Order of Man - The Father Wound That Shapes Every Man ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

00:00:00.000 A father is supposed to do something specific for his son.

00:00:02.960 He's supposed to look at you and tell you in words,

00:00:07.380 or maybe even in the way he treats you,

00:00:09.020 if the words don't always land,

00:00:10.220 that you do have what it takes,

00:00:12.420 that you're going to be all right,

00:00:14.440 that he, the father, sees a man in his son

00:00:18.040 and he's calling him out or calling him up.

00:00:21.500 And that's the blessing.

00:00:22.880 That's the thing that every boy is wired to need

00:00:25.840 from the man who made him.

00:00:30.000 I want to talk about something today that I believe most men will probably very likely

00:00:35.240 carry to their grave without ever saying a word about it, and that is their father.

00:00:41.480 Obviously, we're on the back of Father's Day last weekend, and I thought it'd be good to

00:00:47.340 talk about this today, and I'm not talking about just the good version of your dad or

00:00:52.060 your father, not the one who raised his glass and did a toast at the wedding, but the real

00:00:59.780 one the one who who wasn't there or or was there but actually wasn't quite there if that makes

00:01:08.220 sense maybe it's the one whose approval that you're still chasing at 40 years old even if he's

00:01:16.220 been passed away for for 10 years or longer it's the one who taught you what a man was supposed to

00:01:23.680 be by being by being potentially the opposite of it the negative version of what it means to be a

00:01:30.720 man and i'm talking about today this this father wound that so many men carry around and before you

00:01:38.760 press pause or click on a different podcast because that sounds like it's soft this idea

00:01:44.380 of the father wound or that it sounds like therapy talk or it sounds like the kind of thing that

00:01:49.340 maybe you've made fun of in the past. I want you to stay with me because my eyes have been

00:01:54.380 open to this concept and idea even just over the past several years and more specifically

00:01:59.480 over the past several months because this is probably one of the least soft things that

00:02:06.800 I'll ever talk about on the show. When you start to address pain and discomfort and suffering

00:02:14.100 and you address it head on that's not softness that's courage this is the wound that emotionally

00:02:22.460 i believe is under a lot of other wounds that we deal with and it manifests itself in very destructive

00:02:28.740 self-inflicting damaging ways and and the men who refuse to look at it are guys who spend their

00:02:36.880 whole lives just bleeding out from a cut that they won't even admit they have. And I want to

00:02:44.300 start with my story here. It's the real one. It's that my dad was primarily out of the picture by

00:02:51.040 the time I was three. My dad's a good man. People loved him. I would see him interact with

00:02:57.580 people that he worked with and clients. And he was so full of life and energy and enthusiasm.

00:03:04.720 and I lit up when I saw him and I lit up when I got to spend time with him but I realized

00:03:11.060 you know only spending a week or two with my dad during the summer wasn't enough

00:03:17.720 and when I wasn't with him I would become destructive and I would become negative and

00:03:23.920 I would become toxic and I am and I remember my mom telling me that she knew that I needed to see

00:03:30.820 my dad because she saw this this fire in my eye or this this energy or I started to get negative

00:03:38.420 and destructive I mean it's it's not only is it anecdotal it's proven that men need good strong

00:03:46.060 present fathers in their in their lives and I didn't have that unfortunately I think he had a

00:03:51.260 desire to have that we had as I said a fairly decent relationship all things considered but

00:03:58.480 in looking back at it now at 45 years old, you know, I missed a lot of opportunity to have

00:04:06.440 somebody who could have been there, who could have taught me things, who could have said,

00:04:12.380 I love you, who could have said you're enough, or here's how to be better, or here's a new skill

00:04:17.580 you could learn. I didn't have that, unfortunately. And just like many men listening to this podcast,

00:04:26.300 you may not have had that either and you might feel like it's okay look how look how well you've

00:04:31.920 done in spite of it you know i can look at my life and and and point to the four incredible

00:04:37.100 children i have i can point to this movement that i have uh the millions of men that we've served

00:04:43.280 and worked with across the country and across the planet at this point and think well i turned out

00:04:48.540 fine that's how most people say it you know they'll say for example well my mom raised me and

00:04:53.700 now look how I turned out. Or they'll believe that just because I talk about an absent father,

00:04:58.880 that somehow that's an indictment against a single mother who might've raised you. It's not.

00:05:03.560 My mom did the best that she possibly could. I don't think there would have been a better example

00:05:07.960 alive that could have done as good a job as her. And yet it was still lacking, not as an indictment

00:05:14.920 against her, but as an indictment against the reality that young boys and young girls need both

00:05:21.860 a mother and a father. And so as a kid, I felt that absence. I would watch my high school buddies

00:05:32.360 go camping with their dads or go hunting with their dads or play catch in the yard with the

00:05:36.940 picket fence. And I'm not sure that happened, but maybe I painted a different picture than reality.

00:05:42.100 We have a tendency of doing that, but I know for certain there was an absence in my life.

00:05:47.540 and it wasn't until i became a grown man that i realized man maybe that fatherhood wound is

00:05:56.020 stirring up something inside of me maybe it's grabbing the wheel and directing a large part

00:06:02.000 of my life that i didn't know it was driving and i tell you that because my story isn't isn't special

00:06:10.960 it's common that's the part that i think we need to realize that what i just described

00:06:20.040 some version of it is probably sitting in you or at least in the chest of almost every man

00:06:27.520 listening right now we just don't compare notes right that's part of the catalyst for this

00:06:33.060 movement is that i started talking about the issues that i struggled with as a young man and

00:06:38.580 i realized well that guy has the same problem that guy was dealing with that and that guy went

00:06:42.520 through a bankruptcy and that guy went through a divorce and that guy went through this and that

00:06:46.060 guy's dad wasn't around and that guy and fill in the blank and everybody's all men are dealing with

00:06:51.660 about 10 of the same issues but we never talk about them maybe we're too ashamed to do it maybe

00:06:58.420 we're too guilty maybe we take on something that isn't ours to hold or maybe we're just embarrassed

00:07:02.840 but i want to be really clear about what i mean because this idea of the the father wound it gets

00:07:10.320 thrown around so loosely it's not just my dad was bad or he was a bad dad or wasn't available

00:07:16.160 i mean plenty of guys have had fathers who never raised their hand to them never left

00:07:22.480 never abandoned them never drank but they still left a hole because that wound that i'm talking

00:07:29.580 about isn't about what the father did it's about what he failed to transfer to communicate

00:07:37.220 to share a father is supposed to do something specific for a son he's supposed to look at you

00:07:44.580 and tell you in words or maybe even in the way he treats you if the words don't always land that you

00:07:50.540 do have what it takes that you're going to be all right that that he the father sees a man in his

00:07:59.960 son and he's calling him out or calling him up and that's the blessing that's the thing that

00:08:06.040 every boy is wired to need from the the man who made him and when it doesn't come or when he's

00:08:14.880 gone or when he's checked out or potentially so critical over his son that nothing you ever do

00:08:22.080 is good enough or conversely you're so passive that he never calls you up into anything that

00:08:29.880 boy can't just shrug that off he he comes to a conclusion he comes to a determination and that

00:08:38.260 determination is that he doesn't have what it takes. He decides that somewhere, maybe even too

00:08:48.200 deep to put into words, that if my own dad didn't think I was worth showing up for, then something

00:08:55.020 must be wrong with me. And again, it's probably not vocalized, but I think it's internalized

00:09:01.100 in many if not the overwhelming majority of men and then he spends 20 30 40 50 years trying to

00:09:10.260 disprove it that he does have what it takes and then he's clamoring for the attention and the

00:09:17.500 approval of a man who isn't going to give it is incapable of giving it or maybe not even around

00:09:24.220 to give it or or the alternative that a man might do when he grows older is not that he's trying to

00:09:29.780 disprove it that he's trying to numb it out and here's why this is really important even if you

00:09:37.420 think that you've made peace with it as as i have and it's coming to light over work and self-reflection

00:09:44.180 and conversations and learning that i haven't totally made peace with it because that father

00:09:50.160 wound that we're talking about it does not stay in the past it runs today it runs your present

00:09:54.920 and it does it covertly it does it in disguise it's very deceptive look you'll recognize some

00:10:02.220 of these maybe you feel like the man who when he's done enough or he's hit every goal he feels

00:10:11.200 nothing right like maybe you get a promotion or you start a business or you hit a certain income

00:10:17.200 or you start to grow your family or one of your kids goes to college or gets a scholarship or

00:10:22.580 moves on to the next level of his athletic performance and then you feel nothing because

00:10:29.480 the approval that that man or you potentially is actually chasing belongs to a guy who can't

00:10:38.140 give it to you it's locked away in his chest here's another one it's the guy with just rage

00:10:45.360 anger and rage that is way too big for the situation he's dealing with right now

00:10:52.580 it's it's inappropriate it's just it's just crashing out as my kids would say

00:11:00.340 you know somebody cuts him off in traffic and he's just like ready to end somebody's life

00:11:06.060 it's not about traffic that's not about getting cut off on the road that's a pressure that has

00:11:12.260 been building inside of you maybe since you were nine years old or or it's the guy who can't let

00:11:19.420 his wife in ask yourself if this is you you're not gonna let your wife in you can't give her

00:11:25.940 access to all of you you can't let your kids get close to you close sure in proximity but

00:11:31.560 emotionally no we're gonna keep everybody at arm's length because the first man who was supposed to

00:11:39.080 love you taught you that the people closest to you are the ones who leave and they leave you

00:11:47.340 hurting or it's the guy who drinks it down you know just and i did this and i've been very vocal

00:11:54.520 about this you know we drink it all down or maybe you try to scroll it all away or you're watching

00:12:01.980 porn or numbing out in some other addiction always numbing always checking out always tuning out

00:12:09.660 always trying to escape whatever you're feeling and it's the man and this is the one that should

00:12:14.100 really scare you maybe it's the guy who swore that he'd never be like his dad like i'm never

00:12:20.420 gonna be like that guy and then you become him anyway because the wound that you won't look at

00:12:29.340 and you're not willing to figure out how to heal it gets handed down and and it gets passed to you

00:12:36.780 and then you pass it to your kids the very thing that you swore you'd protect them from

00:12:41.400 and you don't even see that you're doing it.

00:12:44.260 You're the one now doing it.

00:12:46.240 And that's the cost, guys, of leaving it in the dark.

00:12:50.780 It doesn't stay there with you,

00:12:53.260 although that's what you want.

00:12:55.460 You don't want to pass that down to your kids.

00:12:57.720 But I promise you, if you don't address it,

00:12:59.880 it becomes their problem.

00:13:01.600 And then your sons do it and your daughters do it

00:13:04.060 and their sons and daughters do it.

00:13:05.660 And it's just this generational curse

00:13:07.900 that we could have otherwise broken.

00:13:11.400 and now now here's where i want to turn this around a little bit because i i know you guys

00:13:17.200 i've been doing this for 11 years and i know that some of you might already be getting

00:13:22.900 uncomfortable with what i'm talking about not because it's too sad we can deal with that

00:13:27.580 because it sounds like maybe i'm building an excuse that all of your life's problems and

00:13:32.960 all of the reasons you aren't the dad you're supposed to be is not because of you but because

00:13:36.280 of your dad. Like I'm going to tell you that your father is why your life is the way it is. So you

00:13:42.060 can just go ahead and blame him, wash your hands and then keep living your life. No, I want you to

00:13:47.900 hear me really clearly. Understanding the wounds and the hurt and the pain and the suffering from

00:13:56.300 your life is not the same as giving into it. It's not the same as living it. I mean, there's a whole

00:14:03.320 industry out there that wants to keep you in the wound. And the medical community at this point is

00:14:11.480 not in the business of healthcare. It's in the business of pharmaceutical sales. Well, in order

00:14:18.140 to sell you pharmaceuticals, you have to be sick or injured. And that's the incentive structure.

00:14:25.140 So there's this whole industry that wants you wounded, that wants you identifying as that

00:14:32.440 wounded kid that scared little boy for the rest of your life telling the story at every retreat

00:14:39.080 you know getting the sympathy never actually having to carry anything because of how much

00:14:44.760 you've suffered over your life and just making you a weak victim and that's a trap guys

00:14:50.920 it's an uncomfortable one and i i don't want any part of that for myself

00:14:57.020 and trust. I don't want any part of that for you. The truth about what I'm talking about today of

00:15:04.760 this father wound that we're addressing is the starting line. It's the truth of growth. It's

00:15:10.820 rock bottom, if you will. It's not somewhere we're going to go cower and hide. You have to get to

00:15:16.740 know it. You have to grieve it. And I don't want to sit around and wallow. I don't want to grieve

00:15:23.360 things. I don't want to cry. I don't want to suffer. And so what do I do? I stuff it. I bury

00:15:28.380 it. I numb it. And I never address it. And then my kids get to take the baggage that I should have

00:15:34.420 carried decades earlier. Most men have never actually grieved it. They've just buried it.

00:15:40.660 And that's the difference. But then you have to do the thing that he didn't do.

00:15:47.500 you have to become the father in a way and I call it becoming your own father this is this is where

00:15:55.520 it it really starts to resonate this is the entire point I cannot tell you how many times I hear from

00:16:02.020 guys who are like I didn't have a dad around he didn't teach me how to do this and this and this

00:16:05.300 and although I feel for it at the same time I'm like great you're a man now and you've got the

00:16:11.280 money and the time and the energy and the resources and the desires so do all the things that he

00:16:15.360 should have done for you you can do that now because you're a man and there there's a there's

00:16:20.680 a point in time where in a man's life he has to just stop waiting stop waiting for an apology

00:16:28.920 that is not coming I remember my dad used to call me actually he didn't really call me all that often

00:16:37.580 on birthdays and special days it usually was like three or four or five days later and he would call

00:16:43.000 me and he would say, happy birthday. You know, I'm sorry. I forgot about your birthday, but I have

00:16:47.020 a gift in the mail and the gift would never come. And it wasn't about the gift. It was just about

00:16:53.400 acknowledgement, feeling important. I never got that. And I remember one day is probably 19,

00:16:59.400 20 years old, somewhere in there. He called me up maybe three or four days after my birthday.

00:17:03.340 And he said, Hey, you know, I love you, buddy. Hope you're having a good day. I know I was late

00:17:07.360 for your birthday, but I've been busy and something's coming in the mail for you. And I

00:17:11.880 said hey dad you don't have to say that anymore he's like what do you mean something's coming

00:17:16.420 I'm like no nothing's coming I don't know why you say that but you don't have to say that anymore

00:17:23.960 and he did say yeah nothing's coming I didn't get anything I forgot and there was an excuse

00:17:29.900 or a thing in there and so you know I knew that it wasn't like I was waiting for it to come but

00:17:34.880 it was a pretty cathartic moment for me because then I stopped waiting for it to come I stopped

00:17:40.140 having an expectation of him that i knew was faulty and again i don't think he's a bad person

00:17:45.560 i love my father he just wasn't great at that and partly because of the way i'm sure that

00:17:53.200 his father was to him he didn't do what he needed to do and at times i haven't done what i've needed

00:18:00.200 to do to stop that curse so to speak but when you start facing reality that's where you start

00:18:06.680 growing. You start, stop waiting for, for, for the old man to finally see you. And then you can

00:18:14.640 become the father that you needed him to be. You know, some of you guys, and I've done this and

00:18:22.280 I've been here are just waiting on a dad who's not capable of doing it. I know it sucks. I know 0.98

00:18:31.060 it's shitty. I know it's unfair. I know it's not good. I know other people have it. It's just not 0.89

00:18:37.680 happening. He's not capable of it. Some of you are waiting for approval and an apology on a man

00:18:46.880 who's buried and dead and in the ground. And I don't mean to be crude or crass about it, but he's

00:18:51.300 gone. And then that waiting is, it's like a prison. The day that you become a man, really become a man

00:19:03.360 is the day that you decide to give yourself what he couldn't or wouldn't give you. You become your

00:19:10.820 own father in a way. You can look at the boy still inside you, the one who decided or drew the

00:19:17.620 conclusion that he wasn't enough. And you tell him the thing that never came from the man who

00:19:22.480 should have given it to you. That you do have what it takes. That life is going to be all right.

00:19:28.820 That you see a man in there and you're going to call him out and you're going to call him up.

00:19:33.640 And you're going to do the things that you know a man needs to do. And you say it with your actions.

00:19:39.620 You get up out of bed and you don't hit snooze. You go work out. You go ask that woman on a date.

00:19:44.720 you go secure a promotion you go start a business you go do something exciting

00:19:48.220 you get up you keep your word to yourself you build discipline and steadiness

00:19:53.400 that a dad is supposed to model for you and then you model it for yourself yeah late sure

00:20:02.440 absolutely decades potentially late and it's gonna be hard because now you've got four decades

00:20:09.080 potentially or more of hard-headedness of of stubbornness of baggage that you're carrying

00:20:17.740 around but you got to do it on your own it's the only way you got to do it on your own not by

00:20:21.800 yourself i'm not saying that but on your own and here's the gift that you will give yourself when

00:20:27.640 you do this the guy the man you who fathers yourself becomes able to father everyone around

00:20:34.580 him. Your kids get the dad that you didn't have. Not because you read a book or listened to a

00:20:42.740 podcast, but because you went down and into your heart, into your soul, and you dealt with what

00:20:52.800 was down there. So you'd stop handing it over to them. Your sons and your daughters, they get a

00:20:59.740 beautiful blessing because you did work they get a they get a father who's present instead of just

00:21:05.980 numbing himself and the the chain that potentially ran through your family for generations through

00:21:12.440 your father and his and his and his and his it stops with you because you are the man bold enough

00:21:20.500 brave enough courageous enough to turn around and finally face the demons the hardship it's

00:21:31.520 not blaming your father you can still think he's a good man and know that he didn't give you

00:21:36.100 everything you needed as a boy it's surpassing him not out of spite or vengeance or getting back

00:21:42.580 or trying to prove that you're better than him but just because a natural tendency or result of

00:21:48.980 you doing the work that's the most masculine thing a man can do to take the things that he

00:21:54.160 suffered from the father wound and others that were handed to you you didn't ask for that you

00:21:58.960 didn't volunteer for that you didn't have a choice there wasn't some decision that you made

00:22:03.860 that handed you that hand but you can refuse to pass it on

00:22:10.720 you can you can break it across your own back and your own hands so your kids never have to carry

00:22:17.020 and i'll leave you with this today your father i believe this your father did the best that he

00:22:23.900 could with what he had and that does not let him off the hook especially when it comes to

00:22:28.960 abuse or violence or other things like that it does not let him off the hook

00:22:34.480 but what he had might not have been enough for you and that's okay we could admit that thing

00:22:42.100 we we can acknowledge that

00:22:44.120 both of the both of those things are true at the same time that he might have been a good man

00:22:50.100 and that he might have done the best he could and that you don't have to accept it

00:22:55.660 so we're not going to let anybody off the hook you can forgive your father you should forgive

00:23:00.480 your father you may need to you probably do for your own sake more than more than for his

00:23:06.420 but that forgiveness isn't the end either you know a lot of people talk about why you should

00:23:10.940 forgive others for your own benefit sure you should but that doesn't mean it's done

00:23:15.100 the finish line is more like you becoming the man that he wasn't for the people who are still

00:23:23.680 counting on you while you're around while you're breathing you give to them what was never given

00:23:29.980 to you that hole in your heart guys is real it has been for me it's still there and i'm not going

00:23:37.260 insult you by pretending that you can fill it overnight that you can just will it into existence

00:23:41.780 that you can just be better that you can just bear down or get tough or whatever we say

00:23:45.260 or or that this one podcast will do it for you but i'll tell you what i do know to be real what

00:23:52.060 i do know to be true that the hole in your heart is not it's not your destiny it it's it's an

00:24:00.480 assignment more than a destiny like go be the father to your kids and even to the boy inside

00:24:05.700 you who's still waiting to hear that you're enough and that you have what it takes guys those are my

00:24:11.960 field notes for today coming on the back of fatherhood or father's day rather um yeah i've

00:24:17.340 had to do a lot of self-reflection uh on this subject for myself uh for my kids for you guys

00:24:25.000 because i hear this time and time again and i'm coming to some realizations that it's a uh it's

00:24:31.360 a heavy burden to bear but once we start to address and acknowledge it we can start doing

00:24:36.000 something about it now i did tell you that you have to do this on your own not alone but on your

00:24:41.660 own meaning it's your responsibility to take on the work but you don't have to be isolated when

00:24:47.820 you do it if you want to work with other men who are dealing with the father wound and other

00:24:53.100 struggles whether it's addiction or overcoming divorce um or just ready to level up you know

00:25:00.020 so many guys that I talk with are, are just floating. They're just, they're not doing

00:25:05.180 anything great. They know they're capable of so much more and they're not living into it.

00:25:10.180 And if that's you, if you're feeling that way, join us in the Iron Council. We're going to be

00:25:14.380 closing up the Iron Council for a little bit in July, the end of July. So that gives us about 30

00:25:20.060 days or a little longer, but about 30 days or so. And then we're going to shut it down for a little

00:25:25.120 while because we're doing some tweaking and adjusting and aligning. And I'm very excited

00:25:28.740 about the next iteration, but I don't want you to be lost. And I don't want you to feel like you

00:25:33.100 have to do this isolated. So join us, go to order a man.com slash iron council, learn a little bit

00:25:38.820 more about what we do and help, help yourself. Your dad's not going to do it. Other people aren't

00:25:46.240 going to do it. Your wife's not going to, it's not even their responsibility. It's yours. And we'll 1.00

00:25:50.920 walk with you through the fire, the refiner's fire. We'll walk with you in it. All right, guys,

00:25:56.980 a great interview coming up next week make sure you subscribe whether you listen to this on

00:26:02.000 spotify or apple podcasts or pandora and if you want the video version i don't know why you would

00:26:09.780 because you got to look at my ugly mug but if you do like the video version youtube go to order of

00:26:14.340 man.com excuse me go to youtube.com slash order of man i think we've got 350 000 subscribers over

00:26:22.700 there. And we are putting out three to five videos every single week. So you'll never run

00:26:27.820 out of content to help you become a better man. All right, guys, we'll be back next week. Have a

00:26:31.980 great weekend. Until then, go out there, take action, become a man you are meant to be.

00:26:37.100 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your

00:26:41.380 life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at

00:26:45.900 orderofman.com.

00:26:52.700 Thank you.

Order of Man - June 26, 2026

The Father Wound That Shapes Every Man ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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