Why Every Man Needs a Mission (And, How to Build One) ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES
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Summary
When you as a man lack purpose in your life, you don t just get sad, you become dangerous to yourself and sometimes to other people. I want you to close your eyes for a second, if you can, and imagine with me a soldier returning home from a deployment. That soldier has likely encountered firefights, he s led himself and other men under pressure, every single day a mission. And then that same soldier comes home and he s stripped of that mission. It s gone. He no longer is needed.
Transcript
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When you as a man lack purpose in your life, you don't just get sad.
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You actually become dangerous to yourself and sometimes to other people.
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Look at the young men shooting up schools, killing themselves, killing other people.
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In the absence of a mission, they are finding their purpose and their identity in toxic situations.
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if you can if you're driving obviously don't do it but if you can i want you to close your eyes
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for a second and i want you to imagine with me a soldier returning home from a deployment
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that soldier has likely encountered firefights he's led himself and other men under pressure
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he's had a mission a real one every single day a mission and then that same soldier comes home
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and he's stripped of that mission it's gone he no longer is needed in that context he's trained
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to be a hardened warrior he's trained to accomplish a task and yet he comes home and
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he's lost and confused and frustrated because his mission is gone there's no orders that he has to
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deal with there's no objective there's not even a real clear enemy at this point it's just
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friday or saturday or tuesday whenever you're listening to this that's the problem right there
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that's one of the most dangerous points in a man's life and here's the thing that i want you to know
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you don't have to be a veteran to feel that you don't have to be a veteran to understand that
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when your mission is gone you lose hope and millions of men across the country wake up every
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single day, and maybe even you, with the exact same fog that that soldier returning from war
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might experience. Maybe it's going through the motions. Maybe it's just punching that clock,
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scrolling, numbing yourself, wondering quietly in the dark, is this it?
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And I bring up the veteran thing because tomorrow, as of this recording, tomorrow,
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May 16th, is Armed Forces Day. It's a day where we honor the men and women who are currently
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serving in our military. People who by definition have been handed a mission. I know because I'm a
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veteran. And part of the reason it's so incredible is because we're given a purpose larger and bigger
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than ourselves. And today I really want to honor that spirit for those who have that mission and
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step fully into what it means to be a soldier and a warrior. But I also want every single man
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listening to this podcast to build a mission of their own because not only do we know that's
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where men thrive the data actually supports this and i and i looked up some statistics about this
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and what i found is that nearly 40 000 men died by suicide in the united states in 2025
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according to the cdc in 2026 only one in four men with depression actually received any counseling
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or therapy or help for it and men account for roughly 80 this was wild to me 80 of all suicide
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deaths. And they're much more likely, excuse me, much less likely to ask for help. The research on
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what they call deaths of despair, it would be suicide, overdose, alcohol abuse shows that men
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experience these at three and a half times the global rate of women. And these aren't just
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statistics, guys. They're fathers, they're brothers, they're sons, they're friends. I've
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talked to men thousands at this point who have lost loved ones to suicide and part of that a big
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part of that is an abandonment of mission because behind most of these issues almost every one of
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these stories is this this silent killer that we don't pay much attention to and that's a man
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without a mission. Purpose isn't a luxury. It's not self-help BS or jargon or bullshit. It's a
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biological and physiological necessity for men. You have to have a mission. We are literally wired
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to pursue, to protect, to build, to fight for something. And when we don't have that,
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we start to turn inward and when we turn inward it gets dark
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so what i want to do today is i want to give you the mission acronym it's it's the mission
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framework that i've developed and it's the the parts of developing and uncovering and unpacking
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something that's going to help you build yours so let's get started we're just going to jump
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right into it so again the acronym is mission let's go through point number one that's meaning
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meaning is about what makes you come alive because every mission starts with this it's not money
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it's not status it's meaning it's significance one of the things that you've often heard about
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is man's search for meaning the book by Viktor Frankl he survived Nazi concentration camps
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and I think I can I can I can say this confidently that he wrote one of the most important books
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in human history. And that's called Man's Search for Meaning. And his conclusion in that book was
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that men can endure almost any how if they have a strong why. And that's your first assignment.
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So what I want you to do today is I want you to write down three moments in your life
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where you felt just completely alive and don't qualify them. Don't say this didn't count or this
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did count or here's why it is or here's why it wasn't. Just three moments in your life where
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you felt completely alive, fully engaged, fully yourself. Not happy necessarily, because it's
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easy to go sit on the beach and sit Mai Tais and be happy, but alive. And then I want you to look
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at those three moments, and those will likely point to something. That is the seed of your
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mission. That's the foundation. So again, start writing those things down. When did you feel
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most alive? Not happy, but alive. Okay, number two is the I, identity. And here's the question
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I want you to ask, who are you when no one is watching? I call it character. Because most men
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build their identity around their job, right? Like I do this for work or their role. I'm a dad. I'm a
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husband. I'm a this. I'm a that. I'm a coach or their title. I'm a CEO. I'm an executive. I'm a
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C-level fill in the blank. I'm a manager. I'm a veteran. And then when that life of theirs changes
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isn't it will right the job ends you get fired the kids leave i've got an 18 year old son right
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now who's about ready to graduate high school in the next week or two you know the uniform comes
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off and then they're just lost because their identity was wrapped up in something they couldn't
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control but a mission driven man builds his identity from the inside out not the outside in
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he knows what his values are he knows what his non-negotiables are he knows what his code is
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what what three words would i want my children my sons or my daughters doesn't matter or even
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my closest friends to use to describe me at my funeral this is this is an exercise in consciousness
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this is identity what three words would I want my sons and daughters and friends and
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family members to use to describe me at my funeral what are those three words what's
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your identity that's the foundation that you can build a mission on so for me it might be
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be courageous. I think that would be another word for me.
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And it might be honorable. Those might be my three words. I probably have some others.
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I'm going to do this exercise too, but I want you to do it for yourself. So we've got
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the couple of things. The first two things are meaning number one and identity number two. Okay.
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So now I want you to move into number three and that's the S the first S that's service.
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okay who are you fighting for every soldier knows this truth that the mission is never just about
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you it's always about the person to your left the person to your right the person in front of you
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the person behind you and research constantly and consistently shows that men who have strong
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social bonds who are actively serving other people they report dramatically lower rates
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of depression and anxiety. But what's interesting is, and I looked at the data, I'm trying to get
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more current data, but in 2024, there was a study, and this is from Gitnux, I think it's
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pronounced, G-I-T-N-U-X, and again, it's in 2004, found that one in four men say they have no close
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friends. I'd be willing to bet that it's even worse today. One in four have no close friends.
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the the mission that you have in your life has to have a recipient otherwise it's just self-serving
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you can't say my mission is to get stronger although you should get stronger that's not
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really a mission it has to have a recipient so you can get stronger for what purpose
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I remember when I was trying to get in shape it really wasn't about getting in shape it was about
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being able to play on the trampoline and bounce around with my kids after work that's it and
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that's a mission because somebody else is the recipient of my improvement, my development.
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So it could be your family. Uh, it could be your community. It could be a cause,
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a generation that comes after you, right? Your kids. Um, one of the things I really love is I
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love coaching young men's sports. I love it. I'm passionate about it. I'm excited about it. I love
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to see these young boys thrive and I love to help them overcome obstacles and challenges. And I love
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to see them realize their potential and get better and overcome obstacles. It's, it's amazing to me.
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And I tell you why that's important because I didn't have that for a lot of my life when I was
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growing up, but I had a few coaches come into my life as a young man who did that for me. And I
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realize i realized it then and i realize it more now so how important it is i just had a really
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interesting experience last night my oldest son like i said he's graduating this year and he just
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played his last home lacrosse game just last night and uh one of the coaches from a a local college
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southern utah university came up to me and he said hey i just want to let you know we're going to
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present your son with an official offer to come play college lacrosse I was so proud of my son
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and I am I'm proud of him I'm proud of all my kids for their various accomplishments
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and it was it was so powerful because I sent a message to my high school football and baseball
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coach and his name is Matt Labrum and coach Labrum and I are still we're still close we're
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still friends. We communicate. I see him every so often when he comes into town or I go up there
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and I just said, Hey, you know, coach, I sent him this text and I'm paraphrasing, but I said,
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Hey coach, I just want to let you know. I really appreciate you showing up for me when I was a
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young man and I might get emotional on this one. I really appreciate you showing up for me as a
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young man. And I just want you to know that the help you provided me when I was a kid is now
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generational at this point. My son just received an offer to go play college ball and your work
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in the way that you showed up is now generational. And I said, I love you coach. Appreciate you being
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there for me always. And he always has. And he, and he still continues to be there for me.
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And I think that's where we begin to experience our mission. When we, when we look at our past
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and we think, well, what would I have wanted? What would I have needed? What would have been
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a resource or an answer or a, a provision that would have helped me. And that becomes
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the fuel for your mission. And it's, it's all service. It's always service. So I want you to
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ask yourself this, who, who would suffer if I checked out, right? I know a lot of you guys
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have dealt with depression and suicidal ideation. I know you have, because I talk with you guys
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daily. I know it. Who would suffer if you checked out? Friends, family members, and even strangers.
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Who needs you to be fully alive and fully present? I want you to write their names down. I want you
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to write those categories down. And I want you to put those on the mirror, or I want you to put those
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on the screensaver on your computer, somewhere you see them every single day because those names now
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can become your mission. All right. Let's talk about the second S skills. What were you built
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to do? What were you built to do? When I talked about the military again, because it's a veterans
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excuse me, not veterans day, but, um, uh, it's military appreciation day. Essentially
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the military doesn't just give you a mission and and just wish you luck on that mission they
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they they develop and hone your skills into weapons that are to be used for the mission
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and every single one of you has a unique set of abilities based on your characteristics based on
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your biological makeup based on the experiences that you've had based on lessons you've learned
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based on cultures you've grown up in and a lot of this is something that comes naturally to you
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that other people struggle with maybe it's leadership maybe it's communication maybe
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it's building something and there's people that have an aptitude for just building there's people
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that have an aptitude for teaching or for strategy or problem solving. And the question is, are your
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skills aimed at and pointed at something worth directing them towards? So here's what I want you
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to do in this category. And guys, I want you to come back to this podcast often. And I actually
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want you to share this with a friend because what I would challenge you to do is do this with a
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friend. We're actually doing this in the iron council in the coming weeks. We're going to go
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through how to develop your mission. So if you want to join us, join us, theironcouncil.com
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slash preview. We're doing a preview call on Tuesday, May 19th, and I'd love for you to be on
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that. But I want you to make a list of your top five natural abilities. And then I want you to
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ask yourself, how could these abilities that I have naturally be deployed for something bigger
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than my paycheck or the accolades or notoriety or whatever it might be? How can they be deployed
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for something bigger than myself? And that intersection, your skills, when it's aimed at
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service, it's aimed at other people. Again, service is the first S. That's where your mission lives.
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Okay, let's talk about the next one. The next one is I. And I is interest.
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what are you interested in? What do you enjoy? What do you like? What gets you excited? What
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gets you motivated? See, most of society today would tell you, hey, don't be overly excited.
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Don't be selfish. Worry about other people. And sure, we should because I talked about service
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being important. But what gets you interested in life? What gets you engaged? What gets you excited?
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what gets you motivated i i know in this self-help world we're like motivation is
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stupid you should worry about discipline no i think there's something to be said for motivation
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if you told me that i have to go you know run 20 miles this week i'm not real excited about that
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but if you said hey you're gonna build muscle and you're gonna go lift heavy for the next five
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weeks like that's exciting that's interesting that's more interesting to me so what is your
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interest and i don't care what it is you know we often talk about the the quote-unquote manly
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things like go do jujitsu or go hunt or go build something or go for a rock and all that stuff's
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wonderful i like those things go shoot weapons but also go play chess go speak on stage i was
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just driving down the road the other day and i live in this beautiful area in southern utah it's
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And I was driving down the road and I looked over to the side
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And I wondered if they needed help or anything, but they didn't.
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And I looked over and there was this man and he had a canvas up
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and he was painting this painting of the scenery.
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maybe it's cooking maybe it's painting landscape like that guy did maybe it's photography it's
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it's even the things that you wouldn't necessarily consider manly one of the things that i go do
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every single week for my two oldest boys lacrosse program is i go take pictures we might not say
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that's manly except for that it is because we're producing and so you can produce by cooking for
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your family you can produce by painting beautiful paintings or taking pictures or you know fill in
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the blank with whatever's playing chess like whatever's interesting to you just do it what
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are you interested in next are the obstacles you know what what is what is stopping you so the o
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and in mission is is obstacles what's stopping you what is it really name it put a face to the
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name you know i i think about the analogies of sports and i use sports analogies a lot because
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it's what resonates with me and when my boys or when i was playing sports what we would do is we
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would study tape right we'd watch tape we'd watch the adversary we'd watch the other team and we'd
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see how they played and we'd see what they did and we'd figure out who their players were and
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we'd exploit weaknesses and we would really get granular and crystallize who it is we were playing
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against so that we could come up with a strategy to win. And the same thing is true about your life.
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You know, we all have obstacles. Maybe it's your own self-perception. Maybe it's imposter syndrome.
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Maybe it's substance abuse issues. Maybe it's overcoming some discipline
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issues that you need to deal with. Maybe it's other people. Maybe it's toxic relationships.
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maybe it's the way you feel about yourself but what is stopping you from being the kind of man
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that you not only have a right to be but have a moral obligation to be and you got to start
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writing those things down you know a lot of guys feel the pull of a mission and then they wait
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you know they they wait until their their kids are older well my kids are older and then I'll do it
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that's an obstacle or they wait until I have money well you know once I have money then I'll
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do it. Or once I feel ready, I'll do it. Guys, readiness is a freaking myth. I want you to know
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that readiness is a myth. I see this in, in, in deciding to get married or having kids or start
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a business or leave a business or quit. Well, when I'm ready, when I'm ready, when I'm ready,
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the only men who find their mission are the guys who move so name the fear the habit the story
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whatever it is write it down name it because the the unnamed obstacles that you have in your life
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they control you but the named ones you can fight against those right you know what you're fighting
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against and you can fight against those. And the last, the last item in the, in the acronym mission
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is what is your next step? And I just want you to keep it simple. I don't want you to think about
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10 steps. I don't want you to think about how it's going to look over the next six months or
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12 months or 10 years. I don't want you to think about any of that. Just what's one thing you can
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do today? What is one thing that you can do today? Is it writing down the answers to the questions I
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gave you? Is it reaching out to a potential business partner? Is it asking that woman on a
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date? Is it reaching out to the community center and telling them that you want to help coach next
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year's football or soccer or lacrosse or basketball or wrestling program? Is it signing up for that
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jujitsu class is it going to that painting class that the community center offers is it
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signing up for the pistol course that you were excited about is it going on the hunt that your
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friend invited you to that you've never said yes to before what's the next step guys not 10 not 20
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not 100 not what the 10 years holds what what does the next 10 hours hold what are you going to do
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right now and then do it and then when that 10 hours is up what's the next 10 hours hold and the
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next 10 hours and the next 10 hours the next 10 hours in fact i'd say even think about it in
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smaller increments what's the next hour hold what am i supposed to be doing right now sure
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start with the end of mind but what should i do right now again tomorrow again as of the release
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of this podcast is armed forces day and those soldiers and those airmen and those seamen and
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those marines they didn't they didn't wait until they were just unafraid or until the stars aligned
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to serve they serve despite their fear and i think that's what a man does when he has a mission
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the the depression that you're experiencing the addiction that you might be suffering
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the isolation and loneliness that you might be experiencing
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the the there's just unbelievably staggering suicidal rates at its core is what i call a
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mission crisis when you as a man lack purpose in your life you don't just get sad you actually
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become dangerous to yourself and sometimes to other people i mean look at the statistics look
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at the young men who are shooting up schools and killing themselves and killing other people
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they have no mission you see this with gangs all the time you know we have an entire generation of
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young black men primarily who don't have a mission because fewer and fewer fathers are engaged and
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involved and in the absence of a mission they are finding their purpose and their identity
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in toxic situations and it's not just our young black men it's our young white men
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now predominantly they're not getting involved in gangs necessarily but they are getting involved
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in drugs and substance abuse and violence it's it's not a surprise to me if we continue to see
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violence conducted and carried out by our youth black white brown doesn't matter
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and there's no man to teach them about what mission is.
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So if you're a father, sure, teach your kids about mission,
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to Thomas Edison, to Martin Luther King, what do they all have? A mission.
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They all had different rhetorical skills. They all had different applicable action-oriented skills.
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Some could orate, some could fight, some could enlist, some could strategize,
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but all of them had a mission because those men are present. They're grounded. They protect,
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they build they lead they show up so again tomorrow armed forces day i'm asking you not
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only to honor our service members as we get into this not just with the gratitude that you have
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but by picking up the torch that they have carried refusing to drip refusing to just kind of let
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things slip and slip away and go by the wayside. Building a mission worthy of the life that you've
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been given. So again, use this mission framework and I'll say it this way. Number one, meaning
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what makes you alive. Number two, identity, who you are at your core. Number three, service.
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Who are you fighting for? Number four, skills. What were you built to do? Number five is interest.
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what are you excited about number six is obstacles what might get in your way and the last step is
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n what is your next step not what's your hundredth step what do you need to do in the next 10 hours
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to make this a reality guys please if you would i'm giving you a big ask here share this with a
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man who needs to hear it and and every man does actually so there's there's every single man that
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you know, your friends, your colleagues, your brothers, your cousins, your co-workers, your
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dad, your father, your grandfather, your sons, every man needs to hear this. Every man needs a
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mission. We don't all have the same mission and that's good too. I have a mission. Your mission
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is different than mine. We can work together. We can collaborate. We can share resources, but we
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all have different missions. What is yours? You can develop that. You can build that and you ought
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too, because that's what makes you a man. You are valued by the service and gifts that you offer to
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the world. And God has given you those gifts, use them effectively. If you want to know more about
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what we're doing and specifically about having this conversation, we're going to do this in
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next week. We're going to have this conversation. I want you to join us inside the iron council.
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we're going to do a preview call on tuesday may 19th tuesday may 19th at eight o'clock eastern
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if you go to the iron council.com slash preview again that's the iron council.com slash preview
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you can get registered for that preview call all right guys we will be back next week i've got a
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great and polarizing conversation so please subscribe go over to youtube hit that little
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like or subscribe button over there. Comment, engage, share. That's how we grow this grassroots
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movement of reclaiming and restoring masculinity. All right, guys, we'll be back then. Until then,
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go out there, take action, and become the man you are meant to be.
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Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take charge of your
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life and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at