Two Factors That Make a Male a Man ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES
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Summary
Two simple things that separate the boys from the men that will help you become a better man. 1) Character 2) Competence 3) Mentality 4) Voice 5) Leadership What does it mean to be a man?
Transcript
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You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart
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your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.
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You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who
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you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,
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you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler,
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and I am the host and the founder of this podcast and the order of man movement. I want to welcome
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you here and welcome you back and tell you, I'm glad to have you aboard. This is a podcast
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dedicated to helping you become a more successful, a more competent, a more capable man. And that's
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exactly what I'm going to talk with you about today. I've got two things I wanted to share with
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you that define what it means to be a man that may separate the boys from the men. We're going to get
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into that here in just a minute. And it's not going to be a long one today because it's very,
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very simple. And then you can ponder and stew and think over it, share and discuss in your groups,
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whatever it is you're doing with the information that we're sharing here. And then hopefully you
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can apply it before I get into that. I just want to make a very quick announcement. Many of you,
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if you've been listening to the podcast for any amount of time, know that I've got a very cool
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collaboration going on with warrior poet society right now. If you're not familiar with warrior
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poet society, you can check out their new network. It's an exclusive network. So it's not anything
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that's publicly available like YouTube or any of the social media channels that you're following.
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This is exclusive content as part of the warrior poet society network. So if you're interested in
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checking that out, learning what it's all about, learning why we've decided to collaborate and work
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together on some of these projects, I definitely want you to check out the order of man show,
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which again is exclusive and it's outside and different than what we're doing here
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on the warrior poet society network. So you can check that out at order of man.com slash WPSN
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as in warrior poet society network. Again, that's order of man.com slash WPSN. Go check it out.
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Let me know what you think. And we'll continue some of the conversations over there. All right,
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guys, let's get into it again. Very quick one for you today, because I just don't want to, I don't
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want to over complicate it. It just doesn't need to be complicated. It's very simple. There's only two
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things, two things that separate the boys from the men that turn a male into a man. And very simply put
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it's character and it's competence. That's it. It's your character and it's your competence.
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Marcus Aurelius said, waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be, be one. And while
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I can certainly understand the sentiment, because a lot of the times we get wrapped up and consumed
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with conversations and getting into the nuance and all these other little things. And sometimes it
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doesn't really all that matter all that much. But I do think that this is worthy of at least
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discussing and talking about. And I think it's important to talk about even in the light of what
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Marcus Aurelius said about waste no more time arguing about what a man should be. And here's
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why I wanted to bring this to your attention, because I want you to understand that I don't
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for one second, believe that the way I go about being a man, the way I perform my duties, what
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specifically my duties are, the way I show up is what it means to be a man. It's not at the end of
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the day, it means a protector, a provider, and a presider. Now there's an infinite number of
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combinations and ways to go about doing that and to step into those roles. And that's the
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point that I'm making with you here. It's not about how you specifically show up. It's
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not about necessarily your, your, your tone of voice or the way that you look or the way
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that your voice sounds or what you do for work. Those aren't the things that matter guys.
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And that's what we need to understand. We get so consumed in what exactly a man does,
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but I think we ought to take a step back and look at it from a 30,000 foot view.
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Because if we look at it from that perspective, then we can realize that the way we go about
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performing our duties and our roles and our functions in our families, our businesses,
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our societies, our communities, we'll, we'll begin to see that we can do this and fulfill
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these obligations in an infinite number of ways. So if we look at it as at its foundational
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level, like its root level, strip everything else away and all the noise and all the nonsense and
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all the things that I've said in the past and all the things that you've heard from other podcasts
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and there's other people, after all of that is stripped away, it's your character and it's your
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competence. That's it. It's what you produce. Now, a lot of guys will talk about fluffy magical
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unicorns and these utopian societies and how we just want to be good people. And while your motives
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are wonderful, uh, your intentions may be noble the way you feel and what's in your heart might be
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good and fine and well, but if you're not producing, if you're not bringing something to the table,
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then what good is it in having you around now about this time? I know everybody's going to say,
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Oh, well, Ryan, how could you say that? You're saying some people are worth more than others.
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I'm not talking about your inherent worth as a human being. All right. We all have inherent worth
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because we are human beings. And a lot of us have stored up or potential worth. That's not what I'm
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referring to because I believe all of us do have inherent worth as human beings, but I will tell you,
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and we know this just for example, in the, in the corporate world, that some men are more valuable
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than others in certain aspects. For example, if you have an employee who is generating a hundred
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thousand dollars in revenue for an organization, then that employee is worth this much. If you have
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a another employee within that same organization and that employee is generating a million dollars of
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revenue, then obviously that employee is worth more in this context to the employer than the one who
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is producing a hundred thousand dollars of income. We know this, this is common sense. This doesn't need
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to be argued about. And the only reason it would be argued about is because people are conflating my
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language or taking what I'm saying out of context and saying, I'm talking about human worth. No, I'm talking
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about in this context, you're worth to an organization. We could talk about it in the same
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context when it comes to being a family man, being a father, being a husband. If you are a husband and
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you're out drinking and you're out running around with other women and you aren't occupied with your
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family, you're more occupied with business and everything else that's going on. You are less valuable
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as a husband and a father than the man who's at home. When he says he's going to be home. He's
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deeply connected with his children. He's intimately familiar with his wife. He's romantic with her.
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He provides the necessary income, but he provides other things as well, like love and discipline and
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guidance and structure and presence. Then obviously objectively, when we're looking at this,
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that type of man is more valuable as a resource, as a father, as a husband, as a man, than the
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individual who's not treating his duties the way that he should and taking them lightly and not
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producing as much as he could. So we've got to understand there's a distinction between your
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inherent worth as a human being and your worth as fill in the blank, a father, a husband, an employee,
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an executive, a business owner, a coach, a mentor, a brother, whatever. And your job again, after
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everything else is stripped away, forget about all the titles and the roles and the occupations.
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Your job is to not think well about things, not to have good intentions, not to want to do the right
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thing. It's to produce. And that is at its foundational level, what character is about.
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Character is about honor. It's about integrity. It's about doing well. It's about the service of
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others and it's about a virtuous life, but it's also about honoring your word, mirroring your actions
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and therefore your results with the way that you think about life and yourself. And also the way that
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you talk about yourself and life and the way that this world works. And if you can't find a way to mirror
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the two, then you are being less manly. And I know that that is not a popular thing to say
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in the culture that we've created where everybody's the same and we don't want to leave anybody out.
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And we want to make people feel comfortable and heaven forbid somebody feel ostracized or put down
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or let down. But you know what? That's reality. And I'm not telling you that I am the epitome of
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masculinity. I'm not telling you, I have this figured out much more than you. These are just
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things that I've recognized. And usually when I'm talking to you, I'm more talking to myself.
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Like these are the reminders and the lessons I need as well. I need to understand that I need to find a
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way to more accurately mirror what it is I'm doing with the way that I see the world and the words that
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I'm using and the thoughts that are bouncing around in my brain. And the larger that gap, I've referred to
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it in the past as an integrity gap. The larger that gap, the more like a boy that you're behaving,
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right? Because you might be in Kip and I talked about this in this week's ask me anything,
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the difference between motivation and discipline, you might be motivated. You might be hopped up and
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hyped up because you just got back from a conference or a seminar or a course or listening
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to somebody. And you think, okay, well I'm going to do it this time. And then you don't go out and
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produce because you let the emotion run its course and you didn't have the discipline in place and you
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didn't have the processes to make sure that this thing got taken care of. All right. Well, you
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know, like congratulations, you felt good. You had a desire to do something, but you didn't actually do
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it. And so you're not behaving as, as manly as somebody who can get past their emotion or work
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past their emotion or drive along that course of action after the emotion and the excitement has
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long gone. And that's the difference. That's what character means. It means to align your thoughts
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and your ideas with your actions. And I would say that in addition to that, we would assume,
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and I hope that you know that I'm talking about, uh, virtuous living as well, being a man of honor
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and integrity and character and love and service. But ultimately you've got to have the character to
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back it up. And we all fall short guys. We all fall short from time to time, but the sooner you
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can get back on track, the sooner you can reconcile, the sooner you can acknowledge that you messed up
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along the path and that you don't get down about it. You don't beat yourself up. You don't wallow in
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your own self-pity. You don't use it as a habitual practice that you just recognize, you know what?
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I messed up. I screwed up. You know, I missed my workout or I didn't show up to time or I missed the
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deadline on the project, or I didn't honor my wife the way I should have, or my children, the way I should
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of, and you correct the behavior. That's the difference. Correct the behavior as quickly as
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possible, make amends to the degree that you can, and then rectify it by doing different things
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by becoming a, a man of character. Now, the second component of this is competence. And notice,
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I didn't say you have to be an athlete. I didn't say you had to be a warrior. I didn't say you had to
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be the alpha CEO. Now you could be those things, but that's not what defines you. You could be an
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artist. You could be a musician. You could be a janitor. You could be a school teacher or a nurse
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or whatever, fill in the blank. It really doesn't matter, but you've got to be competent or you've
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got to be proficient in the thing that you want to excel at so that what you can produce again, being a
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man is about being in service and it's about producing. We talk about protect, provide,
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and preside. All those elements have an underlying element of service and of production. And your
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level of competence is what's going to determine, determine, excuse me, your results that you're
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producing. If you're incompetent and you're ignorant and you don't know what you're doing,
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then you aren't trying to figure that stuff out. And you aren't putting new information into your brain
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and you aren't developing and working on a skillset and you aren't practicing and you aren't
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drilling with the things that you need to be doing, then you're not going to be nearly as
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competent as the individual who was. And it shouldn't be a surprise to you. And you shouldn't
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be outraged, frankly, that you didn't produce the results, the same results that this guy next to you
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might have when he put forth the effort and the work. This is what we call the meritocracy.
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You are rewarded handsomely for your merits, for the work that you do, for the effort that you put
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in, for the training that you have, for the results that you produce. So again, as much as we live in
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this world that wants to reward everybody for just merely showing up and we have clever little phrases
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like showing up is half the battle. No, it isn't. I mean, you got in the, in the, in the stadium,
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like congratulations, you showed up. That doesn't mean anything. And we say that so that we can reward
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mediocrity. We can reward doing the bare minimum. I'm not interested in that. You're not interested in
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that. And isn't, it isn't what men do. Boys do that. Even my own boys, you know, they show up and
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I tell them to do their chores and they do, you know, just the bare minimum to get by just to say,
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I did it, dad, and get to check their thing off the list. But Hey, if I came and checked it,
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we all know what that looks like. Cause I used to do that too. When I was a child, I even do that now
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when I'm behaving like a child. So I'm not above it. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that I
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acknowledge it, that I recognize it, that I understand that that is not manly behavior.
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It is boy-like behavior. And we, as men, or those who have a desire to become men understand that
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this is how we fall short and here's how we rectify it. And here's how we get better. And
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here's how we improve. And here's how we become competent in a skillset, in a trade, in a hobby,
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in an activity so that we can produce and be more effective for ourselves and for the people that
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we have an obligation to. It could be your children or your wife. It could be your employees.
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It could be the little boys and girls that you coach on that baseball or that soccer team.
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You have an obligation and responsibility for those individuals. So you need to be a man of character
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and you need to be a man of competence. If you aren't taking the time to develop the skills,
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to learn what you need, to research, to apply the information, then you're falling short.
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And I know that doesn't sit well with everybody, but you know what? That is the truth that we all
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need to hear from time to time is that you aren't as adequate as you could be, but you can get there.
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I'm not saying that you're not capable of doing it. I'm saying that you and I both,
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we may not be where we need to be right now, but we can get there. But we need to acknowledge that
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there's a, there's a gap. There's a bridge between where we are right now and where we want to go.
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And it isn't up to anybody else to build that bridge for us. And it isn't up to anybody else
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to throttle back their own performance so that we feel better about where we're at.
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I spend time with high performing individuals. I have them on this podcast. I consult with them.
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Some of these men are my coaches and my mentors, and some of them are my friends and they are high
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performing. They're high drive, high speed, red, dominant personalities. And I can guarantee you,
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I can assure you that not a single one of them is willing to slow down so that I can catch up.
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Now they're willing to give me the information I need. They're willing to extend a hand,
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but they're not going to slow down their own results just so I can feel good about my inadequacy.
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It's not how this works. That is not the conduct of men. Men want to perform. They want to excel.
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They want to thrive. They want to do it on, I shouldn't say the on their own, but they want to do it
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based on their own merit. They don't want to be handed things. And there's a difference between help
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and a handout, a hand up and a handout. Those are different, right? It's okay to accept help.
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In fact, it's encouraged. You should have a mentor or a coach or multiple mentors and coaches
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who are helping you along the path, but you've got to develop these, these abilities to become
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a man of character, aligning your actions with your words and your thoughts and a man of competence.
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Now, interestingly enough, and then we'll wrap things up for today. Cause I told you,
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this is going to be a short one is one of the things that I hear from a lot of men
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is questions centered around confidence. How do I build confidence? How do I build confidence with
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women? How do I build confidence enough to ask for promotion? How do I build confidence with just
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me as a human being? Guys, you don't get that. Okay. You, you, it isn't, it isn't a right.
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Confidence. Confidence isn't a right. It's a privilege. It's a, it's a blessing. It's something
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that you earn. It's a reward or a benefit of the work that you do. So if you've ever caught yourself
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wondering how you can develop more confidence and you should all want to do that because the
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confident individuals produce the results, but it's not because they're confident. That's where
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guys get messed up. See, we look at guys who we assume are confident. We think, well, that guy's
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getting the results because he's confident. No, it goes deeper than that. This is how you build
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confidence and the results that stem from it. Character and competence. That's it. This is the
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equation. If you want to develop, for example, more confidence with women, then you need to develop a
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greater, a heightened sense of character, aligning your actions with your words. And by the way, women
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will acknowledge that they'll recognize that they'll see that without you having to say a word,
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they can see it in you just the way your boss can see it or your supervisor or your wife or your
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children or whoever else you're trying to lead. They know when you're bullshitting them and they know
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when you're a man of character and men of character are more attractive to women, to potential employers,
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you name it. Okay. So you've got to develop that level of, of, of, in order, excuse me,
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in order to develop that level of confidence, you have to have the character and you have to have the
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competence. You have to have the skillset to match it because if you don't know what you're doing,
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people will acknowledge that as well. They'll see that they'll recognize that. And they will involve,
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they will voluntarily decide not to follow you because you aren't worth somebody worth following.
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Again, I know there's going to be people coming out. Oh, Ryan, how could you say that? You're
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not worth following. That's right. Sometimes you're not worth following. There have been times
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in my life where I have not been worth following. There have been times in my life where I've been
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extremely overweight. Uh, I was a failure in my marriage. I was unsuccessful in business attempts.
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And what right did I have to believe that people should follow me unless they were trying to
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produce those results for themselves, which I don't think many people are. Most people,
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they're trying to produce better results. And in order for them to follow you,
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it has to be voluntary because if it isn't, it's tyranny or dictatorship. In order for them to follow
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you, you have to be somebody worth following, which means you have the competence, which will
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produce the results that that individual is after. All right. So a short one for you today, but think
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on that stew on that. Maybe you agree. Maybe you disagree. Maybe you find yourself somewhere in the
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middle. I'd love to continue to have this conversation, uh, connect with me on the socials,
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Instagram is probably best at Ryan Mickler. Uh, let me know what you think. Again, I believe that the
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only two things, if you strip everything else away, that it means to be a man, uh, and the two
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characteristics that we need to be men is again, character and competence. And that will foster
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confidence. That will foster the results that we're after. And that will help us lead more effective
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lives, more profitable, more fulfilling, more satisfied, more whatever, fill in the blank with
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whatever it is you're after. You will get that through your character and your competence.
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So get out there, get working on it. Uh, we'll be back next week for another podcast. I've got some
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very, very interesting one line, uh, ones lined up for you. I've got one I'm working on right now that
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I really, really want to tell you who it is. Uh, but I'm not going to, and I can't yet,
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but I'm working on it. We will continue to work on these and I will let you know, make sure you
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subscribe, leave a rating and review. So you never miss a podcast, share this with a friend,
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a mentor, a father, whoever, who needs to hear this message of reclaiming and restoring masculinity,
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who needs to hear the message of character and competence so that we can all go out and we can
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thrive in a way that is meaningful for us. All right, guys, I'll be back next week. Until then,
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go out there, take action, become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the
00:21:42.420
Order of Man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant
00:21:47.440
to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.