Order of Man - The No Excuses Mentality ｜ 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 your own path.

00:00:06.020 When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.

00:00:10.480 You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong.

00:00:15.500 This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become.

00:00:19.760 At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:00:24.720 Ladies and gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler, and I am the host and the founder of the movement that is Order of Man.

00:00:31.600 This is a podcast and a movement about reclaiming and restoring masculinity.

00:00:36.200 Not this distorted, warped, twisted view of masculinity that seems to shift with the ebbs and flows of how society thinks about the way men should be showing up,

00:00:46.000 but by the objective standard of masculinity, which is that of being a protector, a provider, and a presider.

00:00:51.980 It's the way that our grandfathers used to show up. Strong, bold, courageous, assertive, and certainly capable of handling anything that life might have to throw at them.

00:01:03.220 Unfortunately, I think we're seeing a trend in society where we're shifting away from that version of masculinity.

00:01:08.880 And I shouldn't say version. It just is masculinity.

00:01:11.380 There are no versions of masculinity, but we're shifting away from that into something that is significantly more helpless, less capable, and soft, and certainly somewhat effeminate as well.

00:01:24.400 So it's my job to give you the tools and the conversations and the resources that we need as men to step up in our communities, in our businesses, in our families, in every facet of life in which we're showing up.

00:01:34.600 And that's what this podcast is all about. That's what the movement is all about. That's what our exclusive brotherhood, the Iron Council, is all about.

00:01:41.920 And I would certainly encourage you to join with us in social media and this podcast and our brotherhood as well.

00:01:48.260 Guys, I've got a very powerful one lined up for you today. It's going to be somewhat short relative to the rest of the Friday Field Notes, but it doesn't need to be long.

00:01:56.000 It's a very important subject and very critical and one that I think is much needed in society, especially when I look at what a lot of men and women have done to absolve themselves of the responsibility and the burden of accomplishing big things in their lives.

00:02:11.620 It seems to me that everything that goes wrong in somebody's life is somebody else's fault and somebody else's problems and we're constantly looking for somebody else to rescue us from an environment and a situation and a set of circumstances that should be our responsibility to solve for ourselves.

00:02:28.340 This is ultimately what it means to be a man, somebody who's capable of coming up with his own solutions for him and those he has an obligation and responsibility for.

00:02:38.520 So I'm going to get to that in just a minute.

00:02:40.580 I do want to mention some friends of mine and our show sponsors and certainly a company and an organization and a movement that operates within the context of what I'm going to talk with you about today, which is the no excuses mentality.

00:02:55.260 These are my friends over at Origin, Maine.

00:02:58.920 They do Brazilian jujitsu, rash guards, geese, lifestyle apparel.

00:03:03.280 And then what I use a lot of in my life is their supplemental lineup that happens to be Jocko's line.

00:03:09.500 It's their mulk, it's their super krill, the joint warfare, the discipline pre-workout and all of your supplementation needs.

00:03:18.820 So go check it out, originmaine.com.

00:03:21.740 And then when you do use the code order, O-R-D-E-R at checkout, because you're going to get the discount on anything that you purchase over there.

00:03:29.240 Again, originmaine.com as in the state main, and then use the code order at checkout.

00:03:34.080 So, all right, guys, with that said, let's get into the discussion.

00:03:37.040 Again, it's going to be punchy.

00:03:38.260 It's going to be quick, but I think all of you are going to get the point.

00:03:40.880 And frankly, I might even be preaching to the choir a little bit here because a lot of you have taken upon this mentality for yourselves.

00:03:45.820 And I think those of us who have taken this mentality in our lives eventually end up going on to accomplish bigger and greater and better things in our lives.

00:03:55.380 And that's the mentality of no excuses.

00:03:59.080 And it's sad because when I look around, whether it's in my own little family dynamic here or on the teams that I happen to be coaching or the men that I interact with every day through this organization,

00:04:09.140 I see this trend of increasingly pawning off responsibility and obligation to outside people, outside factors, organizations, and even governments.

00:04:18.540 And what I talk a lot about is that when we do that, when we shift the burden to somebody else, we simultaneously give away the power that we have to do anything about it.

00:04:27.880 And so, a lot of people are stuck not being able to move forward because they're, quote unquote, waiting for somebody to fix their own problems.

00:04:37.680 And we all know how that waits or how that plays out when we're waiting for other people.

00:04:42.200 Well, nothing ever comes from it.

00:04:43.960 And ultimately, I think that's the objective of these people who are creating excuses.

00:04:48.540 Is that they absolve themselves of any burden of responsibility to do things for themselves.

00:04:54.440 And it's everybody else's fault.

00:04:55.860 And now, they become a victim and they have reasons for why they're not achieving in their life.

00:05:01.180 But I'm here to tell you that if you want to achieve big things, if you want to have a thriving, healthy, engaged, romantic, intimate relationship, then it's up to you to ensure that happens.

00:05:13.780 If you want to have a meaningful, significant, profitable business or career, then it's up to you, not your boss, to ensure that happens.

00:05:23.980 If you want to be deeply and powerfully connected with your children so that you're teaching them and they can go on in their own lives and do the things they want to do, then it's up to you, not their school teacher or not their coach or their mentor, to ensure that they're learning the lessons they need to be learning.

00:05:41.640 If you want to happen.

00:05:43.060 If you want to have the body.

00:05:43.800 If you want to have the bank account.

00:05:45.440 If you want to have the relationships.

00:05:47.600 Any facet of life, then is it ultimately on you.

00:05:50.580 Now, here's the rub.

00:05:52.200 There's other people that are involved in the process.

00:05:54.820 And so, what we do when there's other people involved in the process is we tend to believe that they have an obligation and responsibility too.

00:06:01.860 And yes, they do.

00:06:04.040 Somebody who's entered into a relationship with you, whether it's professional or romantic or

00:06:08.700 personal, has an obligation to do the same things I'm talking with you about. But ultimately a lot

00:06:14.780 of the way this relationship or this venture or whatever it may be is going to go is determined

00:06:19.320 by you, not any outside factor. This is the no excuses mentality. This is the mentality that so

00:06:27.000 many people have not adopted and they're asking themselves why they're not achieving in their

00:06:33.020 lives. Now, the reason I talk about this is I remember a vivid, vivid lesson when I was 18 years

00:06:38.520 old. I was in the Army National Guard and right out of high school, I was about to go to basic training

00:06:43.800 and I was fortunate enough to train and drill with my section prior to going to basic training. And

00:06:50.220 one of the sergeants in the section was teaching me about what I needed to be aware of and coaching me

00:06:56.580 through what I could expect as I went through basic training. What he said is to take the

00:07:03.000 phrase, no excuses drill sergeant and memorize that phrase and use it anytime that I messed up or that

00:07:11.660 I was perceived to have messed up. And I remember specific situations during my, I think it was four

00:07:18.160 months while I was doing basic training and advanced individual training where I did mess up. I can't

00:07:23.280 remember specifically, but I remember drill sergeants getting in my face and asking me why I messed up and

00:07:27.840 trying to get me flustered and everything else. And I remembered this phrase and I would use the phrase,

00:07:32.660 no excuses drill sergeant. Inevitably, when I use that phrase, these drill sergeants would kind of

00:07:38.460 look at me and stop yelling at me and basically say something to the effect of, all right, private

00:07:44.000 will carry on, drive on. And they would leave me alone and they'd go on to the next poor subject who

00:07:49.320 didn't know that phrase. And they'd come up with all sorts of little excuses as to why they didn't

00:07:53.220 perform. And then the drill sergeant would smoke them. And I realized very quickly that there's power

00:07:57.700 in taking responsibility and ownership for your life in the set of circumstances in which you find

00:08:03.220 yourself. And I think that this is one of the baselines, one of the foundational principles

00:08:07.500 of being a man, being responsible and focusing on what you can control and giving your best effort.

00:08:14.720 And when things fall short, not coming up with excuses, but simply saying to yourself that I have

00:08:21.240 no excuses, then fixing the problem moving forward. So what I thought I'd share with you today is five

00:08:27.980 strategies, five tips, five hacks, whatever you want to call them that are going to help you adopt

00:08:32.740 this no excuses mentality into your life. And ultimately not about the no excuses mentality.

00:08:37.920 It's about performing. It's about improving. It's about getting better. It's about making yourself

00:08:42.740 more capable. And when you adopt this mentality into your life and you make it a way of life,

00:08:47.840 you will inevitably, inevitably perform better in every facet of your life. So number one,

00:08:56.300 very simply focus on the controllable. There is so much outside of your control. You can't control

00:09:04.440 your wife. You can influence her, but you can't control her. Can't control your boss. Can't control

00:09:08.420 the weather. You can't control the economy. You can't control the weather. You can't control climates.

00:09:13.740 There's just so much that you can't control. And when we attempt to focus on things that we can't

00:09:19.640 control, we're really just handcuffing ourselves because there's nothing that we can do about it.

00:09:24.000 And we're spending inordinate amounts of time on things that we can't do anything about.

00:09:29.920 What if instead you took all of that energy and all of that focus and all of that attention,

00:09:36.940 and you redirected it towards the things that you can control yourself. So if you're in a bad

00:09:42.880 relationship, I'm not telling you that she doesn't have something to do with that. She might, 0.99

00:09:47.580 but you can't control that. So instead, why not focus on the things that you can control,

00:09:51.780 which is the way you're showing up and the way you're communicating and the way you're being

00:09:55.540 tolerant and the way you're expressing yourself and your love for her. Those are the things that you

00:10:00.640 can control. So focus on that. If your boss is an asshole, what are you going to do about it?

00:10:05.320 Nothing. Can't tell you how often I get questions from guys that say, how do I deal with a bad boss? 1.00

00:10:10.220 What does that even mean? Deal with. There's nothing you can do to fix that person.

00:10:14.980 This is a man or a woman who's 30, 40, 50, 60 years old and you, what you're going to do something

00:10:20.140 to change 60 years of programming in their life of their mindset. No, but what you can do is focus

00:10:26.960 on your performance and the way you show up and the quality of work that you do. When the economy's

00:10:33.200 down and people lost all this money, for example, in 2008 and 2009 in the real estate market and also

00:10:39.920 in the stock market. Well, yes, there is some, some negativity. Of course, there's some outside

00:10:46.000 factors that you have to take into consideration, but why did these people not save? Why did these

00:10:50.600 people not plan? Why did these people not diversify the way they knew they should? That

00:10:55.620 falls on them. And it's because they weren't focusing on the controllable.

00:10:59.500 They're so wrapped up in the uncontrollable because it's easy to pass the buck or pass

00:11:04.520 the burden to somebody else. And again, if it's somebody else's fault, then there's nothing

00:11:08.260 you can do about it. And you're simply a victim. I don't know about you, but I'm not interested

00:11:12.140 in living life as a victim because that's an inferior way to live. I'm not going to have

00:11:16.640 the relationships. I'm not going to have the money. I'm not going to have the body. And I'm

00:11:19.560 not going to have the success if I consider myself a victim of the circumstances and the

00:11:24.460 people in my life. So number one, focus on the controllable and write these things down

00:11:29.800 guys. Number one, focus on the controllable, but ask yourself in the environments in which

00:11:34.740 you find yourself, what are the controllables? What are the controllables at work? What are

00:11:39.180 the controllables in your relationship? What are the controllables with your kids? For

00:11:43.560 me, what are my controllables with a baseball game? We're having a rough season this year with

00:11:47.160 baseball. Okay. A lot of that I can't control. I can influence those kids. I can't control what

00:11:52.280 another team is doing or how good they are, but there are things that I can control, which

00:11:55.800 is teaching them to improve and the mechanics of baseball. Those are the things I need to

00:11:59.620 be focusing on. Focus on the controllable. Uh, number two, this one is tough. It's tough

00:12:04.720 for a lot of guys because we need to swallow the pride and the arrogance and the ego. And

00:12:08.140 we need to learn to say, I'm sorry. Those words, not I apologize or not. Oh, it's unfortunate.

00:12:15.800 No, I am sorry. If you mess up and you do something wrong and it's your fault, learn to say, I am

00:12:28.100 sorry. And you know what? It's okay. It's okay to mess up. All of us are going to mess up. All of us

00:12:33.760 are going to fall short. We're all going to make mistakes. If you don't learn to say, I'm sorry,

00:12:37.880 you're probably more likely to continue to make those mistakes moving forward. Saying I'm sorry is

00:12:42.760 not a comfortable thing to do, which means that we don't want to say it. So either we don't

00:12:47.320 because it's uncomfortable or, and this is the better solution. We stop messing up.

00:12:52.960 We stop engaging in the activities in which we know we'll have to apologize for moving forward. 0.96

00:12:58.420 We pull our heads out of our asses and do the job or the task correctly. So we don't have to

00:13:03.900 apologize for it later. I don't like saying I'm sorry. And I don't like being wrong. I will when I

00:13:09.480 am wrong, but I'm going to try not to be wrong more often. So I don't have to say I'm sorry as

00:13:14.680 much. But when you mess up, fess up, own it and say, I'm sorry, fix it and do better next time.

00:13:23.440 That's number two. Number three, ask for help. Again, this is another thing where our pride and

00:13:29.000 our arrogance and our ego gets in the way. And if you're not asking for help, then you're probably

00:13:33.040 not going to improve. So a great example coming back to baseball is we've had a rough season for

00:13:39.340 my oldest son, not playing well. The team's not doing well. And we are really, really struggling.

00:13:45.320 And last night, as I was thinking about the struggles that we've had as a baseball team,

00:13:49.040 I couldn't help but think that part of it is my fault as a coach. Sure. Part of it's their fault as

00:13:54.060 well, but I'm going to focus on the controllable, which is me. What am I doing in order to

00:13:59.880 own the part of the responsibility that I have as their coach? And last night, as we had lost a

00:14:08.560 game, I think the final score was, I want to say 18 to 4, 19 to 4. I really thought about what I

00:14:16.660 could be doing differently. And I reached out to my old high school baseball coach. And I simply said,

00:14:23.120 hey, coach, we're having a rough season. I don't know if it's my kids. I don't know if it's me.

00:14:27.360 I think it's me. It could be our kids. I was so confused. And he wrote back this really thoughtful

00:14:33.720 message back to me. And he said, well, you know, sometimes you can't always win on the scoreboard

00:14:38.980 and you have to swallow a lot of pride when that's the case, especially because you're competitive.

00:14:43.440 But what you can do is you can focus on general and specific and gradual improvements in their

00:14:50.040 game, not the scoreboard, but in their game. And so today I went to the local hardware store and I

00:14:56.200 bought a whiteboard that I could carry around with me. And we're going to list out some of the

00:15:00.280 things that we can control, that we can work on outside of the scoreboard. And my goal is that

00:15:05.380 hopefully this will help them improve and become more competitive and just have a better season

00:15:10.380 altogether. But I had to reach out and ask for help because if I wouldn't have asked for help,

00:15:15.380 I would have just continued to blame it on them or blamed it on the league or blamed it on the weather

00:15:20.820 or any or the fields or anything else other than myself, which I think there's a big burden of

00:15:27.700 responsibility for. So when you feel yourself falling short, when you feel yourself dropping

00:15:32.780 the ball or that you have any sort of responsibility in the final outcome of a game or a project or a

00:15:39.620 task or whatever it may be, then ask for help. There's people who have gone through this experience.

00:15:44.000 You don't have to go at it alone. You don't have to try to reinvent the wheel. Find those who have

00:15:48.800 gone through the experience, who have likely experienced something you have and ask what

00:15:52.600 they did and ask how they got through it. This is actually the power of our exclusive brotherhood.

00:15:57.180 It's the Iron Council. We're banding together. There's 500 of us and we're all working together

00:16:01.920 through very similar challenges, very similar triumphs, a very similar goal and objective

00:16:08.560 planning strategy called the 12-week battle plan. And we're ensuring that we're accomplishing these

00:16:13.600 things by holding each other accountable and sharing perspectives that maybe we hadn't considered

00:16:18.260 before because we hadn't been exposed to the situation we may find ourselves in. So if you're

00:16:22.860 interested in something like that, definitely go check it out. Orderofman.com slash Iron Council.

00:16:27.920 Anyways, the point was ask for help. Number four, do your after action reviews. I know I've talked

00:16:34.040 about this at length. I'm not going to beat a dead horse here, but the after action reviews are very,

00:16:38.200 very powerful because it allows you to focus on what you actually can control and what you actually

00:16:43.480 can improve moving forward. The after action review consists of five simple questions. Number one,

00:16:50.040 what did I accomplish? Number two, what did I not accomplish? Number three, what did I do well?

00:16:57.540 Number four, what did I not do so well? And number five, what am I going to do differently or the same

00:17:02.820 if we had good outcomes moving forward? This series of questions places the burden of responsibility

00:17:09.600 exactly where it lies, which is your shoulders. Notice all of those questions are, what am I going

00:17:15.740 to do? What did I do well? Where did I fall short? Not what the team do well, although you can do that,

00:17:21.400 but where did I fall short? Where did I excel? What can I do to fix this situation moving forward?

00:17:28.160 This is again, it comes back to point number one, focusing on the controllable. So number four,

00:17:34.160 after action review, write those questions down again, they are, what did I get done? What did I

00:17:40.920 not get done? What did I do? Well, what did I not do well? And what will I do differently moving

00:17:46.720 forward? And then number point or number five is it seems general and maybe it is, but I'll explain

00:17:53.620 and break this down a little bit more is just take responsibility. All right. Take responsibility for

00:17:59.140 life. Take responsibility for the relationship. Take responsibility for your health. Take

00:18:05.160 responsibility for your bank account. Take responsibility for the team. Take responsibility

00:18:10.560 for the activity or the task or the project or assignment at work. Take responsibility for

00:18:16.380 sweeping up the floors. Take responsibility for taking out the trash. Take responsibility for

00:18:21.240 making dinner. Take responsibility. And I know a lot of us don't want to take responsibility

00:18:27.840 because it represents extra work, but that's what we do as men. We're responsible. We're

00:18:32.900 producers and we take this weight upon our shoulders. And I'll tell you why. Not only

00:18:37.080 is it our obligation, it also brings something to our life. It brings purpose and meaning

00:18:43.760 and significance to an otherwise meaningless and dull and boring world. When you're sitting

00:18:51.840 back and you're assuming that everything else is everybody else's responsibility, you don't

00:18:56.640 give yourself the opportunities to find meaning and purpose and motivation and ambition

00:19:01.360 and joy in life. So we need to reject the idea that, well, that's not my responsibility

00:19:07.660 and it's not in my job description. Maybe, maybe that's true, but why wouldn't you want

00:19:14.860 to take that responsibility? Why wouldn't you want to open yourself up to the opportunity

00:19:19.280 that comes from taking on that responsibility? It seems general, but I think there's so many

00:19:24.800 opportunities, very specific opportunities that you can probably think of right now where

00:19:29.940 you can step up to the plate in a big way and do the things that you know you're capable

00:19:35.020 of doing and give yourself the opportunities that present themselves only, only when you

00:19:40.980 take on these types of responsibilities in your life. So gentlemen, like I said, going

00:19:44.840 to be short, going to be punchy today. I think you guys all get this. I think we understand

00:19:49.240 that we need to reject the idea that it's somebody else's responsibility or where we're

00:19:53.800 looking for a savior to fix our lives. It's on us. Nobody is coming to save us. It is

00:19:58.640 on us to take responsibility, to ask for help when needed, to focus on the things that are

00:20:05.720 controllable, to say, I'm sorry, to do the after action reviews and ultimately adopt this

00:20:10.300 no excuses mentality. If you're not living in accordance with what I just shared with you,

00:20:16.600 I think it's very difficult to convince you that this is a better way to live. If you've

00:20:21.600 had any experience in life with taking upon full responsibility, I can assure you that

00:20:26.140 at times it's uncomfortable, but it is an ultimately superior way of operating in your

00:20:31.980 life. So gentlemen, what I would encourage you to do as we wrap things up today is to

00:20:36.920 go out there and really think about where you're crafting and creating and fabricating all kinds

00:20:42.200 of lies and excuses about how good you are and all the good you're doing and how it's somebody

00:20:47.460 else's fault or responsibility. If you're underperforming and really take it upon your

00:20:51.520 shoulders. I would also ask that you share this podcast with somebody who needs to hear

00:20:56.200 about the no excuses mentality, coworker, friend, colleague, boss, family member, who maybe has

00:21:03.440 adopted a little bit of this idea that it's always somebody else's fault. This is a very

00:21:07.780 non-threatening way to share what we're doing here within order of man and give these individuals

00:21:13.320 the tools and the conversations and the resources they need to improve their lives as well.

00:21:18.700 So I'll leave you there. I hope you have a great weekend. I really appreciate you being

00:21:23.980 on this mission. This is important work and I couldn't do it without you. And I'm honored

00:21:28.400 to be standing shoulder to shoulder in this battle to reclaim and restore masculinity. And

00:21:33.980 I believe it starts with the idea that it is our responsibility and there are no excuses

00:21:40.320 for our shortcomings, but that's okay. We don't need to fabricate those excuses. We need to step

00:21:46.940 into the solutions. So guys go out there, take action and become the man you are meant to be.

00:21:52.560 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

00:21:57.120 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 - May 03, 2019

The No Excuses Mentality ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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