The Only Thing That Matters is What You Actually Do | FRIDAY FIELD NOTES
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
174.37103
Summary
It is apparent that the world is in need of men. I mean, everywhere you look, you see guys who are 30, 35, 40, and 50 years old, and yet they are not acting like men. They complain about women, complain about the economy, cry about their bosses, and complain about everything that is going wrong in life without taking a good hard look in the mirror and realizing that it is the guy staring back at them that is creating most of the problems they are dealing with. And I m not immune to this.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly charge
00:00:04.940
your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.
00:00:10.280
You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, or strong. This is your life. This is
00:00:16.840
who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,
00:00:22.460
you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler.
00:00:27.540
I'm the host and the founder of this, the Order of Man podcast and movement. Welcome here today.
00:00:33.620
Thank you for tuning in. Most importantly, thank you for being men. It is apparent that the world
00:00:40.800
is in need of men. I mean, everywhere you look, you see guys who are 30, 35, 40, 50, 60 years old,
00:00:51.120
and yet they're not acting like men. They're acting like prepubescent little teenagers.
00:00:57.540
They whine and they cry and they snivel and they complain and they gripe and they moan about every
00:01:03.120
little thing and all the bad things that are happening to them and why their situation is
00:01:08.880
unique and why their situation is a product of some external existential crisis or set of
00:01:17.860
circumstances that they didn't create for themselves. They paint themselves as victims.
00:01:23.080
They cry about women. They cry about their bosses. They cry about the economy.
00:01:29.000
And at the end of the day, they're just complaining about everything that's going wrong in life without
00:01:33.720
taking a good hard look in the mirror and realizing that it's the guy staring back at them that is
00:01:41.920
creating most of the problems that they're dealing with. And I'm not immune to this. You're not immune to
00:01:48.260
this. I catch myself on certain days, even like today, I've done it where, you know, things happen
00:01:55.280
and I'm like, well, you know, if she wouldn't have done this or that guy wouldn't have done this or
00:01:59.980
this, the economy wouldn't have been this or this person would have done something different than my
00:02:05.700
life would be different. And maybe it would in the micro, but in the macro, in the grand scheme of
00:02:11.320
things, you are the product of your own choices, of your own decisions, of your own actions, and
00:02:19.140
you're reaping the benefit or the consequence of those decisions that you've made over decades of
00:02:26.800
your life, whether they're good consequences, good results, or negative consequences that you happen to
00:02:34.880
be dealing with. Today, I want to talk with you about something that I think is really, really
00:02:39.860
important. This is going to be a short, punchy podcast. I'm not in an awesome mood right now.
00:02:47.900
I'm a little feisty. I'm a little fiery. Maybe you hear it in my voice, but I want to share something
00:02:53.780
with you that I think is really important. And that is this. The only thing that moves the needle in your
00:03:00.320
life is what you do. It's not what you think about doing. It's not what you talk about doing.
00:03:07.040
It's not what you ponder and pontificating on doing. It's not what you plan on doing. It's not
00:03:14.640
your cleverly crafted blueprints and mission statements and vision statements and all the
00:03:24.860
daydreams and all the things that you have bouncing around in your brain that are going to produce the
00:03:30.360
results that you desire. It's none of that. It's going to work. It's doing the action. It's selling
00:03:38.060
something. It's asking the woman on a date. It's starting the business. It's going into the gym.
00:03:45.080
It's doing the thing that you least want to do. And Jordan Peterson sums this up because he's such a
00:03:52.400
great wordsmith pretty perfectly. And I'm going to butcher it, of course. But he says something to the
00:03:58.200
effect of the magic or the thing that you want most out of life is where you least want to look
00:04:06.680
for it. We spend so much time hiding, towering, running away from all of the things that we could
00:04:16.460
be doing that produce the very thing that we want. You want to be married and yet you run away from
00:04:22.600
women. You want to start a business and yet you complain about the economy. You want to get a
00:04:28.760
promotion and yet you punch in late and you leave early and you do the bare minimum and you don't get
00:04:35.200
your work done. Guys, you have to do the work. One of my favorite quotes is attributed to Theodore
00:04:43.180
Roosevelt and he says this, do what you can with what you've got where you are. That's it. That's my
00:04:53.780
message for you today. Do what you can with what you've got where you are. Too many times we think that
00:05:03.720
we follow somebody like Jordan Peterson or Jocko Willink or Andy Frisilla or Ed Milet or any number
00:05:14.840
of people that we follow and we're inspired by and we look up to and we think that we're going to just
00:05:23.680
naturally produce the same results that they are based on where they are in their life. The problem
00:05:30.800
with that is that if they're on a scale of A to Z, they might be on step Y or X and you're on step A
00:05:41.380
and you think that just because you happen to put forth an hour or a week or a month or even a year
00:05:49.280
or even 10 years that you're going to be able to produce the same results that these guys are producing
00:05:56.180
in their lives. I fall prey to it too. I've been podcasting for nine years. That's not an insignificant
00:06:02.580
amount of time in the grand scheme of things, especially as it relates to podcasting. That's
00:06:08.500
a pretty significant amount of time. And yet I'm not at the level that some of these guys are. And
00:06:14.960
there's a lot of reasons for that. Maybe they have a message that resonates more deeply with other
00:06:20.060
people. Maybe they have a greater ability to present it in a meaningful and significant way. Maybe they
00:06:26.480
just been doing it longer than me. I'm not entitled to their efforts or the blessing of their efforts. I'm
00:06:36.600
entitled to what I've earned, what I've created, good or bad. That's what I deserve. And if I want something
00:06:45.280
more, then I'm going to need to do something different. But guys, we've got to get over this idea that just
00:06:51.140
because we put in a little effort, that the results are just going to come flowing upon us like, like, you
00:06:58.620
know, rainbows floating down from heaven, bestowing on us all of the beautiful, wonderful blessings that we
00:07:05.520
think we deserve. We don't really deserve any of that. What we deserve is the product of our efforts for better or
00:07:14.040
worse. I think about it when it comes to hunting. I'm not a great hunter. I've been hunting for about
00:07:21.140
eight years. A couple of weeks ago, I made a really horrible shot on a beautiful buck. I would have loved
00:07:28.860
to have shot that buck. I would have loved to have broken them down. I would have loved to have eaten
00:07:33.420
them with my friends and family. And yet I made a bad shot because I wasn't prepared. I could have been
00:07:41.140
more prepared. I could have spent more time focused on making better shots. I could have spent more time
00:07:48.580
in a stand. I could have spent more time thinking about how that would play out and visualizing it.
00:07:57.680
And yet I didn't do it. And the results played out the way that they played out. Now, fortunately,
00:08:03.080
I was able to shoot two other deer. We won't get into the entire story of that because it's kind of
00:08:09.960
embarrassing. But I was able to harvest a couple of other deer. But that's what I deserve.
00:08:17.700
So what I want to challenge you as we move into this weekend is I want you to stop thinking
00:08:23.740
for a little bit. I know that sounds a little ironic considering this is a self-development,
00:08:31.900
self-help podcast. I want you to stop planning. I want you to stop thinking about what could
00:08:39.780
be. I want you to stop wondering if I do scenario A versus scenario B, what would that be like? And
00:08:49.560
what is the ultimate ramification of that? I want you to stop that for a minute. I'm talking about two
00:08:55.920
days this weekend. And what I'd like you to do instead is the work. Okay. So if there's an attractive
00:09:04.940
young woman who you happen to work with, or maybe she works with UPS, or she's at the teller at your
00:09:16.340
favorite grocery store, I want you to stop daydreaming about being able to date this woman.
00:09:22.720
And I want you to ask for her phone number and ask her on a date. If you have a business idea,
00:09:29.320
and you're like, man, this would be so great. It's my million dollar idea, but I've got bills and
00:09:35.360
responsibilities, and I don't know how to start it. And I don't know how to create a website. And I
00:09:40.460
don't know how to do this. And I don't know how to do that. Stop with all that nonsense and just do
00:09:45.860
the first thing. What is the first thing? Buy the website. When I started Order of Man, the first thing I
00:09:54.260
did is I bought orderofman.com, orderofman.net, orderofman.org. It cost me like $40. And I bought
00:10:05.700
all of them because I knew that that was a path I was going to go down. And if I didn't, I was out
00:10:11.340
$40. Big deal. And then what I did is I went and I bought or not bought, excuse me, registered all of
00:10:19.000
the social media handles that I needed to order a man on Instagram, order a man on Facebook, order a
00:10:27.020
man on YouTube, order a man on Twitter. And as new one comes online, like threads and X and TikTok and
00:10:35.860
whatever else there is, guess what I do? I go scoop up those names. Then from there, I started writing.
00:10:45.440
I bought a $100 Blue Yeti snowball microphone. Some of you guys who started podcasting eight,
00:10:54.920
nine, 10 years ago know exactly what I'm talking about. I bought one and I recorded it. Go to my
00:11:00.240
YouTube channel, go to orderofman.com or excuse me, youtube.com slash order of man. Click on content or
00:11:08.040
videos or whatever you need to click on and go back and watch my very first video. I look like a
00:11:13.460
complete idiot. Okay. I set up a camera that I bought for probably two or $300. I put it on a
00:11:19.880
cheap tripod. I didn't have any lighting. So I did the best I could. And I took 10 or 15 minutes and
00:11:28.420
explained what I wanted to do. It wasn't some elaborate production. It was like, here's what
00:11:35.820
I'm doing. I know I'm going to get better. Now, look, I could take that video down because it's a
00:11:40.960
bit embarrassing, but I don't take it down because it's part of my story. It's taking action. It's
00:11:47.900
doing the work. Stop thinking about it. Stop daydreaming about it. Stop wondering what it would
00:11:53.580
be like if you did X, Y, and Z and actually go do X, Y, and Z. Ask the woman on a date. Worst case
00:12:01.420
scenario, she's going to say no, or I'm married or I'm not interested. Okay, fine. At least now,
00:12:07.120
let you know. If it's the business, start the damn business. If it works, awesome. You can figure
00:12:15.100
it out from there. You can grow and you can develop and it's going to morph and it's going to change and
00:12:19.340
it's going to evolve or it's going to crumble and nothing's going to happen. And so what? At least
00:12:24.160
you had the balls to try it. There's too many men who want to try things who don't do it. If you want
00:12:30.120
to go chase and pursue a hobby or an interest or an activity, maybe you want to learn to hunt. Maybe
00:12:37.840
you want to learn to sew. Maybe you want to learn how to shoot a rifle or a firearm, or maybe you
00:12:45.820
want to learn how to cook, or maybe there's an event in town. Maybe you want to run a marathon.
00:12:52.000
Just sign up for the marathon. Oh, but Ryan, I don't know. I'm not a runner. I don't know. And I
00:12:57.560
don't know if I can do it. My back hurts and this and that. Enough of the nonsense, guys.
00:13:03.800
Like the world needs more men who are willing to step up and do the work. I heard a great quote
00:13:10.180
from Chris Williamson with a modern wisdom podcast. I don't think it's his quote, but he was saying it.
00:13:16.700
And he said something to the effect of thinking about the thing is not doing the thing. Talking
00:13:22.780
about the thing is not doing the thing. Sharing with your friends about doing the thing is not
00:13:27.540
doing the thing. Emailing other people about the thing is not doing the thing. Creating a plan about
00:13:33.080
doing the thing is not doing the thing. Starting and registering a business so that you can do the
00:13:39.240
thing is not doing the thing. Guys, go do the thing. Please go do the thing. We need more men who
00:13:48.720
are willing to take action. I'm thinking about it as I'm coming up on. It's a Wednesday as of this
00:13:54.340
recording. I'm coaching my youngest son's basketball team tonight. I like coaching.
00:14:00.460
I want to coach my son's teams. I want to be involved with their stuff. And yet I'm busy.
00:14:06.200
I have other things that are important to me. I have a lot of other excuses as to why I don't
00:14:11.800
need to do that or I shouldn't do that. And you know what I did? I went and registered for it and I
00:14:16.500
just did it anyways. Because the world needs men who are going to take action,
00:14:21.260
not think about action, and not do this mental masturbation game where they make up all these
00:14:28.200
stories about how wonderful they are and all the good that they're doing in the world. And yet they're
00:14:34.000
not doing anything. Andy Frisilla calls these people learning zombies. They'll read 17,000 books this
00:14:41.600
year and they won't apply a damn thing. And they're like, well, I read 17,000 books. Look how smart I am.
00:14:48.960
I don't care how smart you are. Nobody cares how smart you are. You know what they care about?
00:14:54.280
They care about the results that you produce. And not only that, you care about the results that you
00:14:59.980
produce. So many men I talk with on a daily basis are so concerned about how they develop confidence.
00:15:06.580
I'm not confident with women. I don't feel good about myself. I'm depressed. I'm down. I'm not feeling
00:15:13.580
good. I don't know what the problem is. The problem is you're not doing anything. And I'm really trying
00:15:21.080
not to be judgmental. You might hear some harshness in my voice. And part of that is because I recognize
00:15:26.600
in myself that I used to do this, where I would just think about things. And I would just ponder
00:15:33.720
on things. And I would daydream about what life could look like. I remember I had a conversation with
00:15:39.720
a guy years ago, probably six, seven, eight years ago. And he was delivering some wood products.
00:15:46.880
I was building a fence in my yard and he was delivering some wood products to me. And I got
00:15:51.800
talking to him and the guy said, yeah, you know, this is an okay job. But years ago, I wanted to
00:15:58.040
start doing something else. I can't exactly remember what it was. And I said, why didn't you start it?
00:16:03.080
And he said, oh man, it was hard. I just had a new kid. And, uh, you know, my, my wife was dealing
00:16:09.500
with postpartum and she had to go back to work. And then we had the kid and we had to buy formula
00:16:15.280
and diapers and money was tight. And so I didn't do it. And I said, well, so why don't you do it now?
00:16:21.880
And he's like, oh, well, you know, now my kid's going to college and we got to pay for college and
00:16:27.560
we got the mortgage to pay for. And, you know, my wife's not working. She's staying at home with
00:16:32.800
my other kids now. And I've been in the business for a long time. And so I've got a nice little
00:16:37.700
pension coming. I'm like, well, you know what? And I didn't tell him this. I just said, oh, okay.
00:16:43.640
You know, and it's not my job to judge his, his life. I'm trying not to be judgmental. He can do what
00:16:47.920
he wants, but he wasn't happy. He was miserable. I could tell he was miserable. And what I thought to
00:16:53.720
myself is that the next time I need to build a fence or build something else, this same guy in
00:16:58.360
10 years is going to come to me. And he's still going to be complaining about what's going on
00:17:03.240
and how hard his life is and how unhappy he is. And I'm going to ask him why he hasn't started his
00:17:09.240
thing. And he's going to say, well, you know, now I have grandkids and the mortgage is paid off
00:17:14.840
and I'm kind of tired. So I'm thinking about retiring guys life too short for this nonsense.
00:17:20.200
It really is. So that's all I have. Like, I, I, I don't have anything else to share with you. I,
00:17:29.620
normally I have, you know, five steps that you can employ in your life. That's going to help you
00:17:35.960
improve. And I only have one today and that's to do the thing. Stop talking about it. I don't want
00:17:40.780
to hear about it anymore. Your wife doesn't want to hear about it anymore. Your friends don't want to
00:17:45.320
hear about what you've been talking about for the past five years. They don't want to hear you
00:17:49.300
complain about how you hate your job or how you're dissatisfied in your marriage or how you're
00:17:54.300
not getting along with your children. Nobody wants to hear it anymore because they've heard it and
00:17:58.700
you're not doing anything different about it. You know what I want to hear about? I want to hear
00:18:02.980
from you that you say, Hey Ryan, you remember that podcast you did on, what is it? November 17th.
00:18:10.480
By the time this podcast airs, remember that podcast you did on November 17th and you were kind of
00:18:16.080
pissed off and fired up about nobody doing anything. Well, I took your words to heart and
00:18:22.140
I actually registered my website building company. And I want to let you know right now I'm making six
00:18:29.800
figures. Or I want to hear a story from one of you guys who says, Hey, you know what? There's this
00:18:35.160
girl who works in the same office building as I do. And I've been super attracted to her. Sometimes I run
00:18:41.340
to her on the elevator and I've been wanting to approach her and talk to her. And this weekend,
00:18:46.860
I said something to her and I made her laugh and I asked for a number and now we're engaged.
00:18:53.800
Or, Hey Ryan, you know, you were talking about doing this thing and my wife and I were in a bad spot
00:19:00.680
and we weren't doing well. And I know something needed to change. And I heard that podcast that
00:19:06.420
you did on November 17th. And, um, I decided I'm going to ask my wife on a date. And so I got a
00:19:13.060
babysitter lined up. I asked her on a date. I took her to a brand new restaurant. I got reservations at
00:19:19.680
this brand new hotel. Uh, you know, we had some fun that evening over dinner. Uh, we got a little
00:19:25.880
action and, uh, it was the start of us turning our relationship around. Stop guys talking about it.
00:19:34.480
Stop learning. Turn off my podcast, please. If all you do is listen to my podcast and you never
00:19:40.520
implement any of it, please unsubscribe right now. Like just unsubscribe from my podcast,
00:19:46.500
unsubscribe from my emails, unsubscribe from Ed and Andy and Sean and, and, and, uh, David Goggins
00:19:55.560
and Cam Haynes and Joe Rogan and all the guys that I like that I listened to, like turn all of that off.
00:20:03.200
Turn all of it off. Unsubscribe from everything and just go implement all the stuff that you've
00:20:11.220
been learning about for years. And tell me if your life doesn't improve. I don't mean to be a downer
00:20:17.160
today. I'm in a little bit of a mood clearly, but this is what we need to do. This is what the world
00:20:26.680
needs. Like your kids need you to get to work. Your wife, she needs to know that you love her
00:20:34.060
because you're doing work. The people that you could serve by starting that business you've been
00:20:39.340
thinking about for eight, nine, 10 years, need you to start that business because they need the
00:20:44.500
solutions that you're going to offer. People need you to get to work. That's always what's defined us
00:20:51.200
as men. Chris Rock did a, uh, a skit, you know, a comedy routine. And he was talking about,
00:20:59.540
he was bitter about it because he's a bitter person, but he was talking about
00:21:03.320
how men are valued to the degree that they can add value. It's never unconditional, right? Like
00:21:12.120
with women, it can be unconditional. You just love women because women are lovable, but with men,
00:21:16.940
you're only lovable in so much as you're doing something. I don't know if it's true or not.
00:21:21.940
I think there's obviously a tinge of truth to that. Um, you know, you can be bitter about it.
00:21:27.620
You can be upset about it, or you can say, you know, I'm going to be a man of value,
00:21:32.340
not because I want to be loved necessarily by other people. I don't need that validation,
00:21:37.100
but because I want to love myself. I want to be proud of myself. I want to get up early and I want
00:21:43.140
to go to the gym and I want to work out because not only do I want to look good, but I want to feel
00:21:48.340
good because I am in integrity with what I say I'm going to do. I want to ask that woman on a date.
00:21:55.380
I want to start that business. I want to start that project. I want to take on a few more risks.
00:22:01.120
I want to say yes to a few more things. I want to start that weird hobby that everybody says I
00:22:06.080
shouldn't do. When I started order of man, nobody knew what the hell I was even talking about.
00:22:11.640
What are you doing? You're a financial advisor. You're making six figures. You're taking care
00:22:17.800
of your family. Like this is a wonderful job. There's millions of people who envy what you do.
00:22:23.580
They would love your life. And you're telling me you're going to start a business talking about
00:22:27.940
what it means to be a man. That's ridiculous. That's stupid. Nobody needs that. You know what?
00:22:32.700
I did it anyways. And look where I am now. I'm not saying that so that I can beat on my chest.
00:22:38.000
I'm saying that because action is what's required. So to go back to what Theodore Roosevelt says,
00:22:44.340
he says, do what you can with what you have, where you are. You're not going to make your
00:22:51.320
debt in the universe today, but you're going to set yourself on the path to do it. So guys,
00:22:57.660
the only thing in life that moves the needle is not thinking about it, not studying about it,
00:23:04.340
not talking about it, not going to seminars about it, not bragging to your friends about it,
00:23:10.380
but actually doing the thing. Go to the gym, ask her on a date, start the business, get after life.
00:23:21.360
That's what our people need from us. I hope that serves you. Please. Again, I know I have a bad
00:23:27.640
attitude today. Okay. It's one of those days, but I still wanted to come at you with this because I
00:23:32.040
think it's important. And what I'd love to hear from you is your stories of doing the thing
00:23:36.920
and telling me how it plays out, man, that, that woman I wanted, she said, yes, we went on a date
00:23:43.500
that business. I wanted to start. I actually registered the business name. I bought the domain
00:23:48.980
and I sold my first product, that promotion that I've always wanted. I went into the boss's office
00:23:55.340
and I said, Hey, look, here's what I've been doing. And I want this promotion and I want this job,
00:24:01.080
or here's a job I've created. And I think I deserve it because of X, Y, and Z. And he gave
00:24:05.800
me the promotion or he gave me the raise. I want to hear your success stories, not by thinking and
00:24:12.340
pondering and mental masturbation about what you're going to do, but the fact that you actually did it.
00:24:18.960
Okay. This is what we need to do guys. I believe in you. You need to believe in you. You have what it
00:24:25.740
takes. You just might not know it yet because you haven't exercised the muscle of doing the work.
00:24:33.740
So guys get out there this weekend, do what you say you're going to do, take action,
00:24:39.960
and ultimately become the man that you and, and me are meant to be.
00:24:46.100
Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life
00:24:50.700
and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.