When All Of Society is Lost, Create Your Own ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES
Episode Stats
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Summary
In this episode, I talk about the challenges we are facing in society today and how we can work together to restore masculinity in our society. I also talk about some strategies we can implement in order to be a better man.
Transcript
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The reality is, it's like you don't need to take a picture of everything.
00:00:06.640
You don't need to proclaim and profess to the world that you read a book to your daughter
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Let's spend less time focused on impressing other people and convincing other people that
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we're moral and good and righteous and instead be those kind of men who are deeply engaged
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with our wife, with our children, our significant others, other extended family members, and
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then of course it moves into community members as well.
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Does the elderly woman who's a widow need her lawn mowed next door?
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Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.
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When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.
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This is who you will become at the end of the day.
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And after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
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Men, if you're anything like me, you can obviously recognize that there are so many significant
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Ultimately, we're seeing a destruction and a degradation of cultural norms and traditions
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that have served us well throughout human history.
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And yet we have these pervasive and destructive ideologies that are threatening our way of
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And ultimately, we will not only reap the consequences of these ideologies, but our children will
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It's very frustrating because at times we think to ourselves, what can one man do when we see
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Well, the answer is not to focus on the macro, but to focus on the micro.
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Focusing on yourself, your family, your friends, friends, excuse me, colleagues, co-workers, and
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And it helps you have the maximum impact that you can.
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For the overwhelming majority of us, we can't have these huge social media followings that
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will impact millions and tens and hundreds of millions of people.
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But you can have a conversation with your daughter tonight.
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You can encourage your neighbor to live a better life.
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You can train your colleague or your co-worker to improve their financial awareness and financial
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And yet it's hard because we think that in order to be the men that we want to be, we
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need to impact the most amount of people possible.
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And while that's not entirely true, I would suggest that if we can go deep and we can really
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serve those smaller circles who we have an immense ability to serve and to lead and to train
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and to coach and to inspire, that's going to be significantly better than focusing on
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everybody, but not really getting any sort of impact with those individuals.
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Now, guys, I'm going to talk about some strategies for you.
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Before I do, I want to mention that we have our store is not only has it been open, but I
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We've got a huge inventory that just came in over the past several weeks.
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So we've got, I think, eight or nine shirts that have been completely restocked, two new
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We've got new hats, including this one that I'm wearing right here, the classic curve.
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And I believe five different color iterations and some other hats available to you.
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So if you want to support what we're doing here, which is to reclaim and restore masculinity,
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you can do that by going to store.orderofman.com and picking up your merchandise.
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I think I have the Be Unreasonable shirt on today.
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Picking up your merchandise, looking good in the process, letting people know what you're
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about, and then also supporting what we're doing here so we can continue to do it in large
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All right, guys, with that said, let me talk a little bit about society being lost.
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Again, as I said in the opener, we know you can recognize it.
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You see people who are depressed and anxious and suicidal.
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You see trans ideology permeating every fabric of society.
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You see the degradation and destruction of institutions that we once held dear, like church,
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for example, and even community programs that were designed specifically for boys and men.
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You see the rise in drugs and the epidemic of male loneliness.
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Lawlessness, a complete disregard for the American way of life.
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But ultimately, there is so much beyond our control that it becomes not a sense of hope
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and optimism, but a sense of frustration and even contention because we acknowledge the
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challenges and the issues that we see around us.
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And yet we feel like our hands are tied behind our backs, unable to do anything about it.
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What I would suggest in those cases is to not so much worry about society being lost, but
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worry about building your own society in the micro.
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I know that when I'm not doing what I know I ought to be doing, what I should be doing to
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work towards my goals, that I become more frustrated with external circumstances, things
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But when I'm doing the right things and I'm focused on myself, there's a lot more hope
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and optimism, and I'm better able to serve the people around me.
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So what I would suggest to you, and I wrote some things down here, these are not new things
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to you, but I really want you to take these 10 or so things to heart and ask yourself,
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maybe on a scale from 1 to 10, where you stand with each one of these things and how you
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A lot of the times we want to focus on what everybody else is doing, but we're not asking
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Do you have extra 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 pounds that you can get rid of?
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Even if you're stuck in an office, like I am most of the time, behind my desk and computer,
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I can still get down and I can crank out 20 pushups between podcast guests or between
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I have these TRX bands that I can throw in my door jam and I can do different shoulder
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movements, ab movements, chest workouts, lunges, different things that I can do because I have
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Uh, you just have to be willing to do it and acknowledging that if you want to improve
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society, then it starts with the lowest common denominator for all of us, which is ourselves.
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Uh, are you consuming way too much alcohol or doing other irreparable damage to your body
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by vaping or smoking or other drugs that you may ingest into your body?
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I'm not going to say that I'm the epitome of health when it comes to my diet, but I know
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that when I don't eat properly and correctly, and there's even certain foods that I've identified
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I lose energy and I'm not nearly as focused as I can be on myself and the people around
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So I have guests that I need to prepare for that have written books.
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And so I've always got a stack of books that I can read from, but guys go to your library,
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go to Barnes and Noble, whatever you need to do to get books in your hand.
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Even if you have to listen to them on your commute, that's fine.
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I don't think that's as advantageous as reading, actually reading a book.
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But if you have to listen to it on two times speed to get through it and crank it out on
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your commute, because you have an hour commute each way, by all means, whatever you can do
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This one's overlooked, especially in the self-help development world.
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So many of us are thinking to the things like, I can sleep when I'm dead and I don't need
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And we pride ourselves on not needing as much sleep as our bodies probably ought to have.
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It's, this is a hard one for me personally, but I know that when I go to bed on time and
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I have set up my bedroom, a conducive to getting a good night's rest, meaning no lights, completely
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Uh, temperature is where I want it to be distraction free.
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I wake up re-energized, rejuvenated, ready to take on the world and do what I need to
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What activities and interest are you participating in?
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Not for work, not for making money, not things necessarily, even with your family, all of those
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things are important, but what are you doing for yourself?
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Is it going on a hunt occasionally with some buddies?
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What do you find joy and value in that you're not necessarily making money from?
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You just do it because of the inherent value and joy that it brings into your life.
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And I would say these next three or four fall into the same category, but meditating, journaling,
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This is all tapping us into a power beyond ourselves, a greater power that can give us
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some context in the way that in which we're supposed to show up in life.
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But meditating, silence, quiet, turning the phone off, not having your kids bounce all
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over you or your wife asking you to do projects around the house, but just pure quietness, journaling,
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reflecting about your day, thinking about what you did, thinking about what you didn't do,
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thinking about how you'd like to improve and get better.
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Reading scriptures gives us a framework for the way in which we're meant to operate.
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These words are thousands of years old, and they're those words canon because they work
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Even from purely a secular standpoint, if you adhere to the principles taught in the Bible,
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for example, you are going to live a better life.
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We can extrapolate the religious and spiritual context of it.
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If you live by those precepts, you're going to have a better life.
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It's going to be more profitable, more fulfilling, more rewarding, more enjoyable, and you're going
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Tapping into God, tapping into his infinite wisdom and his power and allowing yourself to
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get to know him so that you can have some context in the way in which you're supposed
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You know, for a man, I think this is so crucial that we constantly work on developing and building
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As John Eldridge says in his book, Wild at Heart, he talks about the man's need to answer
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And we can't answer that question in the affirmative unless we're willing to develop and build new
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Whatever type of work you do, get the degrees, the credentials, whatever you need to be able
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All of these things are powerful, powerful leveraging tools for you to impact your own personal
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society, not necessarily the society as a whole.
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And by the way, as we think about trying to serve the greater good and society changing,
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that we can't ignore the fact that the most powerful thing that we can do is to have millions,
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tens, if not hundreds of millions of men focusing on themselves and their families and their friends.
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Imagine if instead of trying to go so broad and trying to save other people and rescue
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other people, we focused on fixing ourselves and those people around us.
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But there was tens, if not hundreds of millions of men doing that.
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And yet we're focused on the macro when we should be focused on the micro.
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Guys, next from there, we're talking about dealing with yourself.
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From there, you want to start working with your family, right?
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You've got a family, you've got a wife, you've got children, you've got extended family.
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Somewhere along the way, we decided that we're going to just completely erode and decimate
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the family unit as an integral part of a thriving society.
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And then we replaced it with big daddy government, right?
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The problem is, is that now everybody almost expects that the government come in to rescue
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Well, that's not really the way it's ever worked throughout human history.
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When an individual of the community or of the family had a problem, the family was to
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The people closest to that individual were to take care of it.
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And it's your job as a patriarch within your household to ensure that you have the means
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necessary to take care of not only yourself, but the people around you.
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Guys, if you can't take a little time off in the evenings to coach your son's baseball
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team or run your daughter to dance practice occasionally, there's a malfunction in the
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Now, that's not to say that you should be able to do that immediately today, but you ought
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Damn, you spend an inanimate amount of time focused on serving your clients and strangers
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and your boss, and yet we'd never consider that maybe the best thing that we can do with
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our time is to go coach that little league team or to wake up early and go work out with
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your son or daughter or to spend a little time reading to them at night.
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I know it doesn't feel as great in your life because nobody's going to see that on this
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stupid little device that we call our phones and social media.
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You know, you often hear the adage, if there's no pics, it didn't happen.
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Well, it's funny, it's cute, it's clever, but the reality is, it's like you don't need to
00:14:43.560
You don't need to proclaim and profess to the world that you read a book to your daughter
00:14:51.020
Let's spend less time focused on impressing other people and convincing other people that
00:14:57.360
we're moral and good and righteous, and instead be those kind of men who are deeply engaged
00:15:02.320
with our wife, with our children, our significant others, other extended family members, and
00:15:07.680
then of course it moves into community members as well.
00:15:10.640
Does the elderly woman who's a widow need her lawn mowed next door?
00:15:19.340
You know, you see these pictures often where there's two lawns, for example, right next
00:15:25.460
to each other, butted up, and there's no fence in between neighbors, and you'll see a neighbor
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who will literally mow his own lawn, and they'll create a line because they won't mow into their
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neighbor's yard, and there's a lot of reasons for that.
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Obviously, there's some context behind that, but don't be that kind of neighbor, or the one
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I often get a kick out of is the flight of stairs.
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You know, from the front door down, it's five, six, seven steps, and you can see that there's
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some snow, and on half of that step, it's only about three feet wide, so about a foot
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One thing I really actually enjoyed when I was going through harsh Maine winters is my
00:16:13.080
son and I would get in the snow plow, and I would plow my driveway, and we would get
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in the plow, and we would drive around, and we would see if there was anybody who needed
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help, and sometimes we'd see people out there with their shovels and their hand pushing snow
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off their driveway, and we would just pull up and say, hey, can we just plow this real quick
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Man, they were so grateful, and it was such a good time between my son and I.
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We'd go do that, we'd help a half a dozen people out, and then we'd go get a drink,
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It took us a couple of hours, maybe every Saturday morning or something like that, but
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it was such a fun thing to do, and it was such a great way to give back to the community
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If I'm a neighbor in that community, those people are under my care.
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Imagine if instead of asking the president to do something to save all of us and fix all
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We just decided to save ourselves, to serve ourselves, to lead other people, to communicate
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effectively with our neighbors, to get to know your neighbors for crying out loud, to
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understand what they're going through and what they're dealing with, and be excited when their
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kids graduate high school or college, and go to their kids' games, and have barbecues,
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and play together, and go on dates with your significant other and their significant other, and just
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get to know each other, and serve, and lead, and guide, and coach, and help, and this is how
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We've become so large as a society and so connected through, again, these little devices that we
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have such a difficult time connecting with a person right next door to you, the person
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that could possibly make a huge and tremendous impact in your life because you're worried about
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the stranger who lives in Bangladesh, who you've never met, and trying to impress that person.
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So we've got ourselves, we've got our family, we've got our friends, and now we can move into
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the realm of helping our colleagues and co-workers.
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Guys, how much time per day do you spend going into the office, spending time with your colleagues
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and co-workers, even on a lunch break, you're spending time with those individuals?
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Man, stop with the competition, stop with the gossiping, and the undermining, and just the
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toxicity that comes with so many work environments.
00:18:32.880
Man, be that guy, the guy who goes out and leads, the guy who serves, the guys who offer
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time, and his resources, and his energy, who has an abundance mentality, who isn't afraid
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that just because he helps Joe get something that he wants, that he can't get what he wants
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There might be isolated events and experiences where that does happen, but over the long
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haul, you're going to be better off when you serve other people with an abundance mindset
00:19:00.640
as opposed to being scarce and believing that just because somebody gets theirs that you
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I don't believe that's the way life works, maybe at a time, and maybe in certain aspects
00:19:11.660
But for the most part, when I can help somebody through an introduction or have somebody on a
00:19:16.300
podcast to offer to help them promote their book or their product or their service, or
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to jump on the call with one of my Iron Council members because they're having a hard time and
00:19:25.580
walk them through whatever they're dealing with or just be a sounding board for them,
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yeah, sure, there's some investment in that, some time, some energy, some resources, but
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I've got a podcast with him coming out next week that you ought to make sure you subscribe
00:19:45.520
to, and he was talking about this, just the ability to help other people, the ability
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to serve and lead and guide and coach and instruct, man, it's a beautiful thing, and
00:20:01.920
We talked a little bit more about it, whether it's karma or the natural law of the universe
00:20:07.660
or a divine being like God, which is what I believe, it will be paid back to you tenfold
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And then the last thing I would say here is community.
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So you've got yourself, you've got your family, you've got friends, you've got neighborhood,
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then you've got your business, colleagues, clients, coworkers, and then you have your
00:20:35.480
How are you helping your other LEOs and firefighters?
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Are you donating your time and money to charitable organizations that you believe in?
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Are you running for office, city council or mayor?
00:20:52.240
If you're not, and you're more worried about what's going on at the state level or more
00:20:56.380
worried about what's going on at the federal level than what you are worried about going
00:20:59.840
on in the city or county level, I would say your priorities are off a little bit.
00:21:04.120
I'm not saying we shouldn't focus on those things.
00:21:06.140
We should, but we should also make sure that we're focusing on the smallest metric and unit
00:21:11.800
possible, which is what's happening in our communities.
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Are you donating your time and money and energy?
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Guys, these things are so much more powerful than worrying about what's going on at the federal
00:21:26.280
And trust me, I'm not telling you to be ignorant about it.
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I'm not telling you to ignore what's going on at the federal level.
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But I'm just suggesting to you that if we as men want to make the type of impact I believe
00:21:38.300
all of us do, then we need to do it where our resources are going to be best put to use.
00:21:44.840
And that's coaching your eight-year-old son's baseball team.
00:21:51.640
That's skill acquisition and development for yourself so you can go out and serve other
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That's helping the guy who's in the cubicle next to you deal with whatever he's dealing
00:22:04.640
And not ironically, we'll be able to move the needle more.
00:22:08.780
I'm not interested in having one guy serve 3 million or 30 million people broadly and
00:22:20.640
I'm interested in having 10, 30, 100 million men all serving the 5 to 10 people closest
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And that's my call to you today, the guys who listen to this podcast, is first, share this
00:22:40.040
If there's 100,000 of us listening to this podcast today, I would like this podcast to
00:22:48.760
Help as many men with the tools and resources that we can, and then they can go out and
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serve their families, friends, colleagues, coworkers, community members, and neighbors.
00:23:01.240
We can't sit by and watch this culture just slip away from us and continue to be eroded
00:23:08.180
The best way to do it is fix yourself and fix those closest around you.
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If you have other ideas on how to do this, this is a brotherhood.
00:23:22.260
And also, in the meantime, guys, I've said this before.
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When you have something of value, we have a moral obligation to share it with those who
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will be positively impacted by what it is that we have.
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That's the Order of Man podcast, and that's the Order of Man movement.
00:23:36.040
If you've ever gained any value from this, at a minimum, please leave a rating and review
00:23:40.320
because that's a grassroots movement type action where people will begin to see that
00:23:45.500
you are writing a review and more people will be exposed to what we're doing.
00:23:49.260
And also, I would suggest that you just take a screenshot or copy the link of this podcast,
00:23:54.280
whether you're listening on Apple or Spotify or wherever you might listen, and share this
00:24:00.300
There are men, brothers, cousins, colleagues, coworkers, friends, coaches, mentors who need to
00:24:07.340
And if we have access to it, then we have a moral responsibility to share what could
00:24:15.480
Let's continue to this mission of reclaiming and restoring masculinity in a society that
00:24:21.280
But we know better, and we know what the people around us want, and it's our job to do it.
00:24:25.920
All right, guys, we'll be back next week with my interview with Bedros Koulian.
00:24:29.460
Until then, go out there, take action, and become the man you are meant to be.
00:24:33.240
Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.
00:24:40.660
If you're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you are meant to be,
00:24:44.700
we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.