.720 about your perspective. I'm talking about the way that you feel about things. I'm talking about the

00:23:03.160 lens of your own experiences in which you look through life. That's what I'm talking about.

00:23:10.040 Um, and the way you feel is reality. That's like the way, again, the way you feel is subjective,

00:23:20.460 right? It's, it's open to interpretation. You may be right. You may be wrong. Okay. But it's,

00:23:27.140 it's subjective, but it's still reality. You still feel that way. And it is true that you feel that way.

00:23:33.120 So express yourself, express yourself, have the difficult conversations, be honest with who you

00:23:42.080 are and how you're showing up and share what's on your mind. This is the path to growth.

00:23:48.380 It's the only path to growth. There's a lot of work that comes after it, but this is the first step

00:23:53.940 towards the path of growth. All right, guys, I think you get it. Let me know what you think about

00:23:58.220 the podcast. Let me know what you think about the show. Again, we've got that huge iTunes,

00:24:01.620 Apple podcast rating and review, uh, contest going on, not even contest, just drawing. It's not a

00:24:07.740 contest. Just leave a rating and review on Apple podcast, iTunes, uh, take a screenshot of the rating

00:24:14.820 and review, email that screenshot to brandy, B-R-A-N-D-Y at order of man.com. And you're

00:24:21.880 entered. We're doing the giveaway for the signed copy of sovereignty, the origin heavy hoodie and

00:24:28.860 origin boots, the 50 pound pair of center mass bells by Sorenex and the Montana knife company

00:24:37.760 magna cut stainless steel speed goat knife. I've got it sitting right over there on my desk.

00:24:43.180 I'm anxiously waiting to give it to one of you guys. All right, guys, that's all I've got for

00:24:47.380 you today. Again, tell the truth, go out there and become a man. You are meant to be.

00:24:51.840 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

00:24:56.400 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - February 25, 2022

Tell the Truth ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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