Order of Man - Why Every Man Needs a Mission (And, How to Build One) ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

00:00:00.000 When you as a man lack purpose in your life, you don't just get sad.

00:00:04.820 You actually become dangerous to yourself and sometimes to other people.

00:00:09.260 I mean, look at the statistics.

00:00:10.860 Look at the young men shooting up schools, killing themselves, killing other people.

00:00:16.120 They have no mission.

00:00:17.120 In the absence of a mission, they are finding their purpose and their identity in toxic situations.

00:00:27.380 I want you to close your eyes for a second.

00:00:29.300 if you can if you're driving obviously don't do it but if you can i want you to close your eyes

00:00:33.920 for a second and i want you to imagine with me a soldier returning home from a deployment

00:00:40.980 that soldier has likely encountered firefights he's led himself and other men under pressure

00:00:50.380 he's had a mission a real one every single day a mission and then that same soldier comes home

00:00:57.880 and he's stripped of that mission it's gone he no longer is needed in that context he's trained

00:01:05.440 to be a hardened warrior he's trained to accomplish a task and yet he comes home and

00:01:11.540 he's lost and confused and frustrated because his mission is gone there's no orders that he has to

00:01:17.580 deal with there's no objective there's not even a real clear enemy at this point it's just

00:01:22.900 friday or saturday or tuesday whenever you're listening to this that's the problem right there

00:01:30.560 that's one of the most dangerous points in a man's life and here's the thing that i want you to know

00:01:36.560 you don't have to be a veteran to feel that you don't have to be a veteran to understand that

00:01:42.720 when your mission is gone you lose hope and millions of men across the country wake up every

00:01:49.980 single day, and maybe even you, with the exact same fog that that soldier returning from war

00:01:56.240 might experience. Maybe it's going through the motions. Maybe it's just punching that clock,

00:02:02.380 scrolling, numbing yourself, wondering quietly in the dark, is this it?

00:02:09.600 And I bring up the veteran thing because tomorrow, as of this recording, tomorrow,

00:02:13.360 May 16th, is Armed Forces Day. It's a day where we honor the men and women who are currently

00:02:19.440 serving in our military. People who by definition have been handed a mission. I know because I'm a

00:02:27.020 veteran. And part of the reason it's so incredible is because we're given a purpose larger and bigger

00:02:34.080 than ourselves. And today I really want to honor that spirit for those who have that mission and

00:02:38.780 step fully into what it means to be a soldier and a warrior. But I also want every single man

00:02:45.820 listening to this podcast to build a mission of their own because not only do we know that's

00:02:55.820 where men thrive the data actually supports this and i and i looked up some statistics about this

00:03:03.400 and what i found is that nearly 40 000 men died by suicide in the united states in 2025

00:03:11.200 that's four times the rate of women four times

00:03:15.700 according to the cdc in 2026 only one in four men with depression actually received any counseling

00:03:27.340 or therapy or help for it and men account for roughly 80 this was wild to me 80 of all suicide

00:03:34.760 deaths. And they're much more likely, excuse me, much less likely to ask for help. The research on

00:03:43.780 what they call deaths of despair, it would be suicide, overdose, alcohol abuse shows that men

00:03:51.180 experience these at three and a half times the global rate of women. And these aren't just

00:03:57.420 statistics, guys. They're fathers, they're brothers, they're sons, they're friends. I've

00:04:03.280 talked to men thousands at this point who have lost loved ones to suicide and part of that a big

00:04:10.100 part of that is an abandonment of mission because behind most of these issues almost every one of

00:04:16.960 these stories is this this silent killer that we don't pay much attention to and that's a man

00:04:23.460 without a mission. Purpose isn't a luxury. It's not self-help BS or jargon or bullshit. It's a

00:04:36.280 biological and physiological necessity for men. You have to have a mission. We are literally wired

00:04:43.060 to pursue, to protect, to build, to fight for something. And when we don't have that,

00:04:50.300 we start to turn inward and when we turn inward it gets dark

00:04:55.140 so what i want to do today is i want to give you the mission acronym it's it's the mission

00:05:02.900 framework that i've developed and it's the the parts of developing and uncovering and unpacking

00:05:10.040 something that's going to help you build yours so let's get started we're just going to jump

00:05:15.680 right into it so again the acronym is mission let's go through point number one that's meaning

00:05:21.260 meaning is about what makes you come alive because every mission starts with this it's not money

00:05:27.180 it's not status it's meaning it's significance one of the things that you've often heard about

00:05:33.300 is man's search for meaning the book by Viktor Frankl he survived Nazi concentration camps

00:05:38.380 and I think I can I can I can say this confidently that he wrote one of the most important books

00:05:44.760 in human history. And that's called Man's Search for Meaning. And his conclusion in that book was

00:05:51.480 that men can endure almost any how if they have a strong why. And that's your first assignment.

00:06:00.060 So what I want you to do today is I want you to write down three moments in your life

00:06:03.540 where you felt just completely alive and don't qualify them. Don't say this didn't count or this

00:06:09.800 did count or here's why it is or here's why it wasn't. Just three moments in your life where

00:06:14.580 you felt completely alive, fully engaged, fully yourself. Not happy necessarily, because it's

00:06:21.760 easy to go sit on the beach and sit Mai Tais and be happy, but alive. And then I want you to look 0.86

00:06:27.300 at those three moments, and those will likely point to something. That is the seed of your

00:06:32.340 mission. That's the foundation. So again, start writing those things down. When did you feel

00:06:37.360 most alive? Not happy, but alive. Okay, number two is the I, identity. And here's the question

00:06:44.080 I want you to ask, who are you when no one is watching? I call it character. Because most men

00:06:50.340 build their identity around their job, right? Like I do this for work or their role. I'm a dad. I'm a 0.52

00:06:55.460 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

00:07:00.920 C-level fill in the blank. I'm a manager. I'm a veteran. And then when that life of theirs changes

00:07:09.380 isn't it will right the job ends you get fired the kids leave i've got an 18 year old son right

00:07:14.900 now who's about ready to graduate high school in the next week or two you know the uniform comes

00:07:20.460 off and then they're just lost because their identity was wrapped up in something they couldn't

00:07:24.820 control but a mission driven man builds his identity from the inside out not the outside in

00:07:33.960 he knows what his values are he knows what his non-negotiables are he knows what his code is

00:07:39.580 and so i want you to ask yourself

00:07:41.320 what what three words would i want my children my sons or my daughters doesn't matter or even

00:07:52.760 my closest friends to use to describe me at my funeral this is this is an exercise in consciousness

00:07:59.860 this is identity what three words would I want my sons and daughters and friends and

00:08:05.820 family members to use to describe me at my funeral what are those three words what's

00:08:11.540 your identity that's the foundation that you can build a mission on so for me it might be

00:08:19.440 action-oriented it might be

00:08:23.500 be courageous. I think that would be another word for me.

00:08:31.400 And it might be honorable. Those might be my three words. I probably have some others.

00:08:38.100 I'm going to do this exercise too, but I want you to do it for yourself. So we've got

00:08:41.500 the couple of things. The first two things are meaning number one and identity number two. Okay.

00:08:47.500 So now I want you to move into number three and that's the S the first S that's service.

00:08:52.500 okay who are you fighting for every soldier knows this truth that the mission is never just about

00:09:00.540 you it's always about the person to your left the person to your right the person in front of you

00:09:05.580 the person behind you and research constantly and consistently shows that men who have strong

00:09:12.260 social bonds who are actively serving other people they report dramatically lower rates

00:09:19.780 of depression and anxiety. But what's interesting is, and I looked at the data, I'm trying to get

00:09:26.900 more current data, but in 2024, there was a study, and this is from Gitnux, I think it's

00:09:33.920 pronounced, G-I-T-N-U-X, and again, it's in 2004, found that one in four men say they have no close

00:09:41.780 friends. I'd be willing to bet that it's even worse today. One in four have no close friends.

00:09:47.600 the the mission that you have in your life has to have a recipient otherwise it's just self-serving

00:09:54.120 you can't say my mission is to get stronger although you should get stronger that's not

00:09:59.920 really a mission it has to have a recipient so you can get stronger for what purpose

00:10:05.780 I remember when I was trying to get in shape it really wasn't about getting in shape it was about

00:10:11.220 being able to play on the trampoline and bounce around with my kids after work that's it and

00:10:16.060 that's a mission because somebody else is the recipient of my improvement, my development.

00:10:22.040 So it could be your family. Uh, it could be your community. It could be a cause,

00:10:27.240 a generation that comes after you, right? Your kids. Um, one of the things I really love is I

00:10:34.280 love coaching young men's sports. I love it. I'm passionate about it. I'm excited about it. I love

00:10:42.300 to see these young boys thrive and I love to help them overcome obstacles and challenges. And I love

00:10:49.020 to see them realize their potential and get better and overcome obstacles. It's, it's amazing to me.

00:10:56.820 And I tell you why that's important because I didn't have that for a lot of my life when I was

00:11:03.360 growing up, but I had a few coaches come into my life as a young man who did that for me. And I

00:11:09.480 realize i realized it then and i realize it more now so how important it is i just had a really

00:11:15.640 interesting experience last night my oldest son like i said he's graduating this year and he just

00:11:21.420 played his last home lacrosse game just last night and uh one of the coaches from a a local college

00:11:32.640 southern utah university came up to me and he said hey i just want to let you know we're going to

00:11:37.080 present your son with an official offer to come play college lacrosse I was so proud of my son

00:11:43.600 and I am I'm proud of him I'm proud of all my kids for their various accomplishments

00:11:47.000 and it was it was so powerful because I sent a message to my high school football and baseball

00:12:01.040 coach and his name is Matt Labrum and coach Labrum and I are still we're still close we're

00:12:06.700 still friends. We communicate. I see him every so often when he comes into town or I go up there

00:12:10.740 and I just said, Hey, you know, coach, I sent him this text and I'm paraphrasing, but I said,

00:12:16.180 Hey coach, I just want to let you know. I really appreciate you showing up for me when I was a

00:12:19.400 young man and I might get emotional on this one. I really appreciate you showing up for me as a

00:12:26.420 young man. And I just want you to know that the help you provided me when I was a kid is now

00:12:32.900 generational at this point. My son just received an offer to go play college ball and your work

00:12:39.560 in the way that you showed up is now generational. And I said, I love you coach. Appreciate you being

00:12:45.460 there for me always. And he always has. And he, and he still continues to be there for me.

00:12:52.220 And I think that's where we begin to experience our mission. When we, when we look at our past

00:12:56.680 and we think, well, what would I have wanted? What would I have needed? What would have been

00:13:00.340 a resource or an answer or a, a provision that would have helped me. And that becomes

00:13:06.620 the fuel for your mission. And it's, it's all service. It's always service. So I want you to

00:13:15.100 ask yourself this, who, who would suffer if I checked out, right? I know a lot of you guys

00:13:20.200 have dealt with depression and suicidal ideation. I know you have, because I talk with you guys

00:13:26.020 daily. I know it. Who would suffer if you checked out? Friends, family members, and even strangers.

00:13:32.720 Who needs you to be fully alive and fully present? I want you to write their names down. I want you

00:13:38.400 to write those categories down. And I want you to put those on the mirror, or I want you to put those

00:13:43.300 on the screensaver on your computer, somewhere you see them every single day because those names now

00:13:49.140 can become your mission. All right. Let's talk about the second S skills. What were you built

00:13:56.740 to do? What were you built to do? When I talked about the military again, because it's a veterans

00:14:04.060 excuse me, not veterans day, but, um, uh, it's military appreciation day. Essentially

00:14:11.880 the military doesn't just give you a mission and and just wish you luck on that mission they

00:14:19.260 they equip you right they train you

00:14:21.600 they they develop and hone your skills into weapons that are to be used for the mission

00:14:28.540 and every single one of you has a unique set of abilities based on your characteristics based on

00:14:35.580 your biological makeup based on the experiences that you've had based on lessons you've learned

00:14:43.220 based on cultures you've grown up in and a lot of this is something that comes naturally to you

00:14:51.260 that other people struggle with maybe it's leadership maybe it's communication maybe

00:14:55.620 it's building something and there's people that have an aptitude for just building there's people

00:15:00.460 that have an aptitude for teaching or for strategy or problem solving. And the question is, are your

00:15:07.200 skills aimed at and pointed at something worth directing them towards? So here's what I want you

00:15:14.160 to do in this category. And guys, I want you to come back to this podcast often. And I actually

00:15:18.000 want you to share this with a friend because what I would challenge you to do is do this with a

00:15:22.440 friend. We're actually doing this in the iron council in the coming weeks. We're going to go

00:15:26.540 through how to develop your mission. So if you want to join us, join us, theironcouncil.com

00:15:31.140 slash preview. We're doing a preview call on Tuesday, May 19th, and I'd love for you to be on

00:15:35.820 that. But I want you to make a list of your top five natural abilities. And then I want you to

00:15:40.940 ask yourself, how could these abilities that I have naturally be deployed for something bigger

00:15:48.720 than my paycheck or the accolades or notoriety or whatever it might be? How can they be deployed

00:15:58.660 for something bigger than myself? And that intersection, your skills, when it's aimed at

00:16:03.080 service, it's aimed at other people. Again, service is the first S. That's where your mission lives.

00:16:09.880 Okay, let's talk about the next one. The next one is I. And I is interest.

00:16:18.720 what are you interested in? What do you enjoy? What do you like? What gets you excited? What

00:16:27.100 gets you motivated? See, most of society today would tell you, hey, don't be overly excited.

00:16:33.160 Don't be selfish. Worry about other people. And sure, we should because I talked about service

00:16:37.980 being important. But what gets you interested in life? What gets you engaged? What gets you excited?

00:16:44.340 what gets you motivated i i know in this self-help world we're like motivation is 0.96

00:16:51.380 stupid you should worry about discipline no i think there's something to be said for motivation 0.84

00:16:56.120 if you told me that i have to go you know run 20 miles this week i'm not real excited about that 1.00

00:17:03.100 but if you said hey you're gonna build muscle and you're gonna go lift heavy for the next five

00:17:07.640 weeks like that's exciting that's interesting that's more interesting to me so what is your

00:17:11.880 interest and i don't care what it is you know we often talk about the the quote-unquote manly

00:17:17.240 things like go do jujitsu or go hunt or go build something or go for a rock and all that stuff's

00:17:25.160 wonderful i like those things go shoot weapons but also go play chess go speak on stage i was

00:17:36.480 just driving down the road the other day and i live in this beautiful area in southern utah it's

00:17:40.280 this beautiful high desert in Southern Utah.

00:17:42.700 And I was driving down the road and I looked over to the side

00:17:44.840 because there was a car pulled over.

00:17:47.980 And I wondered if they needed help or anything, but they didn't.

00:17:51.760 And I looked over and there was this man and he had a canvas up

00:17:54.640 and he was painting this painting of the scenery.

00:17:59.000 And I drove by so fast that I couldn't see it,

00:18:01.280 but I thought that's, he's creating, right?

00:18:04.560 He's creating art.

00:18:05.360 He's creating beauty.

00:18:06.980 He's practicing.

00:18:08.000 He's honing a skill.

00:18:08.880 I don't care what it is.

00:18:09.840 maybe it's cooking maybe it's painting landscape like that guy did maybe it's photography it's

00:18:15.880 it's even the things that you wouldn't necessarily consider manly one of the things that i go do

00:18:22.020 every single week for my two oldest boys lacrosse program is i go take pictures we might not say

00:18:27.500 that's manly except for that it is because we're producing and so you can produce by cooking for

00:18:34.140 your family you can produce by painting beautiful paintings or taking pictures or you know fill in

00:18:41.660 the blank with whatever's playing chess like whatever's interesting to you just do it what

00:18:47.420 are you interested in next are the obstacles you know what what is what is stopping you so the o

00:18:55.340 and in mission is is obstacles what's stopping you what is it really name it put a face to the

00:19:02.660 name you know i i think about the analogies of sports and i use sports analogies a lot because

00:19:08.180 it's what resonates with me and when my boys or when i was playing sports what we would do is we

00:19:16.860 would study tape right we'd watch tape we'd watch the adversary we'd watch the other team and we'd

00:19:21.820 see how they played and we'd see what they did and we'd figure out who their players were and

00:19:26.040 we'd exploit weaknesses and we would really get granular and crystallize who it is we were playing

00:19:32.380 against so that we could come up with a strategy to win. And the same thing is true about your life.

00:19:39.100 You know, we all have obstacles. Maybe it's your own self-perception. Maybe it's imposter syndrome.

00:19:46.380 Maybe it's substance abuse issues. Maybe it's overcoming some discipline

00:19:51.520 issues that you need to deal with. Maybe it's other people. Maybe it's toxic relationships.

00:19:57.220 maybe it's the way you feel about yourself but what is stopping you from being the kind of man

00:20:04.340 that you not only have a right to be but have a moral obligation to be and you got to start

00:20:10.920 writing those things down you know a lot of guys feel the pull of a mission and then they wait

00:20:16.120 you know they they wait until their their kids are older well my kids are older and then I'll do it

00:20:22.020 that's an obstacle or they wait until I have money well you know once I have money then I'll

00:20:26.340 do it. Or once I feel ready, I'll do it. Guys, readiness is a freaking myth. I want you to know

00:20:33.820 that readiness is a myth. I see this in, in, in deciding to get married or having kids or start

00:20:41.440 a business or leave a business or quit. Well, when I'm ready, when I'm ready, when I'm ready,

00:20:47.260 you'll never be ready with that attitude.

00:20:49.200 the only men who find their mission are the guys who move so name the fear the habit the story

00:20:59.880 whatever it is write it down name it because the the unnamed obstacles that you have in your life

00:21:06.100 they control you but the named ones you can fight against those right you know what you're fighting

00:21:12.040 against and you can fight against those. And the last, the last item in the, in the acronym mission

00:21:24.160 is what is your next step? And I just want you to keep it simple. I don't want you to think about

00:21:29.040 10 steps. I don't want you to think about how it's going to look over the next six months or

00:21:33.760 12 months or 10 years. I don't want you to think about any of that. Just what's one thing you can

00:21:37.440 do today? What is one thing that you can do today? Is it writing down the answers to the questions I

00:21:45.260 gave you? Is it reaching out to a potential business partner? Is it asking that woman on a

00:21:50.640 date? Is it reaching out to the community center and telling them that you want to help coach next

00:21:55.660 year's football or soccer or lacrosse or basketball or wrestling program? Is it signing up for that

00:22:02.060 jujitsu class is it going to that painting class that the community center offers is it

00:22:07.720 signing up for the pistol course that you were excited about is it going on the hunt that your

00:22:12.800 friend invited you to that you've never said yes to before what's the next step guys not 10 not 20

00:22:19.960 not 100 not what the 10 years holds what what does the next 10 hours hold what are you going to do

00:22:24.940 right now and then do it and then when that 10 hours is up what's the next 10 hours hold and the

00:22:33.360 next 10 hours and the next 10 hours the next 10 hours in fact i'd say even think about it in

00:22:37.740 smaller increments what's the next hour hold what am i supposed to be doing right now sure

00:22:41.740 start with the end of mind but what should i do right now again tomorrow again as of the release

00:22:49.560 of this podcast is armed forces day and those soldiers and those airmen and those seamen and

00:22:58.160 those marines they didn't they didn't wait until they were just unafraid or until the stars aligned

00:23:07.900 to serve they serve despite their fear and i think that's what a man does when he has a mission

00:23:14.360 so here's what i'll leave you with

00:23:18.320 the the depression that you're experiencing the addiction that you might be suffering

00:23:25.120 the isolation and loneliness that you might be experiencing

00:23:30.720 the the there's just unbelievably staggering suicidal rates at its core is what i call a

00:23:40.240 mission crisis when you as a man lack purpose in your life you don't just get sad you actually

00:23:47.140 become dangerous to yourself and sometimes to other people i mean look at the statistics look

00:23:53.640 at the young men who are shooting up schools and killing themselves and killing other people

00:23:58.320 they have no mission you see this with gangs all the time you know we have an entire generation of 0.82

00:24:05.340 young black men primarily who don't have a mission because fewer and fewer fathers are engaged and

00:24:14.200 involved and in the absence of a mission they are finding their purpose and their identity

00:24:22.300 in toxic situations and it's not just our young black men it's our young white men

00:24:30.240 now predominantly they're not getting involved in gangs necessarily but they are getting involved

00:24:36.440 in drugs and substance abuse and violence it's it's not a surprise to me if we continue to see 1.00

00:24:49.700 violence conducted and carried out by our youth black white brown doesn't matter 1.00

00:24:58.280 because there's no mission for them 1.00

00:25:00.740 and there's no man to teach them about what mission is.

00:25:03.980 So if you're a father, sure, teach your kids about mission,

00:25:06.360 but if you can't have and develop

00:25:08.200 and identify a mission of your own,

00:25:10.120 then you can't do it for them.

00:25:12.580 I really believe that a man on a mission

00:25:14.800 is one of the most powerful forces on earth.

00:25:17.380 If you look at the greatest human beings

00:25:20.680 in the history of the world,

00:25:23.160 from Jesus Christ to George Washington

00:25:26.160 to Thomas Edison, to Martin Luther King, what do they all have? A mission.

00:25:34.220 They all had different rhetorical skills. They all had different applicable action-oriented skills.

00:25:42.300 Some could orate, some could fight, some could enlist, some could strategize,

00:25:48.580 but all of them had a mission because those men are present. They're grounded. They protect,

00:25:54.400 they build they lead they show up so again tomorrow armed forces day i'm asking you not

00:26:01.000 only to honor our service members as we get into this not just with the gratitude that you have

00:26:05.660 but by picking up the torch that they have carried refusing to drip refusing to just kind of let

00:26:15.120 things slip and slip away and go by the wayside. Building a mission worthy of the life that you've

00:26:25.420 been given. So again, use this mission framework and I'll say it this way. Number one, meaning

00:26:30.820 what makes you alive. Number two, identity, who you are at your core. Number three, service.

00:26:36.960 Who are you fighting for? Number four, skills. What were you built to do? Number five is interest.

00:26:43.820 what are you excited about number six is obstacles what might get in your way and the last step is

00:26:52.000 n what is your next step not what's your hundredth step what do you need to do in the next 10 hours

00:26:59.460 to make this a reality guys please if you would i'm giving you a big ask here share this with a

00:27:04.160 man who needs to hear it and and every man does actually so there's there's every single man that

00:27:11.060 you know, your friends, your colleagues, your brothers, your cousins, your co-workers, your

00:27:14.940 dad, your father, your grandfather, your sons, every man needs to hear this. Every man needs a

00:27:23.100 mission. We don't all have the same mission and that's good too. I have a mission. Your mission 1.00

00:27:30.340 is different than mine. We can work together. We can collaborate. We can share resources, but we

00:27:35.900 all have different missions. What is yours? You can develop that. You can build that and you ought

00:27:39.800 too, because that's what makes you a man. You are valued by the service and gifts that you offer to

00:27:48.300 the world. And God has given you those gifts, use them effectively. If you want to know more about

00:27:53.460 what we're doing and specifically about having this conversation, we're going to do this in

00:27:58.240 next week. We're going to have this conversation. I want you to join us inside the iron council.

00:28:04.660 we're going to do a preview call on tuesday may 19th tuesday may 19th at eight o'clock eastern

00:28:11.920 if you go to the iron council.com slash preview again that's the iron council.com slash preview

00:28:18.520 you can get registered for that preview call all right guys we will be back next week i've got a

00:28:25.500 great and polarizing conversation so please subscribe go over to youtube hit that little

00:28:30.880 like or subscribe button over there. Comment, engage, share. That's how we grow this grassroots

00:28:36.440 movement of reclaiming and restoring masculinity. All right, guys, we'll be back then. Until then,

00:28:42.960 go out there, take action, and become the man you are meant to be.

00:28:50.000 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take charge of your

00:28:54.320 life and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at

00:28:58.840 orderofman.com

Order of Man - May 15, 2026

Why Every Man Needs a Mission (And, How to Build One) ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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