Order of Man - What Is Inner Authority (And How to Build It) ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

00:00:00.040 Maybe it's what project you want to take on.

00:00:02.380 Maybe it's how to handle a certain conversation.

00:00:05.620 You need to stop pulling people in the room.

00:00:07.800 Stop asking, what should I do?

00:00:09.320 No, you already know.

00:00:10.700 Just decide.

00:00:11.820 Live with it.

00:00:12.760 Repeat it.

00:00:13.740 Stop explaining yourself to everybody.

00:00:16.580 You make a choice, and then you immediately start telling people why you made the choice.

00:00:22.360 But a lot of it is you looking for somebody to agree with you so you can feel okay.

00:00:28.960 like just make your decisions and let them stand hey what's up guys glad you're back to the order

00:00:37.200 of men podcast i'm sure you've heard at this point if you've been listening to this message

00:00:42.140 and this movement for any amount of time the concept of sovereignty and i've been thinking

00:00:47.020 a lot about the idea the concept of personal responsibility individual liberty inner authority

00:00:55.500 sovereignty, whatever you want to call it, whatever the catchphrase of the day is,

00:00:59.700 since I wrote that book in 2018. And I think it's really important we revisit it and we talk about

00:01:05.320 it because it is at the root of a lot of struggles that the men that I talk with in personal coaching

00:01:12.600 and group coaching that they face every single day. And what I've seen is that most guys,

00:01:18.620 they never name it and like any enemy or adversary if you can't name what you're dealing with you

00:01:26.500 can't address it adequately i think a lot about my oldest two boys sports and as they're finishing up

00:01:34.680 their high school lacrosse season these guys watch tape every single day you did it in football and

00:01:40.360 basketball and wrestling and every other sport that you played we reviewed tape so that we can

00:01:45.380 see where the threats are, where the weaknesses are, where do we exploit, where to capitalize,

00:01:49.500 what we need to shore up. And yet once we graduate, we rarely do that. You know, we talk a lot about

00:01:55.700 confidence. Uh, we talk about discipline. We talk about purpose and becoming the man that we're

00:02:02.080 supposed to be. And all of that is good. All of that matters, no doubt. But underneath all of

00:02:08.220 that. There is this thing, this, this root, this foundation, this principle that I call inner

00:02:16.000 authority. And I was talking with a good friend of mine, Connor Beaton with Mantox and, and we

00:02:20.640 explored this concept last week. And I wanted to dig into it with you guys, because if you don't

00:02:27.440 have inner authority, then none of the discipline, none of the commitment, none of the purpose,

00:02:32.780 none of the becoming the man you're supposed to be really works it doesn't fully work without

00:02:39.420 this foundational principle so i'm going to break down what inner authority actually is

00:02:44.280 and why way too many men in modern times don't have it what it's costing you if you don't have

00:02:51.040 it and also the most important thing how can you start building it so let's get right into it and

00:02:56.460 I want to start with, I want to start with a question. And I actually want you to sit with

00:03:03.100 this for a second. You can do it right now. Or if you have to revisit it when you're in a better

00:03:07.380 position, that's fine. Go back and revisit, but sit with this question. Even ask the guys in your

00:03:12.080 life, your brothers and your friends and guys in your inner circle, what they think about this

00:03:16.840 question. Okay. When was the last time that you made a major decision in your life, in, in your

00:03:26.100 career, in your relationship, your life in general. And when you made that decision, you didn't feel

00:03:35.100 the need to run it by anyone. Hey, you didn't, you didn't have to pull your wife on what she

00:03:41.460 thought. You didn't have to call a buddy and get his permission or his experience. You didn't have

00:03:46.420 to post about it or create a poll on Facebook to see what kind of reaction you get. You just

00:03:51.740 made the decision, made the executive decision. And were you good with it? Were you good with

00:03:59.460 making that decision? If, if you're being honest, I think there's a lot of guys who listen to this

00:04:05.040 who would say, yeah, I made a decision this week or last week or last month or the beginning of

00:04:09.440 the year. And I feel good about it. But for a lot of men, that's actually a really hard question

00:04:14.720 to answer because most of us whether we're willing to admit it or not are constantly

00:04:22.300 looking for external validation before we move how does this manifest how does this show up for

00:04:30.320 you you know we we want somebody to tell us that we're on the right track we want permission from

00:04:36.160 somebody we want the approval of somebody and here's here's the thing about that i actually

00:04:41.320 understand that because i've been there and part of the reason is because when we pull other people

00:04:47.120 they give us our opinion if it doesn't work out then we can blame it on them so there's a little

00:04:51.560 bit of relinquishing of authority there but there's been moments in my life where i've known

00:04:58.140 what i've needed to do i've been 100 certain of what i've needed to do and then i still went out

00:05:04.780 there looking for somebody to uh co-sign i remember when i bought uh one of my very first

00:05:12.900 vehicles it's a 99 toyota tacoma and my mom at i was i was like 19 or 20 years old my mom my mom

00:05:22.780 co-signed on it now i've owned that vehicle for 26 years but i couldn't i couldn't own that myself

00:05:30.440 i wasn't in the financial position at 19 years old to do it so she co-signed and fortunately i was

00:05:36.700 able to pay it off and she made a good decision and i didn't i didn't dump it on her and i still

00:05:41.680 have that 99 toyota tacoma i'm bragging a little bit but we do that because it's sometimes a

00:05:48.740 necessity but in real life as we're adults we do it because it feels safer and it feels a little

00:05:55.500 less lonely um if it felt like if you know somebody else agreed with me then then i couldn't

00:06:03.700 be wrong i'm not the problem if somebody else agrees with me then i'm not the problem but

00:06:07.860 that's not really strength that's actually dependency and it will this is not hyperbole

00:06:15.540 it will quietly run your life potentially into the ground if you let it so what does this mean

00:06:23.940 what does inner authority actually mean i'll tell you what it's not it's not arrogance

00:06:28.060 it's not dismissing wisdom or refusing to take insight and counsel and ideas from your friends

00:06:36.020 because i want to be clear because some guys here you should just trust yourself and they

00:06:42.880 just take it as a license to stop listening to anybody in their life and that's not it that's

00:06:49.520 wisdom that is the antithesis of wisdom inner authority to me is when you start to internalize

00:06:57.260 the belief that you are the final word on your own life and i might lose some people on this

00:07:06.360 but i even want to explain this that it even i'm trying to think about the best way to say this in

00:07:13.420 a way that actually reflects what I mean. Because we have God's sovereignty and then we have our

00:07:19.960 own. When I wrote the book Sovereignty and I started to fall on hard times because I created

00:07:24.040 that, I almost wonder if I was being punished in some way. And I don't think God punishes that way,

00:07:30.200 but I almost wondered if I was being humbled. I'll say humbled because I had assumed that my

00:07:37.740 authority was greater than his and i don't but i still compete with that idea i compete with the

00:07:45.960 idea that his sovereignty is greater than mine because if god gave me the gift of agency

00:07:51.960 aren't i the one who's in charge of my life now i can give my life back to him but i do that

00:07:59.180 with my own control so i believe even as a christian that you are the final word you are

00:08:07.380 the final authority on your life. And you might make some bad decisions that would condemn you

00:08:14.300 eternally. I've made bad decisions, hopefully nothing that condemned me eternally,

00:08:19.600 but we have the freedom to do that as God has designed.

00:08:24.960 But what I want you to know is that after you've gathered all the information,

00:08:29.980 after you've consulted all the people that you respect, after you've thought it through,

00:08:34.760 after you've prayed and pondered and pontificated and read scripture and consulted with your creator

00:08:40.180 about it, that decision is yours. It is a God-given right that the decision to run your

00:08:48.200 life is yours. And that can be really scary because if it's our decision, then it's also

00:08:55.320 ours to mess up. And that's where guys go wrong. The accountability is yours. The direction is

00:09:03.380 yours. It's really the difference between a man who listens to input and a man who just requires

00:09:11.800 permission. When I talk about things I'm doing in my life with business partners or my kids or other

00:09:18.620 people who are impacted by decisions I'm making, I'm not asking for their permission. I'm coordinating

00:09:24.040 with them. I'm looking for input. I care about their opinion, contrary to what popular culture

00:09:29.660 tells you popular culture would say well it's my decision i'm just gonna do whatever the f i want

00:09:33.780 if they don't like it well that's on them no that's not how men behave because i care about

00:09:38.760 the people who will be impacted by the inner authority that i have and a man who has that

00:09:45.660 inner authority or that sovereignty can actually sit across from somebody maybe it's his wife or

00:09:51.160 his kids or his business partners or clients and disagree. He can hold disagreement. He can be

00:10:01.860 critiqued. He can get darts thrown at him and still not fall apart. Can you do that? I'm not

00:10:08.620 condemning you. I'm just asking, can you do that? Can you hear criticism without crumbling?

00:10:13.780 can you hear praise while accepting it but not needing it because your sense of yourself isn't

00:10:23.320 outsourced to other people i said a long time ago that not everyone who criticizes you is your enemy

00:10:30.500 and not everyone who praises you is your ally

00:10:34.240 but if you've outsourced your sovereignty then it'll feel like that is because most men are

00:10:41.780 living on the opposite end of that spectrum. And they don't even realize it. They think they're

00:10:47.020 autonomous. They think they have control over their life. They think they're making their own

00:10:50.840 calls. But if they pay attention and they really dig deep into their life, they'll notice how much

00:10:56.760 of what they do is performed for an audience. And I've been guilty of this, especially in the

00:11:03.320 throes of social media. It's so easy to dictate what I want to talk about based on what I think

00:11:09.620 everybody will cheer and clap for. And it's taken a lot of maturity and a lot of years of

00:11:15.080 being praised and being criticized to realize that I just want to share the things I think

00:11:19.400 will help you. I had a guy reach out the other day and he said, Hey, you know, I can't believe

00:11:24.700 you have, uh, who was it? Mark Driscoll on the podcast. This guy's evil and this guy's horrible

00:11:30.760 and that's wrong. And this is wrong. It's like, dude, go find another platform. I'm not even 0.96

00:11:35.120 angry. I'm not even bothered, but just go find another platform that fits with your current

00:11:40.920 narrative. If you don't agree with what I'm doing, that's fine. Go find something that will serve you

00:11:47.620 well. And that's what I want for you. That's what I want for guys that don't even resonate with what

00:11:52.120 they're doing or what we're doing. I just want them to be happy and satisfied. I want them to

00:11:57.240 be fulfilled. I want them to be better men. I want them to live more enriched lives, but I'm also

00:12:02.960 not here to perform as, as the little, you know, the circus monkey or the clapping and barking

00:12:09.500 seal, because he's going to be fed a little praise and a little fish here and there. I,

00:12:14.820 I'm not interested in that. I want to do what I think will be the best for everybody else. Now,

00:12:21.340 feedback is good. Criticism is good if it's constructive and I'll take that,

00:12:25.100 but i don't want to do things for other people and i think this is really where it begins to

00:12:34.420 break down for guys so so the question is how does a man how does he begin to lose his inner

00:12:42.260 authority because i i don't i was gonna say i don't think in fact i know most of us are born

00:12:50.960 without it think about when you were born you didn't have any control over your hands that's 0.50

00:12:59.300 why you're as a as a little toddler and an infant you're whacking yourself in your face and you're

00:13:04.280 scratching your eyes with your fingernails and you're just waiting for you know mom to feed you

00:13:10.040 but i think it gets conditioned out of us

00:13:13.640 and it starts really really young because you had instincts as a as a kid

00:13:21.240 you were born with an innate sense of what felt right and what felt wrong and then somewhere along

00:13:28.740 the way you were told by your mom by your dad by your friends by your school teachers by your

00:13:35.900 church counselors by your priest by your pastor by whoever was in authority over you either directly

00:13:42.980 or indirectly that your instincts were wrong that maybe you were too much maybe you're just

00:13:50.180 too sensitive maybe you're too aggressive maybe you're too ambitious maybe you're too selfish

00:13:57.100 to whatever fill in the blank all of you heard that and then you started to distrust yourself

00:14:04.260 and your creator because he's whispering things to you

00:14:07.500 instead of looking inward to what you felt intuitively

00:14:13.400 and what God was speaking into you,

00:14:17.280 you started to look outward.

00:14:21.120 You started to tune into the signal

00:14:24.420 that society was operating on

00:14:28.160 instead of the divine signal

00:14:31.280 we all should have been paying attention to.

00:14:33.640 and the institutions got a hold of you right school got a hold of you church got a hold of you

00:14:42.680 the entertainment industry got a hold of you corporate culture got a hold of you

00:14:49.160 and these systems and i'm not saying they're all bad by the way i talk often about the importance

00:14:55.340 of not only spirituality but a religion and a lot of people disagree with me on that

00:14:58.800 not a huge fan of public indoctrination systems but education is important so i'm not saying

00:15:05.300 they're all bad but these systems they're fundamentally built to reward you being in

00:15:12.460 compliance just keep your head down follow the rules don't rock the boat don't wake make waves

00:15:20.220 color inside the lines and for a lot of men by the time they're adults 16 17 18 19 20 years old

00:15:28.100 they've spent two decades of their lives being trained trained like that circus monkey

00:15:34.740 that the right answer comes from some external source

00:15:39.780 and then you have relationships and this one hits close to home for a lot of guys

00:15:47.200 because slowly over time in the name of keeping peace with people we start deferring

00:15:55.580 be honest have you done this have you stopped voicing your real opinion with your wife

00:16:03.040 have you ever felt a time where you just stopped pushing back and you said yeah whatever

00:16:08.960 like whatever it's not worth it and what we do is we rationalize it as being good partners

00:16:15.500 being flexible being easy to get along with being kind and nice but at some point

00:16:21.380 the the indifference that we have becomes our default mode of living and then you wake up one

00:16:30.280 day and you don't even know what you think anymore it's been stripped away from you because you've

00:16:38.040 been so focused on managing everybody else's reaction to you what do they think what do they

00:16:45.340 think what does this person think how will this person respond if i say this i don't want to upset

00:16:48.840 them i don't want to bother them and what we do is we just put the handcuffs on right it's like

00:16:55.020 here you who i've given all of my authority over to whether it's school or a partner or my children

00:17:02.360 or my boss it's like here you might as well just give them your wrist and let them shackle you

00:17:08.740 in their chains and i don't think these people are necessarily malicious but if you let it happen

00:17:14.880 by default. It will happen. And I'm not interested in being shackled by that. I'm not interested

00:17:19.780 in dimming my light because somebody else can't handle it or somebody else is intimidated by it

00:17:27.040 or somebody else is threatened by it. Be threatened. Be intimidated. Disagree.

00:17:35.020 Go find something else. And that's completely acceptable. I don't think you're a bad person,

00:17:40.420 but I'm not changing what I believe just because you might be upset now if I have good information

00:17:46.940 to expand my perspective I'll take that but I'm not giving it to you and then there's social media

00:17:55.960 which is basically just this this industrial scaled machine for destroying your authority

00:18:09.320 and and i'm part of social media we have a big following on social media we have

00:18:14.940 literally millions of men across the world who follow us now and what i see is that every single

00:18:22.060 post is a bid for external validation every like every comment every share it's just that little

00:18:28.580 bit of dopamine that feels so good and it trains me and it trains you to keep performing like the

00:18:35.600 clapping seal and again i say this as somebody who runs a large social media presence for a living

00:18:42.660 and i understand the utility of it it's a tool i understand that but i have to constantly remind

00:18:48.840 myself to know what it's doing to me if i'm not careful about it and it's important that we talk

00:18:58.900 about what it's costing us because it is and it's not abstract it's not hyperbole this is showing up

00:19:06.260 in your life right now if you're giving away your inner authority the most obvious that comes to

00:19:12.260 mind for me is indecision because when you don't trust yourself every single decision becomes a

00:19:18.160 negotiation simple things become complicated how many times have you heard people say well it's

00:19:23.600 not that simple or maybe it is well you know ryan it's not always so black and white maybe in this

00:19:31.060 case it is maybe we tend to complicate things so we can excuse ourselves from action

00:19:40.180 so ask yourself honestly am i an overthinker do i stall do i wait

00:19:49.060 you know i talked with a couple of guys this morning in one of our groups

00:19:53.800 and we were talking about their goals and specifically regarding fitness and one of

00:19:59.760 them said hey i really need to do that what does that mean i really need to do that

00:20:05.780 on the surface it sounds like oh okay he's going to do it that's not what that means

00:20:11.260 that's the trick that's the trap i really need to do that let's dissect that phrase for a minute

00:20:18.240 I need to is different than I will, which is different than I am.

00:20:26.340 So don't let your friends tell you, oh, you know what? Yeah, my health is really important. And

00:20:31.440 then you tell them, cool, let's go train. Let's go eat better. And they say, yeah,

00:20:34.980 I really need to do that. And then you say to them, cool, good job, buddy. No, not good job.

00:20:42.540 You didn't do anything. You didn't even commit to anything. You just said, I need to do that.

00:20:47.620 there's a lot of things i need to do that i know i won't so let's be a little bit more deliberate

00:20:53.480 with our words but the deeper cost i think the one that most men feel the weight of but probably

00:21:03.460 talk about the least is the resentment that builds up and it really does this is where a lot of our

00:21:10.460 young men are right now is they're so controlled by culture and by the government and academia and

00:21:16.680 the medical community and entertainment and and the man the authority that they're just they end

00:21:23.420 up resenting every single person whose approval they were chasing it's the boss that you don't

00:21:32.540 like but you're mad because he doesn't recognize you it's it's your wife who you're frustrated with

00:21:39.500 but you're frustrated because she doesn't seem to respect you

00:21:46.680 It's family, even extended family

00:21:49.240 who questions every decision you make,

00:21:51.460 but you still run your decisions through them.

00:21:55.120 And so here's the truth.

00:21:56.560 You handed those people the power.

00:21:58.500 You made their opinions matter more than your own.

00:22:02.840 And now you're angry at them for holding their opinion

00:22:06.260 that you gave to them.

00:22:10.520 And then there's the hollowness.

00:22:12.100 it's the guy and this has been me for sure it's the guy who looks successful from the outside

00:22:20.360 but he feels like a fraud he feels like a like an imposter

00:22:26.340 like a phony on the inside he's achieved everything that he wanted

00:22:32.460 everybody says how great and wonderful he is and oh man you must live a blessed life and a charmed

00:22:38.940 life and you're so lucky, but he still feels like something's missing. And that's, that's an inner

00:22:44.900 authority problem. Because when you build your life based on what other people expect or demand

00:22:50.220 of you or told you what was worth building, you end up living somebody else's dream. I see this

00:22:56.140 all the time on social media. Guys are like, well, Jocko Willing gets up at 434. I don't care what

00:23:00.920 Jocko does. If that works for him and it motivates me to live a better life, great. Do I need to

00:23:06.720 wake up at 4.34 or whatever? No. Well, Cameron Haynes, he runs a marathon every single day.

00:23:13.920 That's awesome. Cool for Cam. I'm not even downplaying that. If that's what he's into,

00:23:19.580 that's great. Not me. Well, David Goggins says, I don't care.

00:23:26.420 I don't care how hard he is or who's going to lift the boats. What I care about is how does

00:23:31.760 their message fit into the vision I have for myself well Andy Frisilla does 75 hard that's

00:23:39.560 cool if that's an alignment with what you want that helps you that's great and if it's not do

00:23:44.740 60 hard doesn't get the inspiration the motivation but you don't need to lean fully into what me or

00:23:55.540 Andy or Cam or Joe Rogan or Jordan Peterson or Jocko or any of these people are doing

00:24:00.080 get the inspiration and then make your own decisions and and i want to share something

00:24:07.200 pretty personal here because i well i hope it'll land better than any like theorizing that i that

00:24:14.040 i can give you um there there was a period of my life and and i really won't get into the details

00:24:19.760 here but i was at a crossroads with this movement uh with the direction that i wanted to take it

00:24:27.680 And I had, I had a lot of people around me, people that I respected and people whose opinions I really valued telling me to go one way, telling me to do it this way, telling me like all the things that people tell you and everything inside of me, every little fiber of my being was saying, don't do that.

00:24:49.660 Don't do that.

00:24:51.040 Do something different.

00:24:54.800 And so I waited, I sat on it.

00:24:56.820 I kept going back to the conversations, trying to find the answer and somebody else's

00:25:01.500 certainty, you know, they had their testimonial of what was so right.

00:25:06.620 And so I kind of leaned to that and what I eventually realized, and I'm glad I did,

00:25:11.280 that I was doing that because it felt a whole lot safer to be wrong

00:25:16.440 on somebody else's advice than it was to be wrong on my own instincts.

00:25:24.600 because at least then i had somewhere to point the finger right we talked about this

00:25:30.280 and that's the trap we outsource our decisions so we can outsource what the blame because when

00:25:38.560 you win you don't outsource the winning you don't say oh that guy told me and so that's why i'm so

00:25:43.940 successful no what you do is you outsource the blame and when you win you take it upon yourself

00:25:48.460 But what if you took the blame and the burden?

00:25:53.620 The beauty of that idea is that you never have to fully own it.

00:25:57.820 And then I finally made my call, my call, my decision.

00:26:01.540 And it wasn't perfect.

00:26:03.560 And not everything has worked out.

00:26:05.700 And in some ways, I'm thinking, man, I could have done this or this or this or this or take that person's advice.

00:26:09.940 But it was mine.

00:26:11.620 It was my decision.

00:26:13.700 And there's pride that comes with that.

00:26:16.460 And something shifted in me.

00:26:18.460 not because it worked out necessarily but because i stopped waiting for somebody else to give me

00:26:25.220 permission to do and be what i already knew i wanted to do and be that's what inner authority

00:26:31.460 feels like and that's how it feels when you start getting it back so how do you build it

00:26:36.440 and i want to be practical my friday field notes are be about being practical because i don't want

00:26:42.560 to just pontificate on philosophy i want this is something that you can actually start working on

00:26:47.640 is first to make small decisions when you're trying to reclaim inner authority you can't

00:26:54.380 always make those big decisions right now and feel totally comfortable with it so you have

00:26:58.260 to make small decisions it's built through reps you're not going to wake up one day and suddenly

00:27:04.880 trust yourself completely you build it by making calls really small calls and then just owning the

00:27:11.140 outcome you probably have often heard that god's instruction to you is a small whisper it's a small

00:27:22.580 voice and i believe that if we listen to those small voices not the loud boisterous posturing

00:27:29.600 ones but the small voices that are true and accurate and come to us with the right intention

00:27:36.460 that those voices become louder but you can do this with little things like where to eat

00:27:43.420 if your wife says hey where would you like to eat tonight just tell her i want to have sushi or i

00:27:48.600 want to have a steak or i want to have a subway sandwich or like whatever your thing is just tell

00:27:53.260 her one of my pet peeves is i have people who want to set appointments and they'll they'll send

00:28:00.240 me a message and they're like hey i'd love to set an appointment with you i'm like cool i'm available

00:28:03.120 on friday and they're like well i'm available on friday at from noon to two and then from four to

00:28:10.240 seven and then from three to six it's like does some time in there work for you don't do that

00:28:15.180 move it along so if you say hey i'd like to meet you and i say i'm available friday say it's cool

00:28:22.320 i'm available at one or three what works best for you do you see the difference it's subtle

00:28:26.340 but it's significant maybe it's what project you want to take on maybe it's how to handle a

00:28:35.140 certain conversation you need just stop pulling people in the room stop asking like what should

00:28:40.660 i do what no you you already know just decide live with it repeat it all right number two

00:28:47.420 stop explaining yourself to everybody

00:28:50.560 notice how often insecure men over justify decisions they're making

00:28:57.960 you make a choice and then you immediately start telling people why you made the choice and laying

00:29:06.900 out all of your reasoning and making the case and defending your position they never asked for any

00:29:11.440 of that but you do it some of that is communication and i get it some people need to be aware of that

00:29:15.800 but a lot of it is you looking for somebody to agree with you so you can feel okay like oh

00:29:24.440 please tell me i did the right thing please tell me i'm okay just make your decisions and let them

00:29:32.260 stand on the foundation of the decision you made you don't owe every single person

00:29:38.180 a college level dissertation on your choices. I don't need to tell you why I can't do something

00:29:49.500 this weekend. I don't need to explain to every person why I did that project. People will do

00:29:57.940 this on social media and they'll, they'll make comments about my business or my movement.

00:30:03.420 And they'll say, well, you know, Ryan, you should do this. And then I can't believe you're doing

00:30:06.160 this. And then I catch myself trying to defend my position as if I owe that person a response.

00:30:13.320 I don't. And we have to get okay with that. The next is get alone. Just be alone. Be alone and

00:30:21.640 get quiet with yourself. Because if you can't hear your own voice and God's voice, if you're

00:30:26.620 constantly plugged into social media and friends and influences and entertainment and the media

00:30:33.260 constantly consuming constantly in conversation you're you're not going to hear anything you

00:30:39.900 need silence you need solitude not not forever but just enough to remember

00:30:46.100 who you actually are when nobody else is around you when no one else is influencing it

00:30:54.260 drive down the road without listening to a podcast i'm calling you out if you're listening

00:31:00.500 and you're driving right now, sit with your thoughts, journal.

00:31:04.460 I've got my journal here that I write in every day, write in it.

00:31:10.820 Sit alone with yourself.

00:31:13.240 Whatever it is for you, create space that you can hear yourself

00:31:16.660 and you can hear God.

00:31:19.240 Fourth, do really difficult things in private.

00:31:23.280 This one's underrated.

00:31:24.520 When no one's watching, when no one's clapping,

00:31:26.680 when no one's cheering you on, when no one's going to post about it,

00:31:29.200 who are you then?

00:31:30.500 it's the workout that you might do alone it's the discipline that you maintain getting up on time

00:31:36.740 not hitting snooze when there's no accountability partner to make sure you did it's the integrity

00:31:43.020 you hold when it costs you and no one else will ever know about it those private reps those count

00:31:50.700 more because they require more and that's where i believe inner authority really gets built

00:31:59.700 fifth disagree out loud start small you don't need to like be contentious or be the the

00:32:08.540 the guy who has a an opinion about everything or the contrarian just if somebody says something

00:32:17.140 that you don't agree with just say so respectfully calmly but just say it stop nodding yeah

00:32:23.640 no you don't agree with it don't say you agree with it if you don't and don't make this motion

00:32:29.440 up and down if you don't agree with it because every time you swallow a real opinion you have

00:32:34.740 to manage somebody else's reaction to you just chip away at your own foundation every time you

00:32:40.480 say what you actually think about things you get to build it back and and we do that with

00:32:45.960 discernment like i said you're not going to be a contrarian just just for the sake of being devil's

00:32:51.840 advocate but if somebody says something you disagree with i think it's okay in the right

00:32:56.460 context to say, hey, actually, I see it a little different. Here's how I see it. What do you think?

00:33:03.240 You can do that respectfully. And here's the last point I want to make with you. So in the sixth

00:33:08.780 point, track your wins. I've struggled with this one because I just get on with the next thing.

00:33:18.240 I want you to stop waiting for external validation or acknowledgement of your growth.

00:33:22.880 i i don't need you to keep a scorecard of what your wife said about how good you were or your

00:33:29.820 kids how much they congratulated you or how many social media followers you have keep your own

00:33:36.260 scorecard write down your progress know what you've done know what you've overcome you don't

00:33:41.000 even need to explain it you don't need to tell people what you've overcome

00:33:45.440 you know and that's what matters if the only win that you have in your life

00:33:52.760 that feels real are the ones that other people have noticed and acknowledged, you've given them

00:33:58.180 way too much power over your life. It's kind of like the thing, if there's not pictures or you

00:34:02.800 didn't post it on social media, it didn't happen. We joke and laugh about that, but we all engage in

00:34:07.580 it. How many moments do you have that are private moments of wins and celebrations that you don't

00:34:15.040 need other people to be involved with? How many experiences have you had with your kids and your

00:34:20.900 wife and your friends and your clients where you didn't post about it. I know that's rich coming

00:34:27.600 from me because I do that every day, but it's something I contend with. So here's what I want

00:34:35.080 to leave you with today, guys. Inner authority isn't something you're going to find here on

00:34:40.280 this podcast. Like you're not going to listen to this and automatically have inner authority

00:34:44.340 or read in the book sovereignty or get from a coach or a mentor those things can point you to

00:34:51.720 it right they can give you direction but the thing itself that that bedrock that foundational sense

00:34:57.520 that you know who you are and and that you trust yourself to navigate your own life

00:35:04.240 that only comes from doing the work and i want to tell you this you're an expert at this already

00:35:10.000 And if you don't believe that, I want you to consider that you're still here and you've overcome bankruptcy and losses of jobs and divorces and breakups and separations and difficult conversations and medical complications and car accidents.

00:35:33.780 You've dealt with that all and you're still here, which means you're capable of dealing with it.

00:35:40.000 I want you to make decisions and own them.

00:35:43.700 I want you to hold your ground even when it costs you.

00:35:48.260 I want you to be honest about yourself and where you're outsourcing your life.

00:35:54.660 Because the guy who has that, the man who has that, he's genuinely hard to manipulate.

00:35:59.560 He's a strong man.

00:36:00.540 He's hard to rattle.

00:36:01.580 He's hard to stop.

00:36:02.740 He's relentless because he's not performing for the validation of other people.

00:36:07.140 he's not waiting for somebody else to say yep it's okay let me give you a little permission

00:36:11.780 slip to go ahead and do that he knows his own mind he trusts his own judgment and then he moves

00:36:19.920 through life with that in mind that's the work guys that's what we're trying to build here

00:36:26.140 i was having a good call with some of my team leaders today inside the iron council

00:36:30.300 and one of the guys said what's great about what we're doing in this organization is that i'm not

00:36:35.400 telling you what to do. I'm just giving you some frameworks for building your own life,

00:36:40.780 what we call inner authority. So if you're interested in getting some of those frameworks,

00:36:46.020 you're interested in having some of these conversations, you're interested in being

00:36:49.240 directed and pointed and then having some accountability in your life, but still being

00:36:53.440 the author of your own life, please join me this month in the iron council. That's our exclusive

00:36:58.040 brotherhood. And you're going to find a thousand plus other men who are doing this work and want

00:37:04.620 to walk with you and doing your own work so go to order of man.com slash iron council or if you

00:37:10.500 want i'm going to pull up my calendar here real quick we're doing a preview call on let me pull

00:37:16.160 up my calendar um may 19th tuesday may 19th go to order of man doc excuse me go to the iron

00:37:26.680 council.com slash preview the iron council.com slash preview you get enrolled and signed up for

00:37:33.440 our preview call on may 19th at 8 p.m eastern i want hundreds and hundreds of guys there because

00:37:39.880 we're going to talk about inner authority and how we might be able to help navigate you to taking

00:37:45.100 more control of your life again theironcouncil.com slash preview may 19th 2026 i hope to see you

00:37:52.800 there until then i will be back next week chad robishaw is on the podcast and you're going to

00:37:59.300 get a great conversation between chad and myself all right guys theironcouncil.com slash preview

00:38:05.180 we'll see you next week until then go out there take action assume inner authority of your life

00:38:11.860 and become a man you thank you for listening to the order of man podcast you're ready to

00:38:18.800 take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be we invite you to join the

00:38:29.300 Thank you.

Order of Man - May 08, 2026

What Is Inner Authority (And How to Build It) ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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