Order of Man - The Masculinity Manifesto ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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

00:00:04.900 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:00:10.220 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who

00:00:16.880 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.320 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler.

00:00:27.100 I'm the host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement. Welcome here. Welcome

00:00:31.360 back. I am grateful that you're here, whether you've been with us for this is your first episode

00:00:37.220 or you've listened to nearly a thousand episodes at this point. I'm still grateful that you're

00:00:41.540 here and we need more men in this fight. We really, really do. I was talking with my wife

00:00:47.160 the other day about how I've just generally seen a decline in people's happiness, people's

00:00:53.780 fulfillment, people's joy, people's purpose and direction. I think a large part of that

00:00:58.820 stems from not having strong, bold, courageous, capable men leading from the front, doing what

00:01:04.380 it needs to do, doing what needs to be done, and then helping the people in our lives do

00:01:09.960 the same. Today, I'm actually starting with our main event, which is our big annual event

00:01:15.220 we do each and every year, but I wanted to get this podcast to you. Specifically, I want

00:01:19.640 to talk with you about something I've alluded to over the past several months now, and that

00:01:24.120 is that my new book, The Masculinity Manifesto. There it is right there if you can see it.

00:01:29.620 The Masculinity Manifesto, How a Man Establishes Influence, Credibility, and Authority is now available.

00:01:36.540 So I thought what I'd do today is just give you a quick 30,000 foot view of what the book

00:01:41.220 is about. And in the meantime, ask for your support by picking up a copy, by leaving a verified

00:01:46.760 review on Amazon. That goes a long way in making sure that other people see what this work is all

00:01:52.460 about. I get a lot of messages from guys who are wondering how they can share this message,

00:01:57.240 or they can help a brother or a father or a cousin or whoever it might be. And one way to do that is

00:02:02.620 by picking up a copy of the book. And I'll go so far as to say, not just giving them a book,

00:02:07.560 because sometimes that can be overwhelming, but actually read it yourself.

00:02:11.000 And what I would suggest that you do is get some post-it notes and find sections that are

00:02:18.100 meaningful and significant to you, or you think would resonate with the guy that you're trying

00:02:22.820 to serve. And just put a little post-it note on that section or that page, or multiple post-it notes

00:02:28.540 if there's multiple sections or stories or anecdotes in the book that you think could serve somebody

00:02:33.360 else. So that said, yes, that's my ask and my request from you. But also I think this book is

00:02:41.280 going to help you. As I was reading it, doing the audio version, and there is an audio version

00:02:45.800 available now, I couldn't help but read it and be a little discouraged because there were elements of

00:02:52.080 the book that I thought to myself, man, I'm not doing this. I'm not doing that. I'm not great in this

00:02:56.640 department. I need help here. And so the first thing I want to say is that I am not the epitome of what

00:03:01.920 I'm talking about because I have a very, very long way to go. I have so much further to go and I mess

00:03:09.680 up so often and I screw up and I'm trying to realize where those inadequacies and shortcomings

00:03:16.240 and all of the past, maybe even baggage or trauma that I haven't dealt with, these types of things

00:03:21.640 that stem into other issues of my life, I couldn't help but think that I'm the biggest recipient of

00:03:28.440 that this book was written for me. And if it was written for me, then I think it's probably

00:03:33.080 written for you too. Because I can't tell you how many times I hear from guys who are saying,

00:03:37.580 man, you're telling my life story. Guys, we're all in the same boat. We have some little variances

00:03:42.700 and maybe we work different places or we live in different areas, but we're all dealing with the

00:03:46.920 same issues, the same struggles, the same past events that we're trying to work through,

00:03:52.100 the same struggles currently. So hopefully this will serve. All right, let's get to it.

00:03:57.100 I broke it down a little bit. I'm not going to disclose everything in the book, obviously,

00:04:02.520 because for the sake of time, but if you like what you hear, again, pick up a copy.

00:04:07.060 So the first thing I talk about is really what makes a man, a man. Now in society, there's this

00:04:12.420 thing. And I hear from a lot of people that say, well, if you have the right anatomy,

00:04:15.820 then you're a man. And that just isn't true. And why isn't that true? Well, I have three sons.

00:04:21.380 I also have a daughter, but let's take my three boys. We don't call them men. They're young.

00:04:28.740 They're still boys. We don't even expect them to be men. Now they have the right anatomy,

00:04:33.340 right? That's what makes them male, but we don't call them men. Why? Because they haven't

00:04:38.860 done certain things or developed certain characteristics or attributes, skill sets,

00:04:44.220 virtues that we would generally consider manly. So a male, being a male is a matter of birthright.

00:04:50.980 You're a male. Contrary to popular belief, you're either a male or a female. Yes, I know there's

00:04:56.580 the 0.001 outliers of that, but we are binary, male or female. And outliers don't disprove the

00:05:04.420 norm that we are binary creatures. So being born a male is a birthright, but being a man is so much

00:05:12.640 more than that. And so in the very first part of the book, I talk about what makes a man, a man.

00:05:18.200 And then we break it down into the archetypes. I've been talking about this for years,

00:05:21.960 protect, provide, preside. That's what makes a male, a man, his ability to protect himself,

00:05:28.660 his loved ones and others provide for again, himself, others and loved ones and preside or

00:05:33.480 lead himself, his loved ones and others. Now, when a boy becomes a man, he is capable,

00:05:39.760 or at least he's on the path of doing those things. It isn't like you do those for 10,

00:05:45.660 20, 30 years, and you mess up along the way. And you will just like I do that. You lose that

00:05:50.440 quote unquote man card. If you're on the path and you're working to improve yourself, then you are

00:05:55.380 acting manly, or you are being a man. It's really important that we understand this,

00:06:01.740 even though people get it messed up all the time. Well, you know, if you got a dick and balls,

00:06:04.900 you're a man. No, that isn't true. Okay. You're a male. Yes. But it's really important that we

00:06:11.620 understand that being a man is earned. It's something that we have to go above and beyond.

00:06:16.580 We have to do more, be more, become more, serve more, help more, and really step into these

00:06:20.960 archetypes of manliness. From there, guys, I get into the mindsets of masculine leadership.

00:06:27.500 It's important that we learn how to lead as men. It's important that we can control our emotions.

00:06:33.020 It's important that we understand what our proper role in the leadership capacity is.

00:06:38.780 And in the book, I break down four key masculine leadership traits or characteristics. One is

00:06:45.940 leading before the title. You don't need the title in order to lead. In fact, you should be leading

00:06:51.640 before you get the title and the title comes. That's part of the influence, authority, and

00:06:55.800 credibility, specifically authority. Another one is don't be a superhero. Another one is rendering

00:07:00.960 yourself obsolete. These are masculine leadership traits and qualities that not many people are talking

00:07:06.820 about that we can incorporate and live by in our lives. And we can more adequately serve ourselves,

00:07:13.920 serve our loved ones, and serve other people that we have some sort of obligation and responsibility

00:07:19.300 for. My background is in financial services. I was a fiduciary. And so part of my responsibility

00:07:25.580 was not just to create plans, investment strategies, and plans that were suitable for people,

00:07:30.940 but that were in their best interest of fiduciary. And it's our job as men to act in a similar capacity,

00:07:39.420 to make ourselves strong, to make ourselves capable, to serve, to lead, to help, to inspire,

00:07:47.540 to motivate, to push, to pull, to do whatever we need to do in order to serve in other people's

00:07:53.680 best interest. And that's a burden at times. It's heavy. It's lonely. It's frustrating.

00:08:03.000 And it causes us at times to falter under the weight. Imagine throwing a barbell on your back,

00:08:12.420 two, 300 pounds of weight on your back and walking and walking and walking and walking and walking.

00:08:18.420 At some point, you're going to get tired. It's a burden to carry that. And so we need to be able

00:08:24.500 to have the outlets to be able to help us continue to carry that burden with honor. So that's the

00:08:30.160 mindsets of masculine leadership. And then the main meat of the book is harnessing masculinity for 0.94

00:08:39.700 productive outcomes. So let me make sure I get this right, because sometimes people think I'm

00:08:44.800 conflating terms, masculinity and manliness. Those are two different things. And we need to

00:08:50.980 understand that. Now we can get tripped up in semantics and we can debate and we can argue,

00:08:54.960 but the principle is this. And I'm using the terms again, masculinity and manliness. If you

00:08:59.500 interchange these terms, I don't care. The principle is what I'm getting at. Okay.

00:09:04.640 Masculinity is nothing more than a set of characteristics, traits, and attributes that

00:09:10.200 we attribute to men because of our biological makeup, primarily our hormones in utero and even

00:09:17.260 into puberty. And later on in life, testosterone, namely being, being the, uh, the biggest factor.

00:09:22.680 Okay. So masculinity that could be determined by a propensity for violence, aggression, dominance,

00:09:32.580 stoicism, these are vigilance. These are the types of things that I think a lot of society look at

00:09:39.460 and deem as negative or destructive or dangerous or quote unquote toxic, but they're not toxic.

00:09:47.320 So that's one camp. One camp says that masculinity, dominance, stoicism, aggression, violence,

00:09:52.200 vigilance, these types of things are toxic. So we have to undermine them. We have to dig away. We

00:09:57.720 have to root these things out of society. They are no longer needed. We are civilized. And that is

00:10:02.680 something that we don't need anymore. That's one side. That's one camp. The other camp says, well,

00:10:06.640 no, masculinity is inherently positive dominance, aggression, stoicism, competitiveness, et cetera,

00:10:11.560 et cetera, inherently positive. Well, that isn't true either. Let's take violence. I think we can

00:10:17.280 all agree if we're being logical about it, that men have a greater propensity for violence than women, 0.82

00:10:21.500 right? That's, that's not even open for debate. That is what it is. We have a greater propensity for

00:10:26.980 violence than women do. If we're using that violence to get ahead at the expense of other people, 1.00

00:10:32.240 we would all agree, except for the psychopaths, that that is not an effective use of masculine

00:10:42.220 characteristics. So masculinity is not inherently toxic, but also it's not inherently positive.

00:10:50.680 It just is. Again, it's a set of characteristics, behaviors, and virtues or attributes that we

00:10:56.280 generally link with men because of their biological makeup. It's amoral. It's how we use it that matters.

00:11:01.900 And so manliness is the ability to take our masculinity, those attributes I just described

00:11:08.180 in more and harness them for productive outcomes for ourselves and other people. And we get this

00:11:14.640 wrong a lot. All of us do. Anger is one I deal with. Impatience, you know, where I use my desire to

00:11:23.820 control or dominate to, uh, get people to do what I want to control them, uh, to manipulate, right?

00:11:31.960 That's not an effective use of it, but what is effective is making sure that we're using it so

00:11:37.020 we can produce positive outcomes for the people in our lives. And that's what I talk about as a main

00:11:41.860 subject of this book is harnessing those masculine characteristics like violence, vigilance, dominance,

00:11:47.780 stoicism, aggression, honesty, self-respect, where we can use these things and we can use them to

00:11:54.840 serve ourselves and other people effectively. That's the meat of the book because we all experience

00:12:01.000 it. We all have it and we've all used it for negative outcomes and we've all used it for positive

00:12:04.800 outcomes. I'm going to show you how to harness it more effectively for more and more positive than

00:12:08.940 negative. And guys, the last thing I talk about is living like a man. How do we then take all 0.98

00:12:13.840 this information and act? Because aren't we defined by what we do? We're not defined by what

00:12:19.120 we think. We're not defined by our intentions. We're defined by our actions, what we do, how we

00:12:25.960 perform, how we show up, how we make people feel, uh, what, what, what we produce, what results that we

00:12:32.600 get. So living like a man is not just reading this book. Although reading is important, gaining new

00:12:38.680 information is important, but we must turn it into wisdom, which is applied information.

00:12:43.840 The more that we can turn this information into wisdom, which is practical application,

00:12:50.300 the more manly we are becoming. So guys, if you want, admittedly, I'm biased, obviously it's my

00:12:57.220 book, but if you want a book or a subject or, or, or information on how to make yourself a more

00:13:03.940 capable, stronger, bold, courageous, assertive leader with influence and credibility and authority

00:13:11.460 in the eyes of the people you love and even complete strangers, whether that's your family,

00:13:15.340 your friends, colleagues, coworkers, neighbors, people on PTA, uh, coaches, employees, et cetera,

00:13:21.420 et cetera. Then the masculinity manifesto will hopefully be that sort of resource for you.

00:13:29.260 That's it. That's what I wanted to share with you guys today. Again, admittedly a little bit

00:13:33.080 self-serving, but also not entirely because the words in this book, I believe are going to serve

00:13:39.940 you because if I didn't believe that I wouldn't have spent all the time and energy writing this

00:13:45.100 book. So if you would, again, please pick up a copy of the masculinity manifesto, how a man

00:13:49.500 establishes influence, credibility, and authority. Amazon is probably best. We're going to have some

00:13:54.740 signed copies here in the next several days or weeks, uh, on my website with some added little

00:13:59.620 bonuses. So that's coming. Uh, and then leave the review. That's a big deal. Leave the review on

00:14:04.460 Amazon. Let people know what you thought about the book, because that's what helps us get it out to

00:14:09.120 more people. And you know, as well as I do this message of reclaiming, restoring masculinity needs

00:14:13.660 to go to the masses. All right, guys, that's all I've got for you. I'll be back next week until then

00:14:18.880 go out there, take action, pick up that copy of the masculinity manifesto and become the man you are

00:14:24.040 meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

00:14:28.940 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 - October 07, 2022

The Masculinity Manifesto ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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