Order of Man - The Power of Internal Validation

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

00:00:04.980 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:00:10.400 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who

00:00:17.160 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.700 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler.

00:00:27.840 I'm the host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement, and I want to welcome you

00:00:32.360 here. It's my goal to give you everything that you need to step up as a man. I get emails and

00:00:38.000 messages every day from guys who are struggling with addiction and relationship issues and working

00:00:43.780 on their health and working on their businesses. A lot of these guys are really struggling, and if

00:00:48.180 that's you, you're in the right place. If you're not struggling but want to take your life to the

00:00:51.260 next level, you're also in the right place. We interview incredible men, extract their knowledge

00:00:56.800 and wisdom and experience, and then disseminate that information to you so that you can use it

00:01:01.820 to enhance your own life. Now, the Friday Field Notes is a little bit different. I share with you

00:01:06.380 some thoughts that have been bouncing around in my brain from throughout the week, and I've got one

00:01:09.720 today that I think is going to be beneficial for not only you, but also for me. I got to say that as

00:01:16.040 I do the podcast and I share emails and messages about becoming a better man, it's very therapeutic

00:01:21.200 for me because I need this information just as much as any other man out there, maybe more so.

00:01:27.260 So this is something when it comes to internal versus external validation that I've been

00:01:32.980 thinking about and working on, and I heard a message just yesterday at an event that I was at,

00:01:37.880 and it kind of hit home on this, and I thought I would share some thoughts with you.

00:01:41.340 So before I get into that, I just want to mention that we've got our newsletter that we're building out.

00:01:45.900 This is to help us be a little bit more independent from the social media tech type overlords who want

00:01:53.460 to throttle and pull back our accounts and not allow us to have the reach that we've earned over

00:02:00.300 the past seven years. And I see the writing on the wall a bit as it pertains to limited reach and

00:02:05.920 potentially even throttling and censoring of our message and our accounts. So if you want to hear

00:02:11.900 from me directly, if you want insights, knowledge, information about upcoming events and books and

00:02:16.960 different discounts we have going on, new merchandise in the store and be in the know

00:02:20.800 with the Order of Man movement, then you can go to orderofman.com and sign up for our emails,

00:02:26.600 orderofman.com, and you'll see a signup box there. All right, guys, let's now talk about the power of

00:02:31.940 internal validation because it's very clear to me that even in my own life,

00:02:37.660 I have a need at times more often than frankly, I would like to admit to be validated by external

00:02:45.260 factors, whether that's my children, my wife, even you guys or friends and family members that I want

00:02:53.820 to validate me, that I want them to make me feel better about my own performance and my mood and

00:03:02.320 behavior is all too often contingent upon the way that they're responding to it. And that's a problem

00:03:11.720 because what ends up happening is we give over the power and authority of our lives because we're

00:03:18.800 waiting for somebody else to behave and they may not ever behave that we want them to, which is

00:03:25.980 somewhat unfortunate. But if you turn the table, you wouldn't want anybody else forcing behavior on

00:03:33.900 you. And yet we hope that other people will act a certain way that validates our desire to show up

00:03:40.660 or our performance or how good or important or special we are. And so as I was listening to this

00:03:45.960 person speak the other day, they talked about the concept between personalities that either attempt to

00:03:53.880 get people to do what they want through domination or to get people to do what they want through

00:03:59.980 dependency. And if we operate at either one of those spectrums, we're going to create some real

00:04:05.360 problems in our lives. If we attempt to manipulate and force and coerce and strong arm those closest to us

00:04:12.540 to comply, to do what we want them to do, of course, there's going to be bitterness and contention

00:04:19.580 and animosity in their lives and in our lives and them directed at us. Now, alternatively,

00:04:27.900 and this is where I didn't take issue with what the person was saying, but it really made me think,

00:04:32.520 how do I show up and how do I behave? Well, a lot of us are very dependent, overly dependent on other

00:04:39.020 people. And that's what I was saying earlier is that we attempt to get them to act or behave a certain

00:04:45.420 way so that we feel better about our own lives and maybe our own shortcomings. And then I think

00:04:52.040 what ends up happening in either one of these scenarios, whether we attempt to dominate others

00:04:56.140 or we're overly dependent on others, is we're just creating these landmines all around the relationships

00:05:03.720 that we have. And everybody's walking around on eggshells, trying not to blow themselves up.

00:05:10.140 And then what ends up happening is it blows up. People are angry. People are bitter. They're

00:05:15.240 contentious. They're hostile, maybe even towards one another because they're tired of being manipulated.

00:05:21.700 They're tired of being controlled. They're tired of the anger and the hostility and the frustration

00:05:25.640 that's built up within the relationship. So with my own personal relationships, I want those to be

00:05:33.440 loving. I want those to be supportive. I want to be in a place where I can serve my family and I can

00:05:39.540 serve my community and I can serve my friends. I don't do it for their validation. I'm not saying

00:05:45.200 that I... Let me rephrase that. Oftentimes, I do that for their validation. I don't want to do that

00:05:53.680 for their validation. I want to show up in a powerful way as a man and feel good about the way I'm showing

00:06:00.540 up regardless of whether or not somebody behaves a certain way or even acknowledges it. It should be

00:06:07.980 enough that we acknowledge in ourselves that we are doing good and we are doing right.

00:06:13.720 Now, ironically enough, when we feel better about ourselves and we have this internal validation,

00:06:19.300 this fire within us because we know we're doing what's right, we start to receive more of that

00:06:24.640 external validation. But it's a bit of a trap too because that external validation feels really

00:06:29.360 good. Sometimes we can even get it without having to do any effort, but you can't have internal

00:06:33.700 validation without the effort because you know and you cannot lie to yourself about the work you're

00:06:38.980 doing or lack thereof. So, it's a trap to internally validate yourself to the degree where you start to

00:06:46.620 get lots of external validation, praise, notoriety, accolades, potential income, wealth, abundance,

00:06:54.880 opportunities because we start to rely on those things and we think we're God's gift to fill in the

00:07:00.760 blank. Well, we aren't and we need to be aware of that. So, how do we then move from this desire to

00:07:08.180 either dominate others or be overly dependent on others in order to exert ourselves and get what

00:07:15.020 we want? Well, I've got some thoughts here for you and for me. Again, this is journaling for me,

00:07:20.560 guys. I write these things down. A lot of you think I'm saying this directly to you and I am. I'm

00:07:25.020 sharing this with you. But this is a cathartic process for me. I go through this and I'm like,

00:07:30.200 oh man, these are things I need to hear. These are things I need to work on. So, the first thing

00:07:35.280 we need to do is we need to carve out time and be very deliberate and intentional about recognizing

00:07:41.980 our flaws. Now, for me, this is one of the most painful things to do because I don't want to

00:07:46.740 recognize my flaws. I don't want to see where I'm falling short. I don't want to poke holes in my

00:07:53.540 character. I want to believe that I'm great and I'm doing wonderful and everything is perfect and

00:08:01.160 everybody is blissfully ignorant or at least happy about life. And I come to realize that that's not

00:08:08.680 always the case. So, we can pretend and I have and we can bury our heads in the sand and pretend that

00:08:15.700 everything is just hunky-dory and nothing is ever going to be a problem. Or we can pull our heads

00:08:21.940 out of the sand and acknowledge and recognize that there are some flaws that we need to work on

00:08:28.080 and they're impacting ourselves and they're impacting other people. So, how do you do this?

00:08:33.220 Well, I would suggest to you that you take time every single morning or evening. I'll tell you,

00:08:38.140 I like the mornings because if I do it in the evening, I'm going to want to fix it.

00:08:41.300 Right? If I know I mistreated somebody and it happens to be right before bed that I start

00:08:48.840 thinking about this, I can't really do anything about fixing that problem because I'm going to

00:08:54.160 bed. That person might be to sleep. It's just not a good thing for me. So, I like to plan out my time

00:09:01.180 thinking about how I'm showing up and performing in the morning because then I have the ability to do

00:09:06.300 something about it. So, if I look in the mirror and I'm like, man, I'm fat. Well, I have all day

00:09:11.300 to eat better, to make better nutrition decisions. I have opportunities to exercise, to start moving,

00:09:23.860 and I can change the trajectory of my day based on where I'm noticing I'm weak. So, guys, we need to

00:09:30.820 feel the pain. We need to feel the sting. We need to feel the suffering. We cannot hide from it.

00:09:35.080 We have to refrain from sedating ourselves to it with whatever your sedation method or drug or

00:09:43.940 whatever of choice, behavior, activity of choice is. And we need to begin to feel the full weight and

00:09:50.720 burden of our own inadequacies and our own shortcomings. Now, it's not to beat yourself up.

00:09:56.340 It's so that you can learn and you can grow because the next step, once you begin to realize where you're

00:10:02.000 falling short, and maybe I should give you some questions on how to, maybe some prompts if you

00:10:06.800 tend to do journaling or something like that, and I will in a minute. But the next step is to then

00:10:11.300 formulate a plan. All right? So, you're overweight. Okay? What are you going to do about it? I'm going

00:10:17.140 to eat better. That's not a plan. That is not a plan. It's a good idea. This is not a plan. I'm talking

00:10:23.400 about formulating a real plan. Well, I'm going to eat better. What does that mean? I'm not going to

00:10:29.840 eat processed sugars. Great. Give me an example of processed sugars that you're eating now.

00:10:35.700 Chips, salsa, soda, candy. You all know what processed sugars are. Okay? But again, you have to

00:10:45.740 identify it. You have to be granular about it. You can't just say, I just want to eat better.

00:10:51.120 No. Get granular. Get crystal clear about what that looks like. Okay? And then if we're talking

00:10:58.020 about nutrition, if you're going to cut out the processed sugars, what are you going to replace

00:11:01.820 it with? Because you're going to get hungry. So, what are you going to do? You're going to go

00:11:07.000 snack on the gummy bears in your cupboard? Probably if they're there. So, maybe what you can do is you

00:11:13.180 can pull all of that stuff out of your cupboard and throw it in the garbage can and never have it in

00:11:17.680 your house again. That might be a thing we could do. Okay? That's going to be less likely that we're

00:11:22.960 then going to partake in those processed sugars that we know we don't want to have because we

00:11:28.320 look at ourselves and don't feel satisfied and happy with who we are. And therefore, we're trying

00:11:31.640 to get validation about our own lives from other people. Well, take it upon yourself.

00:11:38.640 Take it upon yourself. Formulate that plan. Get crystal clear. If you want a plan and you want a

00:11:43.260 planning tool, check out our battle planning tool. This is the one I use. And admittedly,

00:11:47.060 I fall short. And even there's days, this is a thing I've created where I'm like,

00:11:50.760 oh, I don't want to do the battle plan. Well, do the battle plan because that's what works.

00:11:56.460 Now, to go back to point number one, recognizing your flaws, maybe a couple of questions are

00:12:00.600 number one is just going through four key areas of your life. Go through your physical

00:12:09.800 being, your physical presence, your physical form, physical, mental. How's your headspace?

00:12:17.400 Are you in the right headspace? So, we have physical, mental, emotional. Are you an emotional

00:12:22.720 wreck? Are you an emotional basket case? Are you an emotional rock? Do you hide from your emotions?

00:12:28.820 Are you not willing or able to express what you're feeling? Those might be issues. And then the fourth

00:12:34.040 component is the spiritual element. Do I feel connected? Is there some sort of higher power driving

00:12:39.720 me? Is there something that is calling to me? Is there something larger than myself that I can look

00:12:49.200 to? Another question or prompt is who is impacted negatively by my behavior? Is my wife and my

00:12:58.060 children negatively impacted by my behavior? What about my clients? What about my employees? What about my

00:13:04.560 coworkers? What about my neighbors? How is my behavior, positively or negatively, impacting them?

00:13:10.380 If it's positive, good. I would encourage you to keep doing that. But if it's negative, okay, good.

00:13:16.780 Now, we have somewhere to move from, to build upon. And that's what we ought to do is think about where

00:13:21.640 we can build from. All right, let's go to point number three. Now, this, guys, is just execute the plan.

00:13:28.420 Just do it. If you got to wake up early and get it done, do it. If you've got to make amends and say,

00:13:34.200 sorry to people, okay, do that. If you have to put down some sort of dependency that you have

00:13:39.160 or put it away or eliminate it from your life, okay, then do that. A lot of people will ask,

00:13:46.960 well, how do you become more disciplined? When I very first had Jocko on the podcast,

00:13:50.680 this was probably end of 2015, beginning of 2016-ish, somewhere in there. I asked him,

00:13:57.960 how do you become more disciplined? Or a question of the like. And he said, you just do it.

00:14:02.620 I'm like, well, do you care to elaborate? No. What's there to elaborate on? You just do it.

00:14:08.120 Like, okay, well, this is going to be a hard podcast. But the more I look back,

00:14:12.520 that's actually right. You just do it. Now, yes, you can put systems in place and procedures,

00:14:17.740 and you can have accountability partners, and you can have friends that you talk with,

00:14:21.780 and you can have all these things. Some people have more willpower than others.

00:14:25.960 There's things like that, of course. But at the end of the day, you just have to do it.

00:14:31.780 When you don't want to get out of bed, you got to get out of bed and you got to go

00:14:35.640 work out or you have to walk or you have to train jujitsu. When you messed up and you fouled up and

00:14:41.600 you want to make it right, you have to apologize to somebody. You have to make it right. When you

00:14:46.480 don't want to do the task or the assignment or the project or the this or the that, you just do it

00:14:50.560 anyways. Prime example, this Friday field notes. I want to be here this afternoon for my family.

00:14:56.720 I want to take the rest of the day off. And I've got a small window between calls where I can do

00:15:01.780 this Friday field notes. Now, in my mind, I'm like, oh, I can do it here. I can do it later.

00:15:05.580 I can do it there. I'll jump in here. And I'm trying to justify procrastinating.

00:15:11.320 And if I procrastinate, then I know I'm not doing well. And then I'm going to look for others to

00:15:15.660 validate me when instead I want to validate myself. How do I do that? By not procrastinating.

00:15:20.560 And so even though I might be able to justify doing this podcast later, I'm doing it right now.

00:15:25.020 And then what's going to happen? I know unequivocally what is going to happen is I'm going to feel better

00:15:30.720 about myself because I committed to doing something and I followed through on it and I actually got it

00:15:37.060 done ahead of schedule. This is how we build internal validation. We execute the plan.

00:15:44.620 Now, number four is something I don't talk a whole lot about. There is a component of it I do,

00:15:50.040 which is to adjust. So you fall short. So your plan doesn't work. You don't lose as much weight

00:15:54.920 as you'd like. You don't connect with your wife the way you want to. You don't rebuild or rekindle

00:16:00.080 the relationship with your kids. You don't get that promotion that you wanted. You're dealing with

00:16:05.660 health issues. Things aren't going to go according to plan. They're not going to go the way that you

00:16:10.420 want them to. And that just happens. And so we have to adjust along the way. I talk about that all the

00:16:16.160 time. That's not new. But what is new is that you can congratulate yourself, guys.

00:16:22.400 You can feel proud about who you are. And you should feel proud when you do something right.

00:16:28.200 Now, you shouldn't wallow in pity and you shouldn't wallow in pride. If you think that

00:16:33.160 you've arrived because you've done one thing great or the day went beautifully, well, you got another

00:16:38.020 thing coming because you still got to wake up tomorrow and do something else tomorrow.

00:16:40.840 As my high school baseball and football coach, Matt Labrum, used to say, you're only as good

00:16:47.000 as your last at bat. Okay, great. You did something yesterday. What are you going to do today? Well,

00:16:51.420 we'll figure that out. But for now, I want you to feel pride. I want you to feel satisfaction.

00:16:57.440 There's a lot of people that tell you, hey, pride is the greatest of all sins and you should not be a

00:17:02.460 proud person. And yes, excessively, sure. If it's hindering performance or hurting relationships or

00:17:08.360 hurting yourself or other people, yeah, that's an issue. But to feel pride in completing a marathon

00:17:14.900 or to feel pride in actually getting your to-do list done today or feel pride in taking your wife

00:17:20.360 on a date and enjoying the evening together or feel pride on finishing a project that you said you

00:17:25.500 would and maybe it's been months or even years before you completed that, congratulate yourself.

00:17:30.840 Pat yourself on the back. That's the internal validation. If you're not doing that, you're leaving

00:17:35.580 it on the table. It's like, you should be proud of yourself. So guys, congratulate yourself to the

00:17:41.080 degree that it deserves. No more, no less, but feel okay with congratulating yourself and then move on,

00:17:46.240 right? Move on to something new. All right. Number five is we have to now commit to consistency.

00:17:54.080 It's really easy to be good for a day. Got something banging around. I think my kids are upstairs. I don't

00:17:59.060 know if you can hear that. It's really easy to be good for a day. It's really easy to be good for a

00:18:04.160 week. It's really easy to be good when things are falling apart around you because you know that

00:18:07.800 they're falling apart and we have to change our behavior and we have to get better in order to

00:18:12.760 rebuild what is falling apart and crumbling around us. That's the easy time. The real test comes when

00:18:19.920 it's a trial. It's a difficulty. Times aren't easy or even when they are easy. Do we coast?

00:18:31.960 Do we glide? Do we become complacent? Do we think we have it figured out? Have we unlocked

00:18:36.960 the key to life because you happen to get the promotion or you just got married or you bought

00:18:46.500 a new car? Have you unlocked the key to life? No, you haven't. You have to commit to consistency.

00:18:52.680 So we're not looking for results as much as we're looking for consistent behavior and actions.

00:18:57.660 Because if we can be consistent in a thing, the results will inevitably produce themselves

00:19:02.540 over time, consistently and predictably. So be consistent.

00:19:08.160 Now, the last point that I would make with you guys today, and then we'll let you get to your

00:19:11.020 day and weekend is very, very important. It's something that I'm learning and I'm

00:19:15.620 striving to be better at. And I feel good every time I do. And that is to serve other people.

00:19:20.860 We have to serve other people. There are people who are struggling. They're hurting. They're going

00:19:27.600 through difficulties. They're going through challenges. They're having hardships. Their

00:19:31.140 hearts are broken. Their minds are consumed. Maybe they're addicted to something. We just don't know

00:19:39.700 what people are going through. Now I get a bit of a glimpse, obviously in my own life, personally,

00:19:43.920 I know what I'm dealing with. And I also get a glimpse into that with other people that communicate

00:19:48.160 with me on a daily basis regarding what they're going through. And the best way to feel good about

00:19:54.000 who you are is not to have all the praise and admiration and accolades and wealth and abundance

00:20:00.160 and prosperity that you want. It's found in something greater than yourself. And that is to serve other

00:20:05.580 people. That is to find somebody who's struggling and take them under your wing, so to speak, to some

00:20:13.380 degree and help them, assist them, guide them, lead them, give them a bit of information they need

00:20:21.460 to be able to thrive and to be able to excel on their own. And I'm telling you what, if you're a

00:20:27.120 servant leader, you're somebody who wants to serve. A lot of guys will say, a lot of tough guys on the

00:20:32.540 internet will say, well, you know, you're being a beta or you're being a cuck because you're serving

00:20:36.720 somebody. No, I don't think so. You're being a man. That's what men do. We serve and we forget that at

00:20:44.700 times. And what do we do? We serve ourselves. We become selfish. We have excessive pride. We let ego

00:20:52.740 get in the way and we think we can do it all. And then things start to break down and crumble around

00:20:57.160 us and we realize we don't. And so what do we do? We go back to serving other people, back to the roots

00:21:02.620 of leading like men, which is in service. Guys, I want you to be able to internally validate

00:21:08.820 yourself. I don't want you to have to be reliant or dependent on somebody else making you feel good

00:21:14.360 about how you're showing up. It's fleeting. It may never arrive at all because you can't control

00:21:20.020 other people, but you can control the way that you feel about yourself. It is possible through hard

00:21:26.900 work, through effort, through consistency, through the six steps I gave you today, you can feel

00:21:32.540 good about who you are, and then you're going to produce the results that you want.

00:21:36.880 I would add one more thing. And this is something that I'm trying to get more in tune with in my own

00:21:41.060 personal life. And it's the spiritual element. So I realized that I run the risk of turning a lot

00:21:45.700 of you guys off as I say this, but it doesn't matter. I'll say it anyways, that you are divine

00:21:52.800 and that God is proud of you. And that all the validation that you need, he has already given to

00:22:01.580 you. Some of it is stored as unrealized potential. Some of it is blocked and shielded by years of

00:22:09.480 poor behavior or substance abuse. Something that's clouding your vision, something that's keeping you

00:22:18.060 from realizing who you are and what you're capable of, but God has already placed that within you.

00:22:23.540 And he is proud of you. And he wants you to be proud of yourself, not excessively, but so that

00:22:28.960 you can serve his people. So again, I know I run the risk of turning you off, but it's important that

00:22:37.060 I share that with you is that he is proud and he wants you to be proud of yourself. That's it guys.

00:22:43.760 That's the power of internal validation. Please let me know what you think. Shoot me a message,

00:22:47.440 shoot me an email, communicate with me on the socials, which I have been off of quite a bit

00:22:51.560 lately, which has been nice. It's been by design. And it's been good. It's been really good. I've

00:22:57.720 gotten more present with my wife and my kids and trying to be more engaged and active with them

00:23:01.800 and being the kind of father and husband that I want to be. And I'm following these steps just like

00:23:07.320 you. And I need reminders of these steps just like you. So let's do this together. I've never once

00:23:12.540 said I've had this thing all figured out. I'm here maybe as the mouthpiece to some degree,

00:23:16.900 because I've got the tools and the platform and the network, but I'm here to serve. I'm here to

00:23:21.920 help you win. That's what I want. All right, you guys, if you want those emails I was talking about

00:23:26.440 with you earlier, go to orderofman.com. Also, please, if you would leave us a rating and review,

00:23:32.900 that's a big, big help. It's a big support in boosting the visibility of what we're doing here.

00:23:38.680 That's all I've got for you. We'll be back next week. Until then guys, go out there,

00:23:41.980 take action and become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man

00:23:47.480 podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.

00:23:52.580 We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - August 12, 2022

The Power of Internal Validation ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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