Order of Man - When Vision Becomes Reality ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

00:00:00.000 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart

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

00:00:10.440 You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong. This is your life. This is who

00:00:17.160 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.700 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler,

00:00:27.480 and I am your host and the founder of the Order of Men podcast. If you're new to what we're doing

00:00:33.300 here, this is a movement dedicated and designed to help reclaim and restore masculinity in this

00:00:39.720 society that is weak and cowardly and pathetic and overly effeminate. And it's my job to give

00:00:46.240 you the tools and the conversations and resources to equip you as men to lead your families, lead

00:00:52.120 yourselves, lead your communities, lead your business and your neighbors well. So we have

00:00:57.340 this conversation here, the Friday Field Notes, where you get to hear some of my thoughts from

00:01:00.620 throughout the week. We've got our interview show where I interview guys like Mike Chandler,

00:01:05.520 David Goggins, Jocko Willink, Andrew Vassila, Tim Kennedy, John Eldridge. I could go on and on and

00:01:12.040 on. I think we're up to almost 800 episodes at this point. And then of course we do our Ask Me

00:01:16.960 with my co-host and friend, Kip Sorensen. So make sure if you're just tuning in for the first time,

00:01:22.440 or if you haven't done this yet, go in and leave a rating review. I think we've got, I don't know,

00:01:28.060 6,000, 7,000 ratings. Let's bump those up. Those are rookie numbers, right? Let's bump those up to

00:01:33.080 10,000. And all it would take is a handful of you or a small percentage of you going in and leaving the

00:01:41.980 rating and review on iTunes or Spotify or Stitcher or Pandora or wherever, wherever you're

00:01:48.580 doing the podcast thing. All right, guys, with all that said, no other announcements. I want to get

00:01:54.300 into something that gets brought up quite often. And that's this concept of vision. Now I'm talking

00:02:01.080 with you about this because we have a program called 30 Days to Battle Ready. 30 Days to Battle

00:02:07.940 Ready. It's a free program. It's a series of emails that you receive over 30 days that are going to

00:02:13.020 help you elevate your life and your performance and produce maximum results. And the first component

00:02:19.820 of it is vision. So I ask every single person that signs up for this program. And by the way,

00:02:24.780 if you're interested, you can do that at orderofman.com slash battle ready, orderofman.com

00:02:29.680 slash battle ready. But I ask every single one of the guys who joins this program, what they're

00:02:34.460 struggling with most right now. And one of the most overwhelming answers that I receive is that

00:02:40.460 men are struggling with their vision, what they want to create, what they want their life to look

00:02:44.760 like. And so that's the first thing that we go through. And then what we do over a course of 30

00:02:49.300 days is work them into turning their vision into a reality. And isn't that what we all want? I mean,

00:02:56.620 we all have vision. I've never met a single man who didn't have some sort of aspiration or goal

00:03:01.820 for the future, whether that's big and audacious and huge, or whether it's, you know, a small little

00:03:08.300 incremental growth. All of us have an idea of what the future might look like, but why is it then

00:03:13.780 that? So if you do anything about it and there's only those select few who actually do, and they move

00:03:18.760 the needle and they move in the right direction. And that's because there's three points that I want

00:03:23.160 to share with you today that I've identified that all of my guests have incorporated in their lives

00:03:27.800 in order to move their vision into a reality. And that's what you want. You don't want to sit

00:03:36.720 around and daydream and think about how good things can be without actually working towards those

00:03:41.700 things. In fact, the most depressed and down I've been in my life is the moments when I thought

00:03:47.720 highly of what my future might hold, but there was a great discrepancy between that and the work that

00:03:53.740 I was actually doing to achieve those results. And the wider that gap is, I call it the integrity

00:03:59.000 gap. The wider that gap is the more headache and frustration, contention, despair that you will

00:04:07.440 experience. And if you're in the midst of that right now, you probably know exactly what I'm talking

00:04:11.300 about, or perhaps you've been in that position in the past. I don't want you to be there guys.

00:04:17.160 I want you to turn your vision into a reality. So for the sake of just getting into it, let's talk

00:04:21.240 about it. Number one, I want you to dream big, but work small dream big, but work small little

00:04:29.420 counterintuitive, not the dream big part. Everybody talks about that. You got to dream big. You got to

00:04:33.700 have these big, hairy, audacious goals. And you do. And I think that's important. I think it's

00:04:38.440 important that you really think about your life in the most opportunistic grand way, because if you're

00:04:47.520 going to think about your life in any way, it might as well be the biggest, the best, the most

00:04:51.080 wonderful, the one where you create the most prosperity for yourself and the people that

00:04:55.100 you care about. So keep dreaming, dream big. Now, once you start having these dreams, it's not

00:05:02.000 enough just to sit around in fantasy land and just pontificate on what could be, you actually have

00:05:07.900 to put it into work. But what I see a lot of guys do is they'll dream so big that they think their

00:05:12.900 actions need to be big as well. That if they don't hit the grand slam or the home run, then it's not

00:05:17.880 worth doing it all. Well, that isn't true. The most successful people in the world. And again,

00:05:22.560 I've identified this because I've had hundreds and hundreds of podcasts with extremely successful

00:05:26.660 men is they work small. And that doesn't mean that the work they do is insignificant. It means that

00:05:33.620 they're working on small little daily actions that are going to inevitably over the course of 30 days,

00:05:41.420 90 days, 365 days, 3000 days, 10,000 days, et cetera, will produce and yield the biggest results.

00:05:49.860 So what most goal planners and self-help gurus and all these kinds of people will do

00:05:54.120 is they'll say, Oh, dream big, dream, dream, dream, dream, dream, dream. And they'll talk about,

00:05:58.660 you know, the secret and you can manifest, you can will it to existence. Well, I mean, that's nice.

00:06:03.460 It sounds really good, but what I would suggest, and I think the better, more pragmatic approach to

00:06:08.400 this is that you dream big. And then you start to reverse engineer the process into small actionable

00:06:13.940 steps that you can do it on a daily basis. Now I bring this up because I've been thinking a lot

00:06:17.480 about this as we have built our, I should say, I remodeled our barn. And when we moved to this home

00:06:24.420 and this property a little over two years ago, it was a mess. I saw the potential. I had vision for

00:06:30.820 what this barn could potentially look like. And over the past several weeks, we've really done some

00:06:36.600 things that putting railings on, uh, refinishing the floors, adding new lighting. We're putting,

00:06:43.300 uh, two big, huge industrial fans in there to move the air and keep it cool. Like we've done some

00:06:48.460 things over the past couple of weeks that have really, uh, made it into what I had envisioned

00:06:54.980 it would be two and a half or so years ago. And as I was thinking about what we've created,

00:07:01.200 it would have been very easy for me to be overwhelmed with how much work needed to be

00:07:06.060 done. Right. Everybody tells you big, hairy, audacious goals, like think grandly, think big,

00:07:11.560 all great. But if it actually is so big that it becomes overwhelming to you that you don't move

00:07:19.340 forward, then you're never going to turn your vision into reality. So have that big goal.

00:07:24.400 Here's my vision for the barn or here's my vision for my job. Here's my vision for

00:07:27.900 my relationship with my wife. Here's my vision. And then now we reverse engineer into those small

00:07:33.260 daily steps. Uh, when we started building the canoe, my son and I, it was very overwhelming.

00:07:39.360 I took the book that I received and it's a big thick book on how to build a canoe. And I started

00:07:43.920 to read the entire thing. And I was so overwhelmed with all of this work that I actually delayed

00:07:49.220 our start because I was so overwhelmed with it. And somebody wise told me, you don't need to read

00:07:55.740 chapter two or three or four or 10. You just need to read the chapter that you're on right now.

00:08:02.320 And as I started to do that, and I focused on not the entire project, but building the strong back,

00:08:09.420 which is what the, the, the bench that the canoe is built on, then setting up the molds,

00:08:14.140 which is what you build the canoe around, then doing the strips, then doing the stems, then closing

00:08:19.880 the bottom, then fiberglassing it, then sanding it, then fiberglass, and then sanding it, then

00:08:25.140 glassing it. Like it just focus on one step at a time guys. And over the course of 30, 90, 60 days,

00:08:34.100 whatever it is a year, 10 years, you will see those big incremental changes in your life because you

00:08:40.320 focused on the small. So again, number one is to dream big, but work small, work small. Uh, number two,

00:08:48.280 I call it focused variety, focused variety. We actually talked about this on our ask me anything,

00:08:56.140 uh, on Wednesday, uh, with regards to people losing focus. Cause it's easy to lose focus.

00:09:03.500 You know, we get distracted or things aren't as exciting as they once were the luster wears off.

00:09:08.340 Uh, you get distracted with life and everything else that you have to do. And so it's very easy to

00:09:12.680 fall off of the path that you're on because of everything else. And it's hard to focus at times.

00:09:21.200 I get really hopped up and hyped up about projects and things that I have going on. And unless I can

00:09:26.760 focus over long and sustained periods of time, I'm never going to achieve the results that I want.

00:09:31.900 So I've learned a tactic that I've applied in my life called focus variety.

00:09:35.800 And so it's not haphazard variety. It's not just random, whatever pops into my mind variety.

00:09:44.320 It's focused variety, meaning that all of the variety and the variabilities that I'm going to

00:09:49.300 engage in on, on my trek to grow the business or to build a canoe or to be on my jujitsu path or to

00:09:55.840 improve my health or to develop my relationship or to build out the barn is all, all the work that

00:10:01.760 I'm doing is focused on the final result, the vision for what I have. It's all focused on that.

00:10:08.540 But sometimes I need to take a break from one particular tactic or strategy or outlet.

00:10:14.980 And I need to focus on something else. Now, a lot of people might say, well,

00:10:18.180 that's wasted time and energy. And if your, your metric for success was purely staying focused on

00:10:25.200 one task until it's done, then I would say yes, but that isn't the metric for success.

00:10:29.260 The metric for success, I assume for you, as it is for me is to actually complete the project.

00:10:35.820 So if you're so focused on one thing and you burn yourself out to the point where you don't

00:10:41.060 complete the project or you don't realize the vision, then were you a success? I guess you were

00:10:46.520 successful maybe to some degree and doing one thing really, really well. But again, it's about

00:10:51.860 completing the objective and realizing the vision. So for me, what I need to do is I need to,

00:10:57.340 to have some variability, to have some variety in my work. And so I might be working on one task and

00:11:06.120 I'll do that for a couple of weeks or a couple of days and I'll get really, really bored with that.

00:11:10.380 And then I'll move on to something else that still needs to be done, that will still move the needle

00:11:14.820 in the right direction, but recharge and re-energize and give me a new excitement and

00:11:19.880 passion about what it is I'm doing. Because passion is important. You know, a lot of people will say,

00:11:24.360 well, discipline, discipline is greater than motivation. Well, it can be. Sure. When the

00:11:29.260 motivation expires, sometimes you're going to need to be disciplined and you just need to get

00:11:32.180 a trench through and get it done. But I don't know that motivation is inferior to discipline

00:11:38.140 necessarily because maybe you can keep yourself motivated by changing things up, focused, still

00:11:43.460 working on the task at hand, but doing it in a different way or focusing on a different element

00:11:47.580 or dynamic of the task in order to achieve your big results. And in that case, motivation served you

00:11:52.860 very, very, very well. So I'm not willing to throw motivation under the bus just because I'm

00:11:57.860 supposed to be as disciplined as I possibly could be. Now I want to complete the objective.

00:12:03.500 And that means that, yeah, sometimes I need to trench through and other times I need to mix it up

00:12:07.900 so I can stay engaged and stay on target. All right. And the third one, guys, I wanted to share

00:12:13.200 with you. So number one, again, we have dream big works fall. Number two, we have focus variety.

00:12:17.180 And then the third one is honor the journey, honor the journey. Uh, somebody had told me the other

00:12:22.960 day, I think Michael Chandler, when I had him on the podcast or released on Tuesday, uh, he said

00:12:29.660 something like, and I'm paraphrasing, he said that maybe the goal is the journey.

00:12:34.500 That's a pretty interesting thought that maybe the goal is the journey. Cause most people will talk

00:12:42.700 about the goal being the goal. Like I need to reach that destination. If that's the only thing

00:12:47.260 you're worried about, then what are you going to do in the meantime, in order to achieve that

00:12:50.360 objective? Are you going to lie, cheat, still sacrifice your, your morals and your standards?

00:12:54.800 Maybe if that's all that matters, but what if instead that the goal that you should be having

00:13:01.500 is the journey is, is honoring the journey, honoring the path, knowing that you're getting

00:13:05.340 better, knowing that you're improving, knowing that you're working towards something. There's

00:13:08.580 the, the Kaizen method, which is, if I remember correctly, the 1% better each and every day.

00:13:14.300 And you honor that, Hey, I'm not the pinnacle of where I need to be, but I'm 1% better than

00:13:18.840 I was yesterday. And tomorrow I'm 1% better than that. 1% better than that. 1% better than

00:13:23.560 that. And isn't that a beautiful thing? Can't you find joy and satisfaction and fulfillment

00:13:28.700 and meaning and purpose in getting 1% better every single day? Cause look at, when I look

00:13:35.380 at the gap again, to go back to that integrity gap, the gap between where I want to be and

00:13:39.740 where I currently am, that can be disheartening and it's going to narrow over time. And hopefully

00:13:45.280 it's going to get smaller. Hopefully it doesn't get wider, but what if instead of worrying about

00:13:50.280 that gap and it may be diminishing or demoralizing my goals and ambitions and desires and even

00:13:56.200 actions, what if instead I just focused on, I'm a little better today. I'm a little better

00:14:02.880 today. I'm a little better today. I'm a little better today. And what that requires is an

00:14:07.020 after action. We've talked about that at length, but just recapping your day. What did I get

00:14:11.560 done? What didn't I get done? What do I want to do better tomorrow? Where did I thrive? Where did

00:14:15.940 I fall behind? And being very honest with yourself about where you are. And as you do, I think you're

00:14:21.560 going to realize that you can get 1% better every day and that you do honor the process and you honor

00:14:27.560 the journey because what most people will do, they despise the journey. Most people do, they despise

00:14:34.040 the journey. They want the journey to be over. It's like, just give me the result, no work, no effort,

00:14:39.400 no time, no progress. I just want the result without the effort. And that's the natural man that I've

00:14:44.200 talked about. You know, go, go ask a hundred people today. Hey, how you doing? What's going on?

00:14:49.400 And they'll say, oh, you know, here we are on a, well, it's Friday now, but as I'm recording this,

00:14:53.440 here we are on a Tuesday and I just can't wait for the weekend. Okay. Well, you're not honoring the

00:14:59.380 journey. What about the three or four or five days that you have that lead up to the weekend? You're

00:15:05.420 going to waste all of that because you're so focused on the result or the end or the deadline

00:15:09.660 that you can't find meaning and purpose and significance in the work to get there.

00:15:15.080 What a miserable way to live. And I've lived there. I've been there.

00:15:18.120 It's hard and it's disheartening. It's frustrating, but man, as soon as I started finding joy and being

00:15:25.200 present and joy in the process, joy in the journey, honoring that journey, knowing that I am getting

00:15:29.640 1% better, or at least I'm working towards it, the more joy I found in it. And not ironically,

00:15:36.240 the quicker I reached my objective and my destination. And sometimes I looked up and I thought to myself,

00:15:42.060 holy cow, I didn't even realize I was here. I didn't know I had arrived at this goal. There's no

00:15:47.420 arrival by the way, but I didn't know that I had achieved this goal that I was after because I

00:15:51.040 was so focused on the result. I've done that with my health journey. I've done that with my

00:15:54.860 financial aspirations. I've done that with my career and business objectives. You look up and

00:16:01.480 all of a sudden you realize, oh, I already hit that goal like six months ago. I didn't even realize it.

00:16:06.220 Yes. Because you're focused on the journey and you're honoring that process and that system.

00:16:11.180 And guys, there's a lot of other things, of course, that we can talk about, but I just wanted

00:16:15.640 to share three easy mindsets, three easy strategies or shifts in the way that you view it that will

00:16:21.440 help you achieve your visions and turn those dreams and that vision into a reality quicker.

00:16:30.380 That's what I want for you. I think that's what you want. And that's what this podcast is about.

00:16:35.400 So number one, dream big, keep dreaming big, keep having those big aspirations. I'm not saying to

00:16:40.240 rein those in or pull those back. You shouldn't keep dreaming big, but work small, dream big,

00:16:44.880 work small. Number two, uh, focused variety, mix it up. You got to change it up here and there.

00:16:50.400 Otherwise you're going to burn yourself up and that's not going to produce the result over long

00:16:54.720 sustained periods of time. So focus variety. And then number three is to honor that journey,

00:16:59.240 honor the path, be aware of it, be proud of it, get 1% better every day, analyze it, review it,

00:17:06.640 do the after action review at the end of every day and make sure you're still on the path.

00:17:09.480 Or I guess very short one for you today, but, uh, hopefully that's impactful. Just let me know,

00:17:14.300 shoot me a message primarily on Instagram. That's where I'm most active, uh, at Ryan Mickler.

00:17:19.640 Make sure you follow me over there. Let me know what's working for you. What isn't working for you?

00:17:23.940 I get messages and DMS and comments and stuff every day from you guys, which I really, really

00:17:29.300 appreciate. It's becoming increasingly difficult to get back with you guys because so many of you are

00:17:35.060 reaching out, but I will make every effort that I can. You have my commitment to do that,

00:17:38.900 uh, to connect with you, to follow up with you, to even celebrate with you as you achieve your own

00:17:45.860 goals and objectives, as you turn your own vision into a reality. I'm excited for what the future

00:17:50.900 holds. There's a lot of weird stuff going on to say the least in society today, but it's men like us

00:17:55.860 who are going to fix all of this to get us back on track, to bring honor and virtue back into society,

00:18:05.020 to lead our families well, to lead with honor and integrity and strength and class.

00:18:11.100 We're missing that. We're lacking that in, in a lot of ways. And, uh, I think we can do

00:18:15.980 a better job. We are doing a better job. So please make sure you share this,

00:18:20.860 let guys know where you're getting this information. If it's serving you,

00:18:25.100 then it would definitely serve somebody else. And let's continue to turn those visions into a

00:18:30.520 reality. All right, guys, we'll be back next week until then go out there, take action and become the

00:18:36.780 man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take

00:18:42.020 charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order

00:18:46.640 at order of man.com.

00:18:55.100 We'll be back next week.

00:19:10.380 See you next week.

Order of Man - September 03, 2021

When Vision Becomes Reality ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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