Order of Man - What I've Learned in a Decade of Podcasting

00:00:00.000 I'm telling you right now, that's one of the most important things you can do as a man.

00:00:03.480 Always maintain your dignity.

00:00:05.520 When bad things happen in your life, handle it like the man you want to be would handle it.

00:00:10.740 But if somebody harms you in some way, afford them some grace.

00:00:14.480 Forgive them.

00:00:15.920 Handle it like a man.

00:00:16.880 Be stoic.

00:00:18.040 You know, sure, feel your emotion.

00:00:19.500 Feel anger and resentment and contention.

00:00:22.380 But don't act on those things reactionary.

00:00:25.860 Respond to those things like the man that you want to be would respond to those things.

00:00:30.000 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart

00:00:34.980 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You are

00:00:40.660 not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are.

00:00:48.020 This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:52.780 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, today I'm going to do something a little different

00:00:57.400 than I have over the past 11 years. And I'm going to share with you some of the lessons that I've

00:01:02.700 learned through 11 years now. I know the title says 10 years, but or a decade, I can't remember.

00:01:08.540 But we've been going for 11 years now. And I've learned a lot about myself. I've learned a lot

00:01:14.640 about podcasting and growing a business and marketing and resonating with the people you're

00:01:20.000 trying to connect with. And I thought what I would do today for our interview is in a way,

00:01:24.060 interview myself and let you know what I've learned, what I've taken away, and most importantly,

00:01:30.560 how it can apply to you. And that is my most important function with this podcast is whether

00:01:38.240 it's me sharing insight and ideas with you or having guests on the podcast, it's always important

00:01:43.920 to me to ensure that you're walking away with actionable information, information that will

00:01:50.180 actually serve you as you lead your family or grow a movement of your own, or even start a

00:01:56.080 business or advance within your current career path. But regardless of what you're trying to

00:02:01.780 accomplish, I want to give you the tools and resources you need. And today, again, I'm talking

00:02:05.900 about some of my biggest lessons, including failures, setbacks, a little naiveness when it

00:02:13.320 came to starting the podcast and what it would take and how it transformed from a hobby into

00:02:19.300 a very lucrative, not only business for me, but movement for the millions of men who have been

00:02:25.700 impacted by the work that we do. And so I figured the place that I would start is why I even started

00:02:33.200 to do this in the first place. And again, I'm going to tie this back to you because whenever

00:02:37.640 you're pursuing something, whether it's a relationship or a business or a career path

00:02:43.640 or additional education, whatever it might be, it's very important to understand why

00:02:49.060 you're doing that thing because we know that it's going to get difficult. It's going to

00:02:54.100 get hard. There's going to be challenges. And when I started this, I thought that podcasting

00:03:01.500 would just be fun and easy. And it is in a lot of ways. And it was. What's interesting

00:03:07.120 now it's become more complex. The waters have become more polluted, I guess. Maybe polluted

00:03:14.720 is not the right way to say it. The market's just become more saturated. That's probably

00:03:19.140 a better way to say it. And so I started this with really the idea of just having a fun

00:03:26.920 hobby. I had a very lucrative financial planning practice when I started this podcast. In fact,

00:03:32.420 I started another podcast, many of you may not know, called Wealth Anatomy. And that podcast

00:03:38.100 was geared towards helping medical professionals with their financial services. And what I realized

00:03:45.660 very quickly is I love the medium of podcasting. And that's one of the first lessons that I learned

00:03:50.200 is that just because you start something doesn't mean you're obligated to stay down that path.

00:03:56.560 It doesn't mean you can't quit. And it certainly doesn't mean that you can't pivot. And that's

00:04:01.340 exactly what I did, is I made the decision to pivot. And I think one of the things that I got

00:04:07.020 right, and this is another lesson for you, is when I started doing Order of Man, I had made the

00:04:14.280 decision. I was talking with a good friend of mine, and he was giving me some counsel because

00:04:18.060 he had worked with some other people who had had successful podcasts. And I told him, I remember

00:04:23.460 vividly, I said, I'm not going to make a decision on whether or not to continue to do this or pull

00:04:29.440 the plug for at least two years. And at the time, that's a long time, especially because I wasn't

00:04:35.920 thinking about turning this into a business. I wasn't thinking about making a lucrative career

00:04:41.720 or creating a movement out of this thing by any means. I was just doing it because I wanted to

00:04:50.140 talk with other men who I was motivated and inspired by. And I thought, what a great way

00:04:55.340 to take conversations that I had with these men

00:04:58.840 and give them to other guys like yourselves

00:05:01.860 who listen to it.

00:05:03.560 And we'll talk a little bit about the business lessons

00:05:05.400 I started to extract,

00:05:06.680 but the expectation that I had

00:05:08.440 was that this would just be a fun side project.

00:05:12.700 Because again, my financial planning practice

00:05:14.940 was doing very, very well at the time.

00:05:18.500 and probably all reason and rationale said, don't do this and detract from what you're doing with

00:05:29.640 your financial planning business. Um, my, my then wife, my ex-wife now, uh, was, was concerned as

00:05:37.740 my attention began to move and gravitate towards the order of man podcast, uh, more so than it did

00:05:47.780 the financial planning practice. And I remember she came to me one night and she said, Hey, look,

00:05:52.860 like, I love that you're doing this. You seem happy with it. It seems exciting, but you're

00:05:56.960 taking more and more time out of your day to do order of man than you are your financial planning

00:06:02.180 stuff. And it's affecting household income. And she was exactly right. And so I had to make some

00:06:08.660 decisions about, do I pull the plug? Which again, I, I committed, I said, I wasn't going to for

00:06:13.940 two years. This is about seven months into it. Or was I going to keep doing it as a project with

00:06:19.800 boundaries? Or was I going to try to turn it into a business? And clearly it became a business and

00:06:26.260 a movement. And that's one thing I want people to know too, is there seems to be this really weird

00:06:32.420 belief that in order for it to be a money-making, money-generating project, that you're not

00:06:42.400 supposed to love it, or it's not supposed to be good for people. It's a pretty wild thought if

00:06:47.460 you think about it. And I can't tell you how often people tell me, you know, yeah, well, aren't you

00:06:52.460 just doing this out of the goodness of your heart? Or why are you charging men to help them with

00:06:58.820 their lives? Like, shouldn't you just be giving them this information for free? And I do because

00:07:04.140 we do the podcast. There's plenty of great information that you have and can get for free.

00:07:09.460 but then there's other things that take time and money and attention and energy. And I have to put

00:07:14.260 food on the table and keep the lights on and run this business and build out this new studio. So

00:07:19.320 there's costs associated with that. But it's always funny because I might share with somebody

00:07:23.460 just to turn it back on them and say, well, what do you do for work? And let's say it's a doctor.

00:07:28.840 Okay. So you're a doctor. Well, why do you, why do you guys charge? Why not just help people

00:07:34.520 out of the goodness of your heart?

00:07:36.640 Like, are you just a money-rubbing, greedy, you know, capitalist?

00:07:41.720 Or do you actually really care about people?

00:07:44.260 And I think two things can exist at once.

00:07:46.460 I think you can truly care about people and your profession.

00:07:50.200 And I think you can make good money doing it.

00:07:52.300 And I think you ought to.

00:07:53.700 Even a plumber, you know, how can you charge a family

00:07:57.480 when you come into their house and their house is flooded

00:08:00.240 or their toilet won't work or their sink or their dishwasher won't work

00:08:03.800 and you're going to charge them in their moment of suffering or an attorney or a mechanic or fill

00:08:09.640 in the blank. But it only seems to really come into question when it's something along these

00:08:15.380 lines or a therapist is also another one. Yeah. You're going to charge. Yes. It's a business.

00:08:20.780 So, so understand that, know that. And that's another lesson. There's going to be a lot just

00:08:24.700 kind of hidden in here is that not everybody's going to be on your side. Not everybody's going

00:08:30.480 to believe in you. You're not even entitled to their belief in you. Not even the people who are

00:08:35.980 closest, your wife, your kids, your family members. I think at the time my wife and her family and my

00:08:43.800 family believed in me, but they questioned what I was doing. And that was okay because I hadn't

00:08:50.960 proven anything, not to them and certainly not to myself or anybody who might be listening.

00:08:55.860 So you aren't entitled to that, but you can prove that over time.

00:09:00.400 So let's get into a few.

00:09:02.560 Let's start with some business lessons.

00:09:04.420 All right.

00:09:04.620 The first one that I've learned is that consistency beats talent any day of the week.

00:09:10.900 Now, if you have both, even better.

00:09:13.540 But I think talent, when I think of talent, we usually think of a God-given gift or ability,

00:09:20.000 something you're just innately and inherently born with.

00:09:22.560 and there are certain people that are better at certain things than others. There are people who

00:09:28.440 have higher IQs, and there are people who are more artistic, and there are people who can sing

00:09:34.260 better, or maybe their genetics have created them to be the size they are. A good example of this

00:09:41.780 is Michael Phelps. I remember when he had his record-setting year at the Olympics, they started

00:09:46.740 to analyze his body type and the way that his torso relative to his leg length and even down

00:09:53.560 to the way that his toes were connected. There was a little bit of webbing, if I remember correctly,

00:09:57.400 in his toes. He was obviously very talented. He was born with a body that would help create one

00:10:06.720 of the, if not the greatest swimmers of all time. So he started ahead. But as the saying goes,

00:10:14.240 you know, the graveyard is full of people with good ideas or people who are talented but didn't

00:10:19.580 do anything. And I know people who are, I would say, significantly less athletic than I am,

00:10:26.020 or maybe not as intelligent as I am, or maybe not as charming as I am. These are like humble

00:10:34.620 brags here. And yet they're still killing it in whatever they're doing in life. So what's the

00:10:40.640 difference? Is it talent alone? Never. So don't let a lack of talent deter you if it's something

00:10:46.960 that you want to do. Now, if you're five foot seven and a buck 20, are you going to go play in

00:10:53.060 the NBA? Yeah, probably not. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about

00:10:59.020 being consistent, but also somewhat reasonable about what you do. So when it comes to consistency,

00:11:04.880 see, we haven't missed an episode in 11 years, not one. And we do three episodes every single

00:11:11.020 week, including this one, our Wednesday Ask Me Anything, and then also our Friday Field Notes.

00:11:18.180 And I haven't missed a single one. Now, I will say in some of the darkest times in my life,

00:11:22.440 and we'll talk about that as a lesson as well, that I did do a couple of repeat episodes,

00:11:27.760 but I still put something on the air. And we've put repeat episodes out periodically ever since

00:11:33.420 when it's appropriate. When Charlie Kirk was shot and murdered, we reposted the episode that I did

00:11:41.500 with Charlie because that made sense. So we don't miss episodes here. And I don't have the luxury

00:11:47.260 because I'm not as talented. I'm not as gifted as a conversationalist. I'm not as well-connected

00:11:54.920 as some people are. So I don't have the luxury of being sporadic. It's just not a luxury I get to

00:12:01.100 enjoy. So I have to be consistent. And the same is true with you. Your consistency will separate

00:12:07.320 you from the pack and outperform talent every day of the week. Keep that in mind. Lesson number two

00:12:14.840 is that, well, there's one lesson, but there's two ways I've heard this phrased. My good friend

00:12:20.920 Pete Roberts with Origin often says that the payments or the cost of doing business and the

00:12:27.880 mistakes that we make are what he calls tuition payments. And tuition payments are

00:12:34.300 costly mistakes. Dave Ramsey sometimes calls it and refers to it as stupid tax.

00:12:40.640 And I've paid plenty. I've paid plenty of tuition. I've paid plenty of stupid tax. I've bought

00:12:46.340 camera equipment that won't work for what I need, not able to return it. I've created a couple of

00:12:52.760 shirts that companies have come back and threatened to sue me because they look so close to

00:12:59.580 what they've put out there. And I've lost thousands of dollars making those dumb decisions.

00:13:05.440 I've hired people that couldn't fulfill the duties and responsibilities that I was looking for and

00:13:10.740 had to let them go after tens of thousands of dollars spent. I've spent money on marketing

00:13:16.000 and ad copy and ads that haven't produced a single dime. I've alienated customers. Obviously,

00:13:25.660 I went through a very difficult divorce and overcoming alcohol abuse, and that had a

00:13:31.180 tremendous impact negatively on my business. Any mistake that you could make, I've done it,

00:13:37.580 other than I haven't been fraudulent by any means or done anything illegal, but certainly,

00:13:42.480 I've made a lot of tuition payments. And what I'd like you to know about that, especially if you're

00:13:50.880 young, because you might not have made as many tuition payments yet, and you will, trust me,

00:13:55.340 don't do that on purpose, by the way, but just know it'll happen. It's okay. It's all going to

00:14:01.380 be okay. You'll get through it. You'll learn from it. Sometimes the most painful, costly mistakes

00:14:08.260 that you made are the ones that you learned the most from? And the question then becomes, did you

00:14:13.540 actually learn and apply the new information you have? I would call that wisdom. Or do you just

00:14:21.440 keep banging your dang head against the wall, doing the same thing over and over and over and

00:14:27.400 over again? All right. Lesson number three, what it actually takes to grow an audience versus what

00:14:35.980 I thought it would be I just thought once you start talking people will just show up and

00:14:41.740 that doesn't happen especially now because everything is so saturated it's harder and

00:14:47.700 harder when I have guys who reach out to me and they're thinking hey I'd like to start something

00:14:51.200 similar to what you do my first thought is good luck and I'm not even saying that as as a negative

00:14:57.600 to them I would love for them to start something that's meaningful but it is so much more difficult

00:15:03.140 to start something now like we're doing

00:15:07.300 than it was 11 years ago.

00:15:11.120 The algorithm was different.

00:15:13.020 Social media was different.

00:15:14.420 There weren't nearly as many people.

00:15:16.040 There was probably three people doing this.

00:15:18.400 Larry Hagner, Connor Beaton wasn't too far behind

00:15:21.940 or maybe even ahead of when I started.

00:15:24.740 And then of course, Brett McKay,

00:15:26.400 one of the OGs with Art of Manliness.

00:15:30.100 And so I just thought, well,

00:15:31.280 like, I'm going to just put information out there. And I actually, when I started

00:15:35.060 was trying to build something very similar to, to Brett. And I realized very quickly that that was

00:15:42.200 not my, that was not my shtick. That was not my bag. Um, my first article I ever put out on the

00:15:49.600 Order of Man website, actually, I wonder if it's still there. I'll have to check is how to throw

00:15:54.240 a baseball, which is like the last type of article that you would see on order of man.

00:16:00.620 But it's important that every man know how to throw a baseball, but that's Brett's realm.

00:16:04.800 That's his domain.

00:16:06.000 That's good information.

00:16:07.320 It's very practical information.

00:16:09.420 It's activity based.

00:16:11.340 And we get more into the mindset and thought process and development of manliness and

00:16:16.360 masculinity.

00:16:17.160 So there's room for both.

00:16:19.420 But the point that I'm making here, guys, is that when you're starting something, if

00:16:23.000 you're the same as everybody else, whether it's a men's movement or you're running for office or a

00:16:28.420 new plumbing organization or a doctor's office, don't just follow the pack. If everybody's zigging,

00:16:35.340 then you should zag and vice versa. When everybody's going that way or using a certain font or using a

00:16:41.360 certain color or has a certain message, come up with something different. Sure, we can mimic some

00:16:46.980 of the things that have worked well for those individuals, but if we don't do it our own way,

00:16:51.060 then we'll never be able to uh get any sort of traction and there's another there's another

00:17:00.400 thought in this it's like be willing to to be bold and to say things that nobody else will say

00:17:07.000 and you you know this will resonate when you hear people say I'm glad somebody said this

00:17:12.360 finally somebody's talking about this it's not always going to be comfortable because you're

00:17:17.600 going to be controversial at times. I certainly am. I've had to eat my fair share of crow.

00:17:23.260 I've made mistakes. I've been quick to anger or lash out or say something stupid on social media.

00:17:29.680 Those are all things that are mistakes that I'm learning from. But I would rather make that

00:17:34.640 mistake, putting something interesting into the world that, by the way, I truly believe. I don't

00:17:39.120 just make stuff up. But putting something interesting out into the world that's different

00:17:43.760 from everybody else. Because why should I be like Brett McKay? Brett McKay is Brett McKay. Why should

00:17:49.500 I be like Larry or Connor or any of these other guys, Andy Frisilla or Jocko, these guys I really

00:17:55.220 look up to, they're the best at being them. I'm the best at being me. And so I can mimic and I can

00:18:01.420 look for things that work, but I'm going to do it my own way. And if you're not willing to do it

00:18:06.700 your own way, different fonts, different colors, different taglines, different methodology,

00:18:10.860 different conversations, different topics, different pricing models, different services

00:18:15.960 and products, and we've got a new one coming up in Q4 that you guys are just going to be

00:18:20.680 ecstatic about, then what is the point? It's not even fun to do it like somebody else.

00:18:28.220 But let's get into some lessons about the craft of what I do. Because if you're interested in

00:18:37.440 podcasting, if you're interested in growing an audience, if you're interested in interviewing

00:18:41.400 and making content, as they say, I hate that phrasing, by the way, making content.

00:18:48.080 It's so devoid of soul. Like I'm a content creator. What kind of content? I don't know,

00:18:53.560 just content. I don't consider myself a content creator. I get the premise. I get the idea.

00:19:01.420 but I consider myself a couple of things, more of a conversationalist and somebody who offers

00:19:11.040 insights, ideas, and tools that help the everyday man. But let's talk about what makes

00:19:16.920 a good conversation or maybe a good content moment, as they'd say,

00:19:24.520 because it's important. It's important to be a conversationalist. And one of the things that

00:19:29.580 I've learned probably more than anything that I think has helped me in life from this business

00:19:35.320 more than anything else is how to hold conversations, how to be curious, how to ask

00:19:41.540 good questions, how to direct conversation, but not dominate conversation, how to let people talk

00:19:48.160 about themselves, but keep them on track. And it doesn't just apply to the podcasting world. It

00:19:53.760 applies to every facet of your life because you're always going to be talking to people,

00:19:57.640 your boss your colleagues your employees your clients your family your friends your co-workers

00:20:03.020 and everybody else and if you can be the guy who knows how to good have a good conversation

00:20:08.140 then the person you're having that conversation with will inevitably leave with a better taste

00:20:15.120 in their mouth about who you are and how you show up and how you make them feel and this is applied

00:20:21.140 to every facet of my life, from raising my children, to dating, to my marriage when I was

00:20:27.840 married, to growing businesses, to reaching out to other people and creating connections

00:20:32.760 and partnerships that had been powerful and good in my life. And then the other thing is learning

00:20:41.880 to look around and extract lessons from everyday life, my everyday life. You know, some people

00:20:47.940 can't do this or they don't want to do it or they don't look for it. But there are so many

00:20:52.520 opportunities in life that pass us by where we could actually extrapolate a really good lesson

00:20:58.400 from that. You know, I made a post on Insta and Facebook the other day. And I think the post on

00:21:04.320 Facebook, I want to say it's been liked like 18 or 19,000 times now. So it's gone a little viral.

00:21:10.980 And it was just a simple post about a young man coming over to my house and offering to clean

00:21:17.060 our trash cans. And some of the lessons there, I mean, it's not, it's not like anything real

00:21:23.100 profound. It's an interesting moment. There's some good lessons in that. You can go check it

00:21:27.740 out on Facebook or over on Instagram. But it resonates with people. And it was just a simple

00:21:34.280 moment that I thought, hmm, this might make an interesting conversation or bring up some

00:21:40.580 interesting dialogue or engage other people. And I had a guy the other day say, hey, Ryan,

00:21:45.460 i really appreciate that you respond back for the most part on social media and he says most people

00:21:51.100 don't i said well it's social this is social media and when i think of being social i think of

00:21:57.900 having conversations and talking back and forth with each other it's harder and harder as as

00:22:04.040 comments tend to get negative and it seems to be a cesspool for degeneracy and and and garbage and

00:22:11.580 nonsense, but for the people who are truly there getting value and want to find value in what we

00:22:17.640 do, it's actually pretty powerful when you communicate back with these people. And so I've

00:22:23.140 had to change and develop and grow and evolve. And that's what you should be doing too. You know,

00:22:28.380 I'm always amazed, for example, when I look at the human body and I can look at somebody and I can

00:22:33.580 say, this individual is a power lifter. This individual is a long distance runner. This

00:22:40.420 individual seems like they're probably a gymnast or a dancer. This individual is, you know, fill in

00:22:46.360 the blank, baseball player, lacrosse player. I can tell you can look at somebody's body.

00:22:51.100 What that means is that their body has evolved and morphed through the demands of their training

00:22:56.800 to become better equipped to be in that sport. And it's the same thing that's true about being

00:23:04.940 a conversationalist or being a plumber or being a doctor or being a trash collector or a real

00:23:12.660 estate investor. You were going to get better at that. And my preparation and the way that I host

00:23:19.580 has changed drastically. I used to script all of my podcasts when I started. I used to have a script

00:23:28.020 for all of the questions that I was going to ask my guest. And what I realized is that that was a

00:23:33.800 good start, but eventually I started to move to bullet points because asking all of my guests the

00:23:41.680 same questions seemed silly because they weren't the same people. And what I realized is that I

00:23:47.880 missed a lot of good opportunities for deeper dives into certain aspects of their lives because

00:23:52.900 I was so worried about going on to point number two or question number seven that I was going off

00:23:58.700 track a little bit. And that's a good lesson. In life, you can go off track. You can go off script.

00:24:05.240 Now, don't get too far off script because then you have something that's completely incoherent

00:24:10.240 and difficult to follow or listen to. But the reality is, is like everybody's different.

00:24:17.640 You know, I remember one of my first big guests was Jocko Willink. And this was about the time

00:24:22.620 that his book, Extreme Ownership, came out and he was just getting started in this world.

00:24:26.800 and I was nervous and he was fresh,

00:24:31.920 not as well-versed as he is today.

00:24:33.980 And I remember having this podcast with him

00:24:35.740 and I would say, I would ask him a question like,

00:24:39.980 how does a man become more disciplined?

00:24:42.920 And he would say, you just do it.

00:24:45.320 And I'm like, okay, do you care to elaborate?

00:24:48.480 He's like, no, just do it.

00:24:50.980 And so I was so nervous

00:24:53.460 and I could barely get a thought out of him.

00:24:56.800 because he was so black and white. But if you listen to him now, he will actually go into

00:25:01.840 how to become more disciplined and how he thinks and the process of, of what he's learned. So he's

00:25:08.040 evolved too, but so have I, because I've had guests where I've had to like literally try to

00:25:12.760 like pull, almost literally pull something out of them. And that can be very difficult. And then

00:25:18.660 you have a guy like David Goggins who had a great conversation with, and he's larger than life and

00:25:24.020 intense and in your face. And I've had other guests who you can't get an award and otherwise,

00:25:28.980 and they're going off on all these different tangents. Like everybody's different. And that

00:25:34.220 was so, that's fun to me. The fact that every day I get to have different conversations with

00:25:38.980 different people doing different things is such an amazing, amazing opportunity. So think about

00:25:46.560 in your own profession, in your own choice of career, what you need to do to evolve, to get

00:25:52.160 better, to improve, to grow, to learn new things? What skill set are you missing right now? And then

00:25:58.380 think about how you might develop that through repetition and practice. Now, let me share with

00:26:04.020 you a few personal stories. You know, repetition, for example, is crucial. I just talked about that.

00:26:12.040 Public accountability, man, that is so huge. It's hard at times because people don't really

00:26:18.540 understand what accountability means. Like they might make a really inappropriate comment or post

00:26:25.600 on, on my social media. And I'm like, dude, what are you like, what are you saying? Why are you,

00:26:30.420 why are you doing that? Well, I'm just holding you accountable. No, you're just being an a-hole

00:26:35.340 and there's a difference. See, it's easy to call people out. It's easy to say that you're doing

00:26:40.580 it wrong and you're doing it wrong. I think I talked about, uh, on last week's Friday field

00:26:46.280 notes, the man in the arena excerpt from Citizenship in a Republic by Theodore Roosevelt,

00:26:52.960 and how often you'll hear from people who will just sling mud at you from the cheap seats without

00:26:59.020 getting into the arena themselves. That's not accountability, guys. Accountability is somebody

00:27:06.280 that you care about, and you see that they're slipping or doing something wrong, and then you're

00:27:11.280 willing to walk with them in their development and growth. That's the second part most people

00:27:16.780 miss. You're willing to walk with them in their development and growth. I had a friend of mine,

00:27:22.240 his name is Steve. He messaged me the other day and he put a screenshot of a response that I had

00:27:29.060 made in one of my posts. And I was a little heavy handed to say the least. And I was kind of an a-hole

00:27:35.900 myself in my response. And he sent me this message and he said, Hey, right. I saw this,

00:27:41.900 this, this doesn't seem like, or this is beneath you. I think you can do better than this.

00:27:46.600 This was really powerful when you said this, but when you got here, you lost all power and

00:27:50.640 credibility. And I messaged him back and I said, you know what? I don't see it the same way.

00:27:55.460 And I don't appreciate how you told me that. That's what I told him. And he's like, Hey,

00:28:01.160 no, no problem. Like no issue. I just want to let you know, I care about you. I want to see

00:28:05.720 the best for you. And I've said what I felt like I wanted to say. Cool. Gave him a thumbs up. He

00:28:10.300 gave me a thumbs up. All good. About a half hour later, I messaged him back and I'm like, dude,

00:28:15.320 you're right. I thought about it. You're right. And I went ahead and I deleted that response.

00:28:20.400 And I appreciate you being willing to just tell me. And he's like, oh man, I get it. And he sent

00:28:26.660 me a screenshot of a time where he blew up and did the same thing that I did because he wasn't

00:28:33.460 just calling me out. He was telling me that he's willing to walk in it with me. And that's the kind

00:28:39.140 of man that you should find in your life as a friendship, as a brotherhood. Is that a man who

00:28:45.140 is going to hold you accountable? Again, call you out appropriately when needed, and then walk in

00:28:51.760 your journey of growth and development. But when you put yourself out in the public, and I deserve

00:28:57.880 it. I deserve the scrutiny. Sometimes people will say, here's a funny one is they'll go through a

00:29:04.500 tragic moment in their life. Um, you know, maybe they get caught doing something illegal or they

00:29:11.340 go through a divorce or something and they'll, they'll blast it all on social media about what's

00:29:17.520 going on and they'll talk about their other partner and they'll do all the things. And then

00:29:21.400 they'll come back a day or two later and they're like, you know, I'm, I'm really grieving. And at

00:29:25.420 this time we're just asking for privacy as we go through this difficult life or whatever it's like

00:29:31.520 ask for privacy you're the one that put it out there like nobody would have known if you wouldn't

00:29:37.860 have said anything about it but you're the one that used it as content and put it out there so

00:29:43.000 don't believe for a second that we don't get the opportunity to poke holes in it and that's what

00:29:49.940 people did with me. Some of them were appropriate. Some was inappropriate, but it was a very dark

00:29:55.180 time. Um, when I, when I went through my divorce three and a half years ago, almost, almost three

00:30:01.120 and a half years ago now, um, and overcoming alcohol abuse, that was tough. It was really

00:30:07.620 difficult. And, you know, I had a lot of people who stood by me and I had a lot of people who,

00:30:15.340 didn't. And the temptation for me to quit at that point was strong. I even entertained either

00:30:24.480 just shutting it down or selling it or walking away from it and letting somebody else do it.

00:30:32.100 And I had a lot of people who advocated for that. And I had this thought, like, I'm not quitting.

00:30:37.460 I'm not throwing away my business because of it. I had some good people, some good friends coming

00:30:42.200 in my life and say, no, bro, this actually makes you more qualified. May not feel like it now,

00:30:46.960 but this will make you more qualified as you work through the divorce and you work through

00:30:51.620 sobriety and you work through rekindling and rebuilding relationships with your children.

00:30:58.660 Don't ever quit guys. Now with a caveat, if it's something you're no longer interested in,

00:31:05.560 your heart, your soul's not in it, something else is calling or speaking to you. I think it's okay

00:31:10.120 to quit. I really do. And that's weird coming from a podcaster who is in the space of self-development.

00:31:15.820 People say, never quit, never quit, never quit. It's like, well, maybe sometimes you should,

00:31:20.160 or at a minimum pivot. That's what I did from Wealth Anatomy podcast to the Order of Man podcast.

00:31:25.240 And look how great it's become because I was willing to pivot and not stay in something and

00:31:30.260 bang my head against the wall, hoping that something that was not meant to work would work.

00:31:34.620 It didn't. It became unnecessarily difficult and I realized it quickly and made the pivots.

00:31:40.120 So, no, I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to have to die before this thing is done. And even then, I don't even think I could stop this movement if I wanted to. I have succession plans in place to ensure that this work continues well beyond my time doing this.

00:31:56.080 um let's talk about a few other things here and then we'll we'll wrap up for today because there

00:32:03.980 there are i could speak all day about the lessons that i've learned but i want to talk about what's

00:32:10.500 changed with the podcast and what hasn't changed because there are some things that will evolve

00:32:16.120 and change over time and then there's things that will not and should not change um the message has

00:32:22.520 always been the same. Protect, provide, preside. The mission to reclaim and restore masculinity.

00:32:28.820 You've heard me say those phrases a million times at this point. That will never change.

00:32:33.980 In fact, I think it's more important today, 11 years later, than it was when we started,

00:32:39.020 which is wild to think about. And so some people might say, do you feel like you're making a

00:32:42.320 difference? Of course I do. Because if I wasn't doing this, how many other men's podcasts and

00:32:48.880 and missions would not be available. Well, a lot. We are responsible for a large portion of the

00:32:56.000 men's movement that you see out there right now. Now, we might not be the meteoric rise and

00:33:03.200 notoriety of men like Jordan Peterson or Andrew Tate, and that's a whole other conversation,

00:33:12.860 or even a guy like Scott Galloway. These are all men who have a lot more attention and notoriety

00:33:21.280 than we do, but we are creating a powerful, powerful legion of movements and events and

00:33:32.900 messages that are helping millions of men, not just the men who listen to this podcast,

00:33:37.780 but the millions that listen to these other podcasts as well. That will never change.

00:33:42.200 Now, the way I communicate it might. I've had life experiences and challenges and setbacks that I shared with you and more that I haven't shared. And so I evolve. You know, I grow. I think I'm a little bit less black and white than I have been in the past. I'm not so rigid, even though I still am pretty rigid, not so rigid as I once was.

00:34:05.400 and so I've really learned to stop caring so much about the naysayers

00:34:12.260 stop caring so much about what people think about me or what I do or don't do

00:34:18.020 I even encourage other people to start their own movements you know guys will say well Ryan you

00:34:22.800 should do this thing so why should I do it you should do it if it's important to you you should

00:34:27.560 do it and look I know most of the time when people give me ideas it's because they care about what

00:34:31.400 we're doing. And that's great. I'm very grateful for that. But I want people to get in the arena.

00:34:36.700 I want them to do something about the missions and work that is important to them.

00:34:42.380 At the end of the day, guys, I really care about the men who tune in. I care about the guys who've

00:34:48.300 joined the Iron Council. I care about the men who will be served who haven't heard what we're doing

00:34:54.480 yet or haven't come to one of our events yet or haven't joined the Iron Council yet. We just had

00:35:00.340 somebody in the iron council just recently pass away one of our one of our team leaders

00:35:04.620 and i'm sure it was devastating to the people he loved most his girlfriend and his family and

00:35:10.000 and we all who knew him well were deeply impacted and saddened by his passing

00:35:14.880 we rally behind each other we support each other and when i see guys saving their marriages or

00:35:21.200 rallying behind somebody who's you know lost a loved one or support somebody a man who started

00:35:27.760 a business in the Iron Council and we want to support and uplift that guy. I can't help but

00:35:32.900 think how great and how important this work is and what it would look like if it wasn't available,

00:35:37.760 if it wasn't here. It'd be drastically different. I truly believe that.

00:35:41.820 So I'm going to keep evolving. I'm going to keep growing. And I ask that you keep evolving and

00:35:45.780 growing too, that you start looking at the market and the economy and the factors and the growing

00:35:51.460 sentiments of the way culture is going. You know, one right now that you see a lot is this growing

00:35:56.860 idea of socialism. It's horrific and it's horrible. And I imagine that will become a big

00:36:02.980 part of the conversation that we have. I don't want to get too political necessarily here, but

00:36:07.880 there's cultural issues like socialism that need to be addressed from a cultural lens, not necessarily

00:36:13.680 a political one. And we're going to see these things come and go. We're going to have new

00:36:18.320 presidencies and new elected representatives, and we're going to have new businesses, and we're

00:36:23.260 have new technology like AI. I was thinking about that the other day, how much easier certain things

00:36:28.740 are, even show prep because AI is available. I want to prep on a guest. I can look at AI and

00:36:34.040 they can pull up everything about that individual in seconds. I didn't have that when I started.

00:36:39.600 What else is going to be available? Could I potentially be able to do some sort of

00:36:44.020 a digital podcast, but with a holograph or hologram of a person sitting here. So it actually

00:36:52.560 looks like it's in person? Yeah, probably something like that. I mean, there's going to be some crazy

00:36:57.460 technology. And I'm excited about what that looks like. We have a lot of cool opportunities if we

00:37:02.820 look for those opportunities. And I've been doing it for 11 years. And I know you guys have been

00:37:06.560 growing your businesses and living your lives as well. These are the lessons that I've learned.

00:37:10.840 And these are the things that have made this movement such a success. And I'll leave you with

00:37:16.100 this. It's the one thing that I would, I would maybe tell myself on day one. And I want, I want

00:37:25.920 you to leave with this. And I want you to think about what you might tell yourself going back 10

00:37:30.500 or 15 or 20 years. And think about how this applies to the last decade of your life in the

00:37:35.520 pursuit of something meaningful. And so for me, what I would tell myself is a couple of things.

00:37:42.940 Number one, afford yourself some grace. You're a human being. You're going to mess up. Roll with

00:37:49.120 the punch. Laugh at it a little bit if you have to. And just keep charging on. The other thing I

00:37:56.100 would say is you never know what's going to happen. One day you're at the bottom of the pit and the

00:38:01.580 next you're at the top of the mountain or vice versa. And things will always change. Your ability

00:38:07.560 to adapt to those things, to evolve, to be light on your feet, quick on your toes, to be able to

00:38:13.540 move and pivot and adjust and read and parry and block and go around or go through or go over

00:38:20.600 and just be adaptable is one of the greatest skills that you have. The last thing I'd say

00:38:26.420 is always maintain your dignity. I'm telling you right now, that's one of the most important

00:38:31.420 things you can do as a man. Always maintain your dignity. I was going to say if, but when bad

00:38:37.520 things happen in your life, handle it like the man you want to be would handle it. She asked for a

00:38:43.440 divorce or go through a breakup. You don't need to blow up. You don't need to lose your cool. You

00:38:47.480 don't need to melt down. You don't need to fall apart. You just pick yourself back up and you get

00:38:52.060 back in the fight and you dust yourself off and you keep working. If somebody wrongs you in some

00:38:56.980 way, I'm not saying that you need to expose yourself to the same potential hardship or

00:39:01.300 heartache, but if somebody harms you in some way, afford them some grace. Forgive them. Handle it

00:39:07.780 like a man. Be stoic. You know, sure, feel your emotion. Feel anger and resentment and contention,

00:39:13.560 but don't act on those things reactionary. Respond to those things like the man that you want to be

00:39:21.360 would respond to those things. There's a lot that's going to happen in your life, and you're

00:39:26.900 going to make some horrible, horrible mistakes as I have. And I think the best thing that we can do

00:39:32.160 is even in those mistakes is to maintain our dignity. And that's what I would tell myself.

00:39:36.520 And I feel like I've done a decent job, not perfect, but decent. And I'll continue to improve

00:39:41.300 in that. Guys, I really appreciate you. I'm going to leave you with this. I really appreciate you

00:39:45.040 being here. I really appreciate you listening in, buying the book, listening to the message,

00:39:51.680 sharing the podcast, coming to our events, buying merchandise, whichever way that you've

00:39:57.360 supported what we're doing here, I want you to know not only are you supporting this movement,

00:40:01.540 but you're also supporting the other men who will be impacted by what you're doing.

00:40:05.500 I can't tell you how often I might be in the airport or at the mall or at a restaurant,

00:40:11.740 and somebody will come up to me and ask me if I'm Ryan, and I say yes. And

00:40:15.600 the amount of gratitude that I get from the people who listen, who tune in and listen and

00:40:21.920 share their stories about their relationships or their business or how they feel about things is

00:40:27.760 so rewarding. And it can be that for you too, regardless of what you're doing. If you show up

00:40:33.040 in a powerful way, guys, if you're on YouTube in the comments below, please let me know some of

00:40:38.100 the lessons that you've learned over the past 10 years of your life. I would love to share this

00:40:41.960 with each other. And if you're not on YouTube watching this, then go over if you wouldn't

00:40:46.520 subscribe at youtube.com slash order of man. Guys, we're going to keep going. We're going to

00:40:51.700 keep driving on. I'm going to keep evolving and we're going to keep adding services and value

00:40:56.500 hopefully to your life. That is my goal. So with that said, please subscribe, leave a rating and

00:41:02.900 review. Take a look at the iron council order of man.com slash iron council. But most importantly,

00:41:09.280 go apply the information that you've learned and stick around because we've got some good

00:41:13.300 things coming. Men will be back tomorrow for our Ask Me Anything. Until then, go out there,

00:41:18.480 take action, and become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man

00:41:23.700 podcast. If you're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be,

00:41:28.460 we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - August 04, 2026

What I've Learned in a Decade of Podcasting

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