Order of Man - The Single Greatest Factor that Determines Your Success ｜ 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

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

00:00:10.440 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,

00:00:22.740 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler.

00:00:27.660 I am the host and the founder of the Order of Men podcast and movement. Welcome here. I know

00:00:33.500 there's a lot of new members, a lot of new men and maybe women as well joining us, tuning in for the

00:00:39.560 first time. Maybe you heard this from a friend or a relative or a colleague or a coworker about what

00:00:44.720 we're doing here. If you are new, my goal is to help reclaim and restore masculinity in this society

00:00:51.000 that seems to be, it's not even seems to be, that is, is, is increasingly dismissive and divisive

00:01:01.200 and flat out rejects what masculinity is. A lot of people will say it's a social construct. It's not.

00:01:09.780 It's a biological construct. It's supported societally for good reason. It works.

00:01:14.760 And it really isn't until the relative ease of modernity, have we even been able to have the

00:01:20.660 luxury of calling into question what it means to be a man. Everybody knows what it means to be a man.

00:01:26.700 Marcus Aurelius said thousands of years ago, and I'm paraphrasing here, but let's not spend any more

00:01:33.160 time debating what a good man should be and instead just be it. So you know what it means to be a good

00:01:41.140 man. And it's my job to equip you with the tools and conversations and resources to do just that.

00:01:48.100 And this conversation that we're going to have today is no different. We're going to talk about

00:01:51.800 the single greatest factor that you can utilize and use in your life to produce success on the home

00:01:59.360 front, the business front, the societal and cultural front, the battle front, wherever it is,

00:02:06.080 you are showing up as a man. So we're going to get into that in just a minute before I do just want

00:02:10.520 to make a very, very quick mention of my friends over at Origin and also Jocko Fuels, which is a

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00:02:30.480 They're also making denim and boots and rash guards and geese and belts. And they're going to be

00:02:37.100 bringing on their winter collection here soon, which is the heavy hoodie, which I'm going to

00:02:42.160 need here in Maine as it starts to cool off. Already it has been. So guys, they're doing

00:02:46.860 incredible things. They just wrapped up a deal on a new facility in North Carolina. So it's pretty

00:02:55.280 exciting what they're doing. If you want to support a company that's doing great things and making goods

00:03:00.000 and services and products in the United States of America, then check out Origin, Maine and or

00:03:05.860 Jocko Fuels, originmain.com or jockofuels.com. And regardless of what you end up doing, make sure

00:03:12.060 you use the code order at originmain.com or jockofuels.com because when you use the code order,

00:03:17.860 you're going to get a 10% discount when you do. All right. Support America, support my friends,

00:03:24.740 neighbors, colleagues, and get some good products in the meantime. All right, guys,

00:03:29.700 let's talk about what I wanted to talk with you about today. The single greatest factor for

00:03:33.240 success on any front of your life is very simply this. And we hit on this on Wednesday's Ask Me

00:03:39.900 Anything. So if you're not subscribed to the show, make sure you subscribe so you don't ever miss an

00:03:44.960 Ask Me Anything, an interview, or this Friday Field Notes. And what I said is that the single greatest

00:03:49.940 factor to success on any front is simply this, presence. That's it, guys. Presence, period,

00:03:58.180 the end. Let's call it a day. Let's wrap things up. Good to go. Ready to go.

00:04:03.680 Guys, you need to be present in every engagement, in every conversation, in every opportunity,

00:04:11.560 in every moment. We spend a lot of time thinking about the future. Some of that is good. We spend

00:04:17.920 a lot of time thinking about the past. Some of that is good. But if it comes at the expense of

00:04:23.880 us being present in any given moment, any given circumstance, then we're leaving it on the table.

00:04:30.640 We're not being as effective as we could be. We're not producing as well as we could. We're not

00:04:35.640 excelling. We're not serving other people because we're so worried and focused on what's happening

00:04:40.580 down the road, things that haven't happened yet. Or we're worried about the past, things that have

00:04:45.700 already happened. And again, it comes at the expense of what's happening now, which is where you have

00:04:52.380 control. You have no control over what happens in the future. You can influence it, of course,

00:04:57.640 but you have no control over it. You have no control over what has already happened.

00:05:02.500 You can't even influence that. What's done is done. Let's talk about being present in the moment

00:05:08.600 as the single greatest factor to success in your life. Now, I've interviewed, I want to say,

00:05:13.460 close to 350 incredibly successful men, warriors, scholars, athletes, New York Times bestselling authors,

00:05:21.240 medical professionals, experts on different facets of life. And I'll tell you, every single one of them

00:05:27.800 is extremely present. They aren't engaged in a bunch of what if and what could be. They aren't

00:05:35.020 engaged in a bunch of what has been. They're engaged in what is happening right now. So let me

00:05:40.560 break this down for you because as I was thinking about what I wanted to address today on this Friday

00:05:44.280 field notes, I identified five key elements of being present in the moment and how it can serve

00:05:51.380 you effectively. Number one, it requires focus. Now, if you think about popular culture in society,

00:05:58.560 you are all over the place. You are scrambling. It's chaotic. You receive thousands, if not tens or

00:06:06.620 hundreds of thousands of messages trying to get you to click here, buy here, subscribe there,

00:06:11.580 do this, do that. I'm not out of that equation either. I'm trying to tell you to subscribe to

00:06:17.280 the Order of Man podcast. I'm trying to get you to listen to it. Some of it's going to serve you

00:06:21.300 well, but guys, your ability to focus is greatly diminished relative to what it was 100 years ago

00:06:28.360 or 500 or 1,000 or 10,000 years ago because there's so much stimulus. At any given time, I could jump

00:06:36.020 on this little device and I can get entertainment, whatever my entertainment is. If it's mindless

00:06:42.680 information, if it's looking at beautiful women on Instagram, if it's getting lost in professional

00:06:48.620 sporting events, whatever my thing is, it's all right here in the palm of my hand. And as much as

00:06:55.900 that's a beautiful thing because it helps me do what I want to do, it also can become a deterrent

00:07:00.700 to your ability to stay present and your ability to succeed in your life. You need to learn how to

00:07:07.400 focus, which means that you need to be able to be present with yourself. You need to learn how to

00:07:12.580 operate without listening or hearing or looking at something, anything, and you need to be calm

00:07:21.140 and focused and in the moment. We can exercise this, but only if we're deliberate about it.

00:07:27.200 So what I would suggest to those of you who struggle with focus is that you learn to create

00:07:31.920 systems and processes that eliminate the distractions, the bright and shiny object that

00:07:38.620 happens to come up every single minute, every single hour of every single day. What systems do you have

00:07:45.040 in place? What tactics and strategies have you employed to ensure that you're focused on the

00:07:53.480 present moment? And if you catch yourself slipping, you catch yourself getting distracted,

00:07:58.700 you aren't weak, you aren't cowardly, you aren't pathetic, you aren't a loser, 0.88

00:08:02.260 just catch yourself and realize that something's got to change. For me, it happens to be this device. I've 0.85

00:08:09.580 got people texting me and emailing me and messaging me and liking things on social media and debating with

00:08:15.000 me on things and podcast requests being accepted and being declined and emails and this and that and

00:08:20.840 business inquiries and everything else. And sometimes I just need to shut the damn thing off 0.99

00:08:25.420 so that I can focus on doing a podcast today with you, or I could focus on being at the lake and 0.98

00:08:31.380 fishing with my son, or I could watch my daughter's dance recital, or I could be at jujitsu, or I could

00:08:36.640 be engaged in building the canoe or any of the number of things that I think and have identified as being

00:08:42.680 important. Come up with the systems and processes. But the first step to being present 100% in the

00:08:48.900 moment is not only learning to focus, but eliminating the distractions.

00:08:53.480 Number two, curiosity. Guys, if you're curious about life and you come with a desire to learn

00:09:01.700 and to grow and what makes people tick and why do they think the way they think and what causes them

00:09:08.960 to behave this way over that way and vice versa, then you're going to naturally be able to move into

00:09:16.200 things that are interesting. Again, I've had so many people on the podcast and I'll tell you when

00:09:21.480 the thing turned for me with the podcast and it became a very fulfilling process for me is when I

00:09:28.160 became more curious. I wasn't so much concerned with what questions I wanted to ask or what I wanted

00:09:34.180 to extract from them as much as it became an objective to learn, to expand, to understand,

00:09:43.580 to be curious. And some of you guys will say, Ryan, you're a great interviewer. You ask great

00:09:48.160 questions. And I hope that's the case. I'm trying to develop that skill, but I tell you, it's

00:09:51.920 curiosity. I genuinely care about what makes these men tick. I genuinely care about what makes them

00:09:58.720 successful. I genuinely am interested in their perception of current events and growth and success

00:10:07.000 and failure and setbacks and victories and all of the stuff that comes with life. I'm genuinely curious

00:10:12.740 about that. And because I'm curious about that, I'm totally hyper-focused and engaged in the

00:10:20.460 conversation that's taking place. Because I'll tell you, if I wasn't curious, I'd be thinking about

00:10:25.480 what's for dinner or what my wife wants to do tonight or what challenges my children are facing.

00:10:31.040 And there's times where that's appropriate, but not always. And so I've learned to be present in the

00:10:36.740 moment. I've learned to focus on the things that are important in any given moment. And I've learned to be

00:10:41.680 very curious about, and that's a learned skill, by the way, by the way, being curious, you can develop

00:10:47.900 that. And I am curious. And I try to look at what people do through the lens of the things that are

00:10:53.180 important to me. And that makes me a curious person, which also, by the way, makes me an interesting

00:10:59.100 person. So if you want to connect with people more deeply, stop worrying so much about what you want to

00:11:05.240 portray to them and start figuring out what it is they want to share with you. And you will

00:11:09.960 instantaneously, this is a little bonus for you, you will instantaneously become a more compelling,

00:11:16.280 interesting, and influential person. Number three, humility. This is one I struggle with.

00:11:24.100 When I share topics like this, I'm sharing it for you just as much as I am anybody else. I am the

00:11:30.720 greatest beneficiary and recipient of the work that we're doing here. And guys, I will tell you, first and

00:11:36.160 foremost, I struggle with humility. I'm prideful. I'm arrogant at times. My ego gets in the way.

00:11:44.540 And this is all at odds with my ability to be humble, which also leads me to new information,

00:11:52.240 new ideas, new concepts, things that will ultimately improve my life. If you act like you know it all,

00:12:00.660 and there's nothing you can learn, and there's nothing anybody can teach you, then you have

00:12:05.700 stunted your growth. Artificially, by the way, you have put up a wall in place that says,

00:12:13.860 I can't get better. I can improve. I don't have the desire to. And so even if great information

00:12:19.720 comes your way, you won't even listen to it. You won't acknowledge it. You won't recognize it because

00:12:24.000 you think you already know everything. And I do at times. And there's certain activities that I've

00:12:30.260 decided to participate in over the past several years, this podcast, jujitsu, other aspects of my

00:12:35.000 life, developing new hobbies and skills and interests where humility has been thrust and forced

00:12:40.680 upon me, which is good in a lot of ways, because if it wasn't, my default mode is I'm good. I'm special.

00:12:47.860 I know everything. There's nothing else you can teach me. And that is flat out wrong. So if you want

00:12:54.660 to be present in the moment, again, focus, curiosity, and that third point I just made is be humble,

00:13:01.080 be open to learning and growth and progress and expansion. And if you are, life's going to be more

00:13:07.000 exciting. All right, next, mastery. Guys, the amount of nihilism in popular society is disturbing.

00:13:16.820 And people don't seem to care about as much anymore. They care about themselves. They care

00:13:24.220 about their emotions. They care about their ego. They care about their success. But there's a level

00:13:28.460 of nihilism that I think we're experiencing unlike any other experience or point in life. And people

00:13:35.820 aren't, they just don't care. And there's things you shouldn't care about, by the way. Like I can't care

00:13:41.080 about everything, but there's also things that I very deeply care about that I am the antithesis

00:13:46.800 of nihilistic about that are so important and significant to me that I want to become the best.

00:13:53.960 And why would you ever engage in something if you didn't want to become the best? Now, let me throw

00:13:58.600 this disclaimer out here. Best is subjective, right? So you might say, well, Ryan, what makes you be the

00:14:06.160 determinant of what success is? It's not. I just know what it is for me. It's not always money. Sometimes

00:14:11.320 it is. It's not always free. Sometimes it is. It's not always being present and engaged with my family.

00:14:15.280 Sometimes it is. But it changes. And it's going to be different for you than it is for me. So I'm

00:14:19.720 not going to tell you what success is. In fact, let me tell you this about success. Success is

00:14:24.180 autonomy. Period. Bottom line. That's the only answer to that question. If anybody ever gives you

00:14:28.600 a different answer to that question, they're wrong. Because how can I determine success for you? How can

00:14:33.700 you determine success for me? You can't. But autonomy, autonomy is the ability to do what you want,

00:14:40.280 when you want, why you want, where you want, without any input or permission from other people.

00:14:46.640 And isn't that success? If you want to be a Buddhist monk and you have the ability to go do that,

00:14:53.140 then, and you do it successfully, then you're successful. That isn't the path for me. And

00:14:56.860 that isn't the path for a lot of our listeners, but that individual is successful. What right do I have

00:15:01.220 to say he's not? The path to success for me is growing a business and a movement to the degree

00:15:07.280 that I can impact millions and millions of men who will impact their families and also

00:15:11.920 simultaneously be able to lead my family effectively. And if I can't do any one of those

00:15:17.760 things, then I'm not a success. Now it's successful now because we're meeting that. We're reaching that

00:15:22.300 objective. That may be the right path for you and it may not, but I can't determine that for you.

00:15:27.160 You can't determine it for me, but what it is required is the desire to be a master,

00:15:33.800 to be master full. When I do this podcast, I want it to be the best podcast. I want to have the best

00:15:40.380 studio. I want to have the best sounding microphone. I want to make sure that my grooming is on point

00:15:46.000 and it's taken care of based on the message that I want to share with you, that the topics are

00:15:51.280 relevant, that I'm a great conversationalist. So you actually want to listen, that I'm have the

00:15:56.600 ability to ask great questions. I'm pouring over the details of this stuff. And because I'm pouring

00:16:02.700 over the details, I'm very present in the moment. I don't have a lot of time to be distracted with

00:16:07.040 all the other bullcrap that comes up with life because I'm like, no, I want to be at the best

00:16:12.080 of this. So is that going to help me do this? No, I don't want it. Yes. Cool. Let's talk about it.

00:16:18.420 Mastery. It's really, really pathetic and saddening in society today when we look at products that are 0.90

00:16:27.600 just cheaply made systems that haven't been thought out, conversations that aren't articulated well. 0.90

00:16:34.180 These aren't masters. They're just consumers and they're just throwing a bunch of crap on the wall 0.98

00:16:38.920 and seeing what sticks. So people will buy it and consume it. And to me, that is not a sustaining 0.99

00:16:43.680 way of life. And it doesn't lead to you being present, which ultimately leads to your intended

00:16:49.520 success and results. And guys, the last thing I want to share with you here, and this is very,

00:16:54.000 very important because everybody has an opinion. Everybody has insight. Everybody has ideas and

00:16:58.740 concepts and things that they think are important. But here's what I'm going to tell you is your

00:17:04.340 ability to be as objective as possible is crucial. We all have biases. We all have opinions. We all

00:17:12.300 have lenses in which we view life and that's good. We should have that. I'm not telling you not to

00:17:17.100 your experiences, create your reality and how you respond to the situation in front of you. But guys,

00:17:23.700 let's work on our objectivity. Maybe that person who you would normally interpret as being a dick 0.99

00:17:30.020 or coming after you really isn't, but they're just sharing an alternative perspective. 0.99

00:17:35.500 Maybe the person that you disagree with isn't an idiot and instead might have something insightful 0.77

00:17:41.080 to share, even if it's just a little fragment of what that individual shared with you. And 0.98

00:17:44.580 there's something that you can learn there. There's a book that we're studying next month in

00:17:48.620 The Iron Council called The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, I believe. I'm drawing a blank right

00:17:54.640 now. Is that right? I believe that's right. Don Miguel Ruiz. And it's called The Four Agreements.

00:18:00.580 And one of his agreements is, and I'm paraphrasing, but not to take anything personally.

00:18:04.740 What if you did that? What if your boss gave you a critique

00:18:10.040 about your work performance over the past quarter, over the past year? And instead of getting defensive

00:18:16.660 and letting the ego get in the way, you just looked at it objectively and tried to strip the personal

00:18:20.400 opinions out of it and the emotions and feelings and said, you know, is this right? Is this accurate?

00:18:26.300 Is there something to be learned from this? I don't like when people challenge me necessarily.

00:18:36.240 That's not an easy thing for people to do. And some people say, well, I love challenge. No, you don't.

00:18:40.720 No, you don't. You might, you might embrace it. You might've put a healthy spin on it,

00:18:47.980 but come on, nobody likes to be challenged. And yet we need to learn to be challenged and we need to

00:18:54.860 learn to look at things, whether it's feedback or about our own performance, the way that we look

00:18:58.980 or the way that we show up or the things that we're doing. And we need to look at that objectively.

00:19:02.900 Here's a great way to do that. If that advice was instead of being given to you, was given to a

00:19:08.640 neighbor, would it be accurate? Would you interpret it as accurate? That's a great exercise. If instead

00:19:16.700 of this guy challenging me, if he was challenging Joe over there, whose side would I be on?

00:19:24.860 Maybe you'd be on the side of the guy who's critiquing you. And it's your own personal

00:19:29.080 emotions and baggage getting in the way of progress and expansion and growth and

00:19:33.640 presence and ultimate success. Let's not take things personally, even if they're intended to

00:19:39.760 be personal. I mean, you're going to make stuff up about the way that things are intended.

00:19:42.880 And we don't know because we're assuming we're filling in the blank. So we don't know.

00:19:46.360 So we're going to make up a bunch of stuff about the way things are intended. Well,

00:19:50.100 let's just assume if we're going to make stuff up, let's just assume that people are,

00:19:53.300 are good hearted and that they want to serve us. And that maybe in spite of their delivery method,

00:20:00.000 inadequate delivery method, that they have things that might be valuable to listen to.

00:20:04.360 This requires a lot of humility and it's not easy, of course, simple, very simple. It's not easy,

00:20:11.300 but if you want success in your life, this is what you'll do. And again, after interviewing over 350,

00:20:18.300 very, very successful men, I can tell you that every single one of them is present to what they're

00:20:24.340 doing, is present towards their mission. They're focused, hyper-focused on what they want. Sometimes

00:20:30.560 to the extreme, even obsessive, but they're hyper-focused on what they want to do. They're

00:20:35.480 very curious about what makes other individuals tick, how they can succeed at a greater level.

00:20:42.220 They're humble. They're open and receptive to new information and new learning. They ask great

00:20:47.060 questions because they're curious about growth. They want to be masterful. They're focused on the

00:20:52.600 concept of mastery. They want to improve. They want to get better. They want to be the best. You know,

00:20:57.620 you think about my podcast I did with Tim Grover a month and a half or so ago. And if you don't know

00:21:03.800 who he is, he's got the book Relentless and Winning. And I think a couple others, he personally

00:21:10.020 coached Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant and I believe Dwayne Wade and some of these other incredible

00:21:14.780 athletes at the pinnacle of their game. And, you know, he talks about these guys wanting to be

00:21:21.480 masterful and thrusting themselves into everything they could to accomplish that. And number five is

00:21:28.040 being objective. Your emotions, your baggage, your lens is clouding your judgment. And I'm not pointing

00:21:35.520 as much fingers as I am at you, as I am at me too. My emotions, my baggage, my lens is clouding my

00:21:42.520 judgment. And I need to learn to be as objective as possible by engaging in a couple of different

00:21:46.520 exercises. One of which I said to you was to assume that somebody was giving advice to somebody else.

00:21:53.660 And what would you think about that advice if they were giving it to somebody else? Because that will

00:21:57.180 take some of your baggage out of the way. And by the way, there's, there's another feature.

00:22:01.360 There's another opportunity here. And that is to get around other men who can help you with that.

00:22:07.500 They can help you focus. They can ask you great questions about your curiosity. They can help humble

00:22:12.980 you through their great questions and their challenges. They can challenge you to be masterful,

00:22:18.180 to improve a skill set, and they can help you with the objectivity as well by challenging you and asking

00:22:24.820 you questions and really causing you to do a deep dive into who you are. And that resource that we have

00:22:29.680 available is called the Iron Council. It's our exclusive brotherhood. There's almost 900 members

00:22:35.220 of our Iron Council right now. And if you want to join us and participate in the brotherhood,

00:22:39.620 the camaraderie, the network, and the accountability that comes with it, then the Iron Council is a great

00:22:46.700 resource for you, which you can learn more at orderofman.com slash Iron Council. Guys, ultimately,

00:22:52.820 I want you to be present. I want you to succeed. I know presence is what it takes. Whenever I've

00:22:57.780 succeeded in my life, it's because I've been present in the moment. Whenever I've failed,

00:23:01.540 it's because I've been distracted and tempted to engage in something else that isn't going to serve

00:23:05.660 me and the people I care about well. So focus, curiosity, humility, mastery, objectivity are your

00:23:14.120 path to presence, which is your path to success. Try it out. Let me know how it's going. Join us in the

00:23:20.020 Iron Council, orderofman.com slash Iron Council. Connect with me on the socials, Facebook, Twitter,

00:23:25.340 Instagram, all at Ryan Michler, M-I-C-H-L-E-R. Let's keep the conversations going. Gentlemen,

00:23:32.600 we'll be back next week. Until then, go out there, take action, be present, and become the man you

00:23:40.040 are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. You're ready to take charge of

00:23:45.280 your life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

00:23:55.340 Thank you.

Order of Man - August 20, 2021

The Single Greatest Factor that Determines Your Success ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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