Order of Man - Why Every Man Should Start a Business

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.

00:00:10.460 You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong. This is your life. This is who

00:00:17.180 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.740 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is

00:00:26.940 Ryan Michler. I'm your host and the founder of this, The Order Man podcast and movement.

00:00:31.780 Welcome here today and welcome back. Today, we're going to talk about starting a business.

00:00:36.360 We're going to talk about why that is, why it's important. I've got four or five key steps and

00:00:40.580 reasons as to why you should start a business. And then we're going to talk about three or four

00:00:44.200 things that you can do to consider what business you should start, how you should get started,

00:00:49.280 how you should start making money and the like. So we're going to talk about that in a minute.

00:00:54.420 Before I do, just want to mention a lot of you guys have asked about the Iron Council. That's

00:00:59.360 our exclusive brotherhood. We're having conversations about business, about money,

00:01:03.720 about fitness. In fact, this month, we're talking all about masculine health. Next month for the month

00:01:08.640 of May, we're going to be talking about doing powerful networking, which is a concept of business

00:01:13.060 we might get into a little bit today. We are closed right now, but if you want to be put on the list,

00:01:18.000 the notification list, then head to orderaman.com slash iron council, orderaman.com slash iron

00:01:24.540 council. We open back up in, let me think here, May. Yes. The end of May, first part of June is

00:01:31.820 when we're opening back up. So a couple of months away, get on the list. And also in the meantime,

00:01:35.980 check out our battle ready program at orderaman.com slash battle ready. All right, guys, let's talk

00:01:41.080 about this. This one was spurred on by a conversation that I had with my accountant and we were looking

00:01:48.160 at ways that I could reduce my tax liability for 2022. It was significant, unfortunately,

00:01:55.040 unfortunately, in that I have to pay the government who misuses and mishandles and mismanages

00:01:59.400 everybody's money every single minute of every single day. But fortunate in that financially,

00:02:05.620 we did pretty well last year, but I'm constantly looking at ways, legal ways, of course, to reduce

00:02:11.860 my tax liability. And this spurred a conversation about starting a business. And that's one of the

00:02:17.760 reasons that every man should consider starting a business. You may not think that it's going to

00:02:23.180 take over the world or it's going to be the next Facebook or Twitter or SpaceX or Tesla or any number

00:02:29.760 of companies that maybe you like and value. But there's reasons above and beyond global domination

00:02:38.000 when it comes to starting a business. And this goes for, I think, just about every man out there.

00:02:44.620 Number one, it's going to help you hedge against your income now, the job, the career that you have

00:02:52.280 right now. So many guys think that just because they're in a job and an occupation that they've been

00:02:57.100 for 20, 30, 40 years, that that's stable. Guys, I'm telling you what, that could go away at any

00:03:02.300 minute. And what we're going to see in the current economy and as we move forward, especially as we

00:03:06.620 get into presidential elections over the next several years, depending on the direction that

00:03:11.500 that goes, and it's not going in a positive direction right now, you're going to see a continually

00:03:16.140 weakening US dollar. You're going to continue to see inflation. You're going to continue to see

00:03:23.260 massive amounts of volatility in the market. You're going to see companies that make dumb decisions,

00:03:28.960 just absolutely moronic decisions. One in particular is Bud Light by bringing on Dylan Mulvaney

00:03:36.460 as one of their spokespersons. And you can see the amount of money that they've lost as a result.

00:03:43.460 Another one, Fox News, just let go of Tucker Carlson. They've lost billions of dollars in market share

00:03:50.520 because of that decision. Now, look, I'm not here to tell you what's good and bad and what's right

00:03:55.020 or wrong. These are organizations that are going to make their own decisions, but I'm telling you

00:03:58.760 what, we're going to see more and more companies that are going to get into this woke ideology and

00:04:04.260 they're going to promote this and they're going to be negatively impacted. And you might be one of

00:04:08.340 the people that is a casualty of that. You know, I think about with Bud Light, for example,

00:04:13.540 those distributors, they didn't do anything wrong. They're all doing their job. They're distributing,

00:04:18.160 they're driving, they're, they're, they're bringing Bud Light to different stores and

00:04:21.520 restaurants and bars. And it wasn't their decision to make a dumb political business decision. And yet

00:04:28.340 they're suffering the consequences of it. And you are susceptible to that. If you're working for

00:04:33.600 somebody else, whether it's an organization like Bud Light or a mom and pop shop down the road or a

00:04:39.040 restaurant up the street, you're susceptible to political changes. You're susceptible to personal

00:04:45.580 changes in the owner's circumstances and situation. And unless you have multiple income streams,

00:04:50.140 whether that's through investing in the stock market, investing in real estate, or in this

00:04:55.080 particular case, having another source of income that's going to provide should something not work

00:05:01.480 out for you. That's a pretty powerful reason to consider starting a business. So number one,

00:05:06.200 you're hedging. Number two, you're just going to make more money, especially obviously if it's a

00:05:10.340 profitable business, what would it be like to have an extra $500 a month or $5,000 a month or $10,000?

00:05:17.020 What would it be like to have six figures a year coming in from a side business? That's very feasible.

00:05:23.480 It's very possible. How do I know? Cause that's what we're doing here. This was a side business long

00:05:28.320 before it was my permanent and full-time occupation. But what would change about your life? If you could

00:05:36.320 pay off your debt, what could change about your life? If you could afford a family vacation,

00:05:40.780 what would change about your life? If you weren't stressed out about money at any given point,

00:05:45.040 trying to pay the bills and how is that spilling over into your family life, your personal life

00:05:48.940 and the relationship you have with your kids and your wife and friends, it's significant.

00:05:53.880 But if you had an extra little bit of money coming in that was hedging against what else might happen

00:05:59.200 over here, you're going to be in a much more powerful position. We talk about this all the time.

00:06:02.840 It's all about sovereignty, which is basically if we strip everything else away, doing what you want,

00:06:08.580 when you want, why you want, how you want, and you can do that if you're financially free and you

00:06:13.400 better be financially free, especially in the wake of what's going to happen in the future with regards

00:06:18.720 to the economy. It's going to be devastating for millions and millions of millions of Americans.

00:06:23.940 And I don't want that to be you because you have people to take care of yourself and the people

00:06:27.300 you love. Number two, and this kind of goes along, I guess number two is the money situation.

00:06:33.280 Number three is the tax benefits of doing it. All right. If you, and look, I'm not an accountant.

00:06:38.580 I'm not a financial advisor. I was a financial advisor in another life before order of man.

00:06:42.860 In fact, I sold my financial planning practice so I could go full-time into this.

00:06:46.960 So take this advice with a grain of salt and consult your legal and professional and financial team

00:06:52.680 and ask them if this is good for you. But when it comes to taxes, you got to have write-offs.

00:06:58.020 You cannot claim 100% of your income because if you do, you're going to get absolutely molested

00:07:05.280 by the IRS and the federal government and the state government as well. They want their grubby,

00:07:11.540 greedy hands on your hard-earned money. And I'm not entirely against the concept of taxes.

00:07:19.280 I think if we're going to be part of communities, we're going to have services that we all collectively

00:07:25.840 use or that are good for society generally, then that has to be funded. I'm not anti-tax,

00:07:32.840 but I am anti-excessive tax and I am anti-misuse and I am anti-theft. I'm anti-non-representation.

00:07:48.600 Like how is it that we have so many taxes everywhere you turn? There's a tax for this.

00:07:52.400 There's a tax for that. There's a licensing fee for this. There's a new license you need to get.

00:07:55.820 Oh, you want to drive a car? You got to get a license and you got to pay taxes for that.

00:07:59.520 Then you got to pay taxes for the car that you bought and taxes for the tires that are on that

00:08:02.840 car. It's absolutely ridiculous. And then when you die, your kids pay taxes. When you make a dollar,

00:08:07.800 you're taxed. When you pay an employee, they're taxed. It's nonsense. It's evil. And it's all

00:08:14.280 designed to keep you broke and in poverty, dependent on big daddy government. I don't want that to be us.

00:08:22.040 So what I'm going to do is I'm going to look for every possible opportunity and loophole and legal

00:08:27.260 law decision that's available to get out of giving my hard-earned money to the government.

00:08:32.980 And how do you do that? By having write-offs. So if you go on a vacation and it happens to be that

00:08:39.140 you do some business there, that becomes a write-off. Again, consult your accountants on this.

00:08:44.720 If there's certain areas of the house that you use for your business, you can write that off or

00:08:49.440 depreciate that element of your house as a business expense. Same thing with your cell phone.

00:08:53.300 Now all of a sudden you're a hundred or 150 or $200 cell phone. You get to claim that less

00:08:58.520 money on your income, your internet, all of these things that you actually use on a daily basis.

00:09:04.440 If you're using them for legitimate business purposes, and it does have to be a legitimate

00:09:08.680 business, which if I understand correctly, doesn't even mean that you need to make money.

00:09:12.900 It means that you need to be in the business of making money, that you need to try to make money.

00:09:16.400 But we all know businesses lose revenue year in and year out. So it has to be a legitimate business,

00:09:21.760 even if it doesn't have any legitimate business income as of yet. Again, consult your CPAs on the

00:09:28.000 specifics of that. But I want to look for every opportunity I can to write things off. When I buy

00:09:33.580 a new piece of art, if it's going in my office, then that's a business deduction. If there's a

00:09:39.580 course available that I want to buy on some element of, of my business or skillset development,

00:09:44.760 then I get to write that off. If I go on a trip and I bring my podcast equipment with me

00:09:49.560 and I do podcasts, that's a, that's a, a write-off. If I go on a family vacation,

00:09:55.320 if I'm incorporated the correct way, I can actually write that off as our shareholder

00:10:00.460 meeting for the year. This is all legal ways to do this. Everybody complains about, oh, you know,

00:10:05.140 the, the wealthy, they don't pay, pay their fair share. No, they don't. They actually pay more than

00:10:09.280 their fair share if we're being honest about it. But people complain, oh, they're using these

00:10:14.240 loopholes. Yeah. Right. They're using the legal code to their advantage to not give big daddy

00:10:22.300 government as much money as they absolutely have to, or as much as the government would want them

00:10:26.660 to. Well, guess what? It's a law. There's no law that says, hey, only these people can do that.

00:10:32.720 Now there are a few when it comes to financial regulations. I won't get into that, but far and wide

00:10:37.860 what's applicable to high incomeers, high net worth people is applicable to the rest of us.

00:10:44.980 The only difference is we need to figure out how to exploit it. Now I'm not telling you to do

00:10:49.540 anything unethical or illegal or immoral. I'm telling you to pay your fair share of taxes,

00:10:53.440 but not a penny more, not a penny more. And if you have a business, a legitimate business,

00:10:59.720 you give yourself an opportunity to write things off. Number three, or I guess number four,

00:11:04.880 I added another one in there. So number four is fulfillment. It's fulfilling, you know, to,

00:11:11.240 to start a business from nothing, to grow it into something that wasn't there previously, to

00:11:16.060 pursue a passion and an interest in a hobby that's engaging to you, that's interesting to you,

00:11:21.320 that meets a need in the community. It's fulfilling, it's rewarding. And I've seen studies and data and

00:11:30.200 research that shows that upwards of 70% of the workforce is dissatisfied in some way with their

00:11:36.540 current occupation. Imagine that 70%, it's probably even higher. Seven out of 10 people, 70 out of a

00:11:42.780 hundred people are miserable. They go into a job they hate. They don't like the work they do. They

00:11:47.880 don't like the people they're working with. They don't like what they're offering. And even if they

00:11:50.500 do like what they're offering, it changes from, from time to time. They're, they're handcuffed by what

00:11:55.380 they can do with their clients and how they can serve them. That was part of my problem with

00:12:00.500 financial services. I knew we were helping people. I knew we were doing good. I knew as helping

00:12:05.820 families retire and build wealth and have financial prosperity. And yet the companies I worked with

00:12:11.880 wouldn't let me do podcasting without seeing what the script was. They wouldn't let me put out

00:12:16.380 certain quote unquote marketing material without putting their stamp of approval on it. I don't want to

00:12:20.600 live like that. I want to be fulfilled by offering things that I think are valuable. And then the

00:12:26.700 market can decide not some bureaucrat who doesn't have any really day-to-day expertise or experience

00:12:34.360 in the business I'm trying to do. I want it within my hands. And each day when I go to sleep at night,

00:12:38.940 I know that I did a podcast that served somebody. I get a dozen messages a day. Ryan, I appreciate this

00:12:45.820 because of here's how I changed my life. Here's how I worked on the relationship with my wife or

00:12:50.200 here's how I reconnected with my estranged children. Here's how I started the business.

00:12:54.700 Here's how I got a raise. That's fulfilling. That's rewarding. That's makes that's fuel for me.

00:13:00.380 It makes me happy. That makes me satisfied. And I am satisfied in my work. I'm one of the three

00:13:06.060 of the 10 who actually likes the work they do, but I had to go out and create it. And I think you can too.

00:13:12.540 If you're not satisfied with where you are first, I would say, learn to be satisfied with where you are

00:13:17.080 by improving the environment around you. But second, create a new environment, create new

00:13:21.340 opportunities, which leads me into point number five. And that is one of the reasons that it's

00:13:26.600 really important that you start a business is for skill development. It's such a powerful, potent way

00:13:32.540 to articulate, identify, and hone and refine a skillset that will help you sell something or make

00:13:40.960 yourself more marketable. So for example, as we started this podcast, I had to learn to become

00:13:47.200 a great communicator. And I did that through taking courses, through studying other great communicators

00:13:53.800 that I wanted to be like, and then practice. Somebody told the other day, we've got 1050 podcasts

00:14:00.140 that we've done now. Over 1000 podcasts. And people will say, oh, Ryan, you're great at podcasting.

00:14:06.440 Yeah, right. Because I've done a thousand episodes and I've had to exploit my, my, my strengths. I've

00:14:13.020 had to shore up weaknesses. I've had to identify what I'm good at. I've had to identify what I'm not

00:14:17.860 good at. I've had to take courses. I've had to go to events. I've had to learn to market. I've had to

00:14:22.380 learn to do social media. One failure I had early on was when we did our very first event. I think I

00:14:30.440 said fairy first event, not fairy first event. Uh, that sounds like some woke event that you would

00:14:36.340 see in like Portland or something. No, very first event. Uh, we were, we, we were going to do the

00:14:44.100 event and about three weeks before we were going to do it, I didn't have a single person sign up,

00:14:49.140 not a single person. So I had a choice to make. Do I throw in the towel? Do I nix the event? Do I not

00:14:55.160 do it? Do I accept defeat? No, of course not. I go back to the drawing board and I figure out what

00:15:01.820 I could do better, what I didn't do well, and how I can improve in order to market this event a little

00:15:07.100 better. About three months after that one, we ran our second iteration of the event and we were able

00:15:12.960 to get 20 guys to sign up for the event. And we called ourselves the terrible 20. In fact, we still

00:15:17.760 do, but I had to learn a new skillset and that in, in that failure, it forced me to learn something

00:15:25.560 new, a lot of new things. And I've had a lot of failures. I've, I've had situations with our

00:15:31.380 merchandise component of the, of the business where I've literally lost tens of thousands of dollars,

00:15:37.480 just vanished. I might as well just go burn it. At least if I burned it, it'd give me some heat for

00:15:41.560 the night. Thousands of dollars, just gone. And you know what that does? First, you know, a little

00:15:47.940 tear might come out of the corner of your eye because that's valuable, but it forces you to

00:15:53.440 evaluate your inadequacies. If there's no consequence for your shortcoming, there's no reason to fix it.

00:16:01.220 But if you're going to lose thousands of dollars because you don't know how to communicate effectively,

00:16:05.400 or you don't know how to work a supplier chain or that the companies that you're working with,

00:16:12.400 you're going to learn pretty quick when you start feeling it in your pocketbook.

00:16:15.820 So if you're out there starting a business, you're going to start learning new things that you need

00:16:20.400 to implement in your life to improve your business, which will in turn improve your fulfillment and

00:16:25.140 help other people and all the other things I talked about. I'm sure there's a, an endless list

00:16:31.580 of reasons why it would behoove you. It's my word of the day, behoove you to start a business.

00:16:39.660 But I think those are some pretty compelling reasons right there. Number one, you're hedging

00:16:44.400 against the risk associated with your current career. Number two, you supplement your income

00:16:49.600 and start generating more revenue that could pay off debt or go into other investments. Number three,

00:16:53.620 you reduce your tax liability. So big daddy government doesn't get their grubby hands on all of your

00:16:59.140 hard-earned money just a little bit. Number four, your ability to be fulfilled because you're pursuing

00:17:04.980 something interesting and meaningful and life-changing to other people. And then number five is you're

00:17:09.080 going to be forced to develop new skills. I call it skill acquisition. You're going to have to acquire

00:17:14.720 new skills to be successful. And if you don't, you'll fail and nobody wants to fail. So you will

00:17:19.620 develop new skills. Now let's talk about from a high level view, what you can do. Cause I know a lot of

00:17:25.040 you are probably listening to this. You're like, Ryan, that all sounds great. I already know all this

00:17:28.120 stuff. You're preaching to the choir here. I don't need you to tell me that I need it for tax benefits

00:17:32.220 or I'll feel happier by starting a business. I know all that. How do I do it? Guys? I think we

00:17:36.940 tend to overthink things. We tend to complicate things that don't need to be complicated and we

00:17:41.480 make it harder than it needs to be probably because it helps inflate our ego a little bit. Like,

00:17:46.440 Oh, this is sophisticated. This is hard work. I have to really be smart. And so you make it harder

00:17:51.720 than it needs to be because you want to feel important. Like you overcame something tremendous.

00:17:56.440 And I'm telling you, you're not okay. Like I'm not trying to be mean spirited when I say

00:18:01.500 that, like, let's not make it as big a deal as it is. It's not really that big a deal.

00:18:06.380 What I would suggest to you first and foremost is that you begin to take out a journal. I've

00:18:12.500 got journals everywhere. I've got notepads here. I've got a battle planner right here. I've got

00:18:18.360 my daily journal right here. I've got journals and papers and pens everywhere because I write

00:18:22.780 this stuff down. But what I'd like you to do is if you're in this mode of starting a business and

00:18:26.540 you don't know where to start, I want you to start documenting things that you enjoy.

00:18:32.260 That's it. Things that you enjoy. I'm working on a project with my daughter right now. We're

00:18:36.780 rebuilding a bike. I bought a bike at a yard sale for $10 and bought a tube for five and

00:18:40.680 it was running just fine. And I thought, you know, this would be cool if we did this together.

00:18:44.580 We worked on this together. So we pulled the whole bike apart. I've never done that before.

00:18:48.540 Stripping the paint off as we speak. We got some spray paint that she wanted and it's,

00:18:52.540 we're going to do the whole bike. We're going to do it right. It's going to look beautiful.

00:18:55.000 I'll show you guys when I'm done. Well, you know what? I might find a lot of joy and satisfaction

00:18:59.380 so much so that I might want to do it again. So much so that maybe one of her friends sees the bike

00:19:04.820 and her parents are like, Hey, like my daughter wants a custom bike. Can you do one for us?

00:19:10.740 If that's something I enjoy, all of a sudden I'm in business. If it's taking pictures,

00:19:15.600 if it's helping coach baseball teams, I'm coaching my two son, two of my son's baseball teams right

00:19:20.840 now. I like coaching. It's, it's, it's nothing that I'm, I'm so good at that. Uh, I have a lot

00:19:27.340 of valuable information to share, but there's one guy, his name is Ryan. Uh, we played against his

00:19:31.860 team yesterday. He's in a, he's, he's an amazing coach communicates with the kids. So well motivates

00:19:38.520 them is hard and firm with them knows a lot about the sport way more than I know about the sport of

00:19:44.080 baseball. He's tremendous. He's, he's incredible. Well, look how many parents want to have their

00:19:50.440 kids coached on hitting or the proper mechanics of throwing a baseball or any number of, of

00:19:57.060 dimensions to the game of baseball. That could be an opportunity for him to do a little coaching on

00:20:01.960 the side and earn a little additional revenue, do something that he really loves something he's

00:20:06.400 really engaged in and something that will be fulfilling for him and other people. So guys,

00:20:10.460 look to your strengths, look to the things that you enjoy. Now, certain things you may not want

00:20:15.260 to turn into a business. I can certainly understand that you just like it as a hobby and that's fine.

00:20:19.860 But if it is something that people will pay for or are paying for somewhere else, then you know,

00:20:24.400 it's likely they may pay for, from you if you offer a good, good service or a good product.

00:20:29.700 So another couple of things to look for when you're wondering, cause here, this is a very

00:20:35.560 interesting. It's an interesting dynamic for those people who are good at things. And I'm not in that

00:20:42.440 camp. I don't, I don't know if there's one thing where I'm like, I'm really good at that. I was

00:20:46.460 naturally born to do that thing. Like I'm so gifted at this. That isn't the case for me. It's probably

00:20:51.040 not the case for a lot of you guys too. You probably feel me on that, but for the things that you are good

00:20:57.120 at, and I think everybody is good at something for the things that you are good at. It's, it's hard

00:21:03.980 to know that you're good at it. It really is because you're so proficient at it that you think

00:21:10.820 isn't just everybody like this. No, they're not. Let's say you really enjoy photography

00:21:16.540 and you've got an eye for it. You've got a knack for it. You look at the pictures. They're beautiful.

00:21:20.580 People see your pictures like, Oh my goodness, what an amazing picture. What'd you take it with?

00:21:24.320 You're like my iPhone. They're like, how? Like, cause they don't see it the same way as you

00:21:27.740 for whatever reason. You see it different experiences, culture, upbringing, belief,

00:21:32.920 background, IQ, intelligence, all this stuff goes into play. You see it differently. And you have

00:21:38.300 to know that that makes you special. That makes you unique. If you believe that you're unique and

00:21:43.580 believe that you're special, then you know that your ability in this case to take pictures is not

00:21:48.020 something everybody possesses. Like you've all seen pictures. Like you could put 10 guys in a line.

00:21:53.500 I've got this big, beautiful desert mountain right here in front of me. I could put 10 guys in my

00:21:58.220 backyard and say, Hey, I want you guys to take about 15 minutes, get the angle you want, get the

00:22:02.640 perspective, get the lighting. You got 15 minutes, take a picture. And there's always going to be

00:22:06.700 one that's really good. And there's always going to be one that's horrible, but that's just how it

00:22:10.940 works. So if you're the person who's good at the thing, then you can help the person who's not good

00:22:16.480 at the thing. You have a certain set of skills as Liam Neeson would say, a certain set of skills

00:22:22.340 skills that other people don't possess. How do you know? Here's how, if they're asking for your

00:22:28.680 advice, they see something in you that you may not see in yourself. So somebody comes up to you and

00:22:34.460 says, Hey, but Bill, man, I've seen these pictures that you take and they're beautiful. And my daughter's

00:22:40.880 got a wedding coming up and like, you have any tips or do you know any photographers? Light bulb moment

00:22:46.700 should go off for you. Or, Hey, we've got an event coming up and you take great pictures. I don't know

00:22:51.520 if you do photography, but would you come out and take pictures at this event? Light bulb moment.

00:22:57.440 Or if they're asking for a device, let's say, uh, Joe is going to build a bike with his daughter

00:23:03.660 because he sees us building a bike and he comes to me. He's like, Hey Ryan, you know, I want to build

00:23:08.320 this bike. You built this before. And I don't know. I sprayed it with some spray paint, but it just,

00:23:12.900 it didn't turn out great. And I saw what you did and it looks so beautiful and shiny and almost

00:23:17.400 perfect. Like, well, how did you do that? Light bulb moment. If people are asking for advice,

00:23:23.660 then you have something they don't have. You have something they want and you can market it.

00:23:29.100 Another great way is what are you doing when time goes the fastest? If times is dragging on,

00:23:33.540 it's boring, it's miserable, it's horrible. Then you're really not engaged in that thing.

00:23:37.200 But if time's flying, it's either because you're really enjoying what you're doing, or you're in this,

00:23:43.560 what I would call, or what other people have called your zone of genius. Like you're operating

00:23:47.440 in the zone, a flow state. We've heard that term as well. You're operating in the state or the zone

00:23:53.960 in which you're hyper-focused on that thing. And you're so present and keenly in tune with what's

00:23:59.160 going on that everything around you, including time just seems to pass without you really noticing.

00:24:06.140 Another one, what would you be doing if money weren't a concern? Let's say all your bills were paid

00:24:11.680 for, all your income was taken care of. The food is covered. The housing is covered. Money's not an

00:24:18.080 issue for you. What would you be doing with your time? And I promise you for the large bulk of us,

00:24:23.480 we would not be sitting on the beach drinking Mai Tais. We might do that for a couple of days and then

00:24:27.520 we'd all get bored. So what would you be doing after that? How would you occupy your time?

00:24:33.900 You see a lot of old guys, they retire. Well, they do. They go and get a job at the golf course,

00:24:38.500 maintaining lawns or putting water at the holes periodically. You know, maybe that's what they do

00:24:44.220 or they work at Walmart. Some people have to, others choose to because they want the social

00:24:49.080 interaction with it. What would you be doing if money was not a concern? These are all indicators

00:24:54.340 that you've stumbled onto something that you like, that's fulfilling, that's rewarding, that you enjoy

00:25:00.280 and could be a marketable product or service. Number two, start talking with people about what they do

00:25:07.160 to grow their businesses, especially if it's similar to yours. If you want to grow a woodworking

00:25:11.820 business, for example, there's other people who are doing that in the community who are woodworkers.

00:25:16.320 Go network with them. Go ask them questions. Get on the phone. Don't make it weird. Don't make it

00:25:21.580 hard. People do. Ah, I don't know. I don't know what to say. I don't know. You're in your head. Stop

00:25:25.440 that. Just go be curious. Hey, John, I know you did woodworking and man, I've seen your furniture

00:25:32.000 around town. You sell some at the local hardware store and I've seen some other people that have

00:25:37.300 one of your rocking chairs and I'm thinking about starting a woodworking business. Can I

00:25:41.820 take you to breakfast tomorrow morning? I just have a few questions about how you got started and

00:25:46.620 how you figured out pricing and what tools you have. He's going to do it. The only reason he

00:25:52.220 wouldn't do that is because we make it all weird and awkward and uncomfortable or we don't even

00:25:55.540 approach it because we're too scared. Guys, open your mouths and go talk with people who are doing what

00:26:01.120 you want to do and learn from them, grow from them, buy their courses, pay for their programs,

00:26:06.640 go meet them in person. When I started Order of Man eight years ago, one of the very first things I

00:26:12.580 did is I went to an event that was for men and I introduced myself even before the event to all the

00:26:19.600 speakers at the event. I sent them an email. Hey, I'm going to be out there. I'm excited to listen to

00:26:25.520 your presentation. I like what you have to say and I'm anxious to meet you. My name is Ryan. I'm going

00:26:29.760 to come up and shake your hand and remind you of this email. That's it. And then when I go, guess

00:26:34.280 what? I'm one of, if not the only person who did that. And who are they going to remember? Me, of

00:26:39.680 course, me. Get yourself around other performers. Get yourself around other people who are doing what

00:26:46.600 you want to do. People will say all the time, I don't know how to do that. Yes, you do. The people

00:26:51.440 you want to be around, they have products, they have courses, they have podcasts, they have emails,

00:26:56.600 they have programs available, they have memberships, they have stores, they have,

00:27:01.700 they have things. Go there and start to surround yourself with those people. And then the tip with

00:27:07.700 that is just to be curious. Just keep the curiosity. You don't need 20 questions before you go there.

00:27:14.440 You know, you don't need to have some scripted out conversation. You don't need to be in your head

00:27:19.040 about it. You just need to go and be curious. Hey, Ryan, how'd you start a podcast? Why did you start

00:27:23.680 that podcast? What were some of the mistakes you made? Oh, how'd you overcome that? How'd you go

00:27:28.980 overcome rejection or getting over the way people thought of you? Just be curious. We all have

00:27:34.340 questions. Very few of us ask them. So ask them. The next thing, this is really important and one a

00:27:42.120 lot of people overlook. You have to sell something. Businesses make money. Now I know that goes a little

00:27:48.860 bit against what I said when it comes to taxes, but you have to actually go out there and sell something.

00:27:52.520 I would not suggest you give away a product for free. People do that. Well, I'm beta testing and

00:27:57.000 I'm okay. Then you're a charity. You're not a business. You can do a deep discount. You know,

00:28:02.660 you can, you can, you can slash the price on a little bit, but you have, you actually have to

00:28:06.500 sell something and you don't need to sell the, the, the best. You don't need to sell the final

00:28:12.940 rendition of it. You don't need to sell it when, you know, in 20 years, when your art form is perfected,

00:28:18.180 you can base your price on where you're at and your experience, but you have to sell something.

00:28:22.540 You have to, when we started order, man, it was like, how are we going to make money? At first,

00:28:26.000 we're going to do ads, but nobody was listening. So ads didn't want to put their ads on our podcast

00:28:30.260 and pay for it. Rightfully so. So I started a course. We called it the iron council. It's a 12

00:28:35.160 week course for 12 guys. We sold it for a hundred bucks. I could probably sell that course now for a

00:28:40.820 thousand or even more, but I sold it for a hundred because I didn't really know where to start,

00:28:44.900 but I didn't give it away. So here it is. Here's what I'm offering. Do you want it? And enough

00:28:50.440 people said, yeah. And I realized, okay, we're onto something here. When nobody signed up for the

00:28:55.520 event, I could have said to myself, well, nobody likes what I had to say. Nobody wants to do events.

00:29:00.160 That wasn't the case. I just needed to come back to the drawing board and remarket it a little bit

00:29:03.780 differently, but ultimately you've got to get people to get their checkbook out and pay you.

00:29:10.280 Otherwise you're more of a charity and probably not even a good one at that. Then you are a

00:29:14.660 business. So what can you sell and what can you sell as quickly as possible? That's usually what

00:29:21.700 I'll recommend for people as quickly as you possibly can. I don't want you to wait for a year,

00:29:25.840 a different product in a year. Sure. A different product in 10 years. Absolutely. What product can

00:29:31.100 you sell today and who can you sell it to and how can you market it? And then the last thing I would

00:29:36.080 say here, guys, when it comes to starting a business is that you just implement the feedback.

00:29:40.420 And I already alluded to that with the event, the feedback that we received was that they weren't

00:29:46.620 interested. Okay. Let's sit down, let's take a breath, figure out why people aren't interested

00:29:52.240 in it and let's try something different. And we did and it worked. Other things have worked well

00:29:57.640 immediately. Other things have taken time. Other things have developed over years and years of trial

00:30:02.540 and error, but we're always looking for feedback from our client base on what works. And sometimes that

00:30:08.820 feedback is that it's just crickets and that's good feedback for you. People aren't interested.

00:30:14.000 Either they're not seeing it or they're not interested. Get to the root of what it is,

00:30:17.040 figure it out and address it. Other times people try it and don't like it. Okay. Well, why?

00:30:22.540 Why don't you like it? Oh, it was too expensive for what it was. Okay. Well, maybe you need to

00:30:25.960 reevaluate your pricing or maybe you need to elevate your quality, but constantly be implementing

00:30:31.900 the feedback that you get so that you can now sell this for more. You can identify new products

00:30:38.800 and services that you want to make available to people. Look for ancillary products. So for example,

00:30:44.260 if you make a wooden benches for people, maybe you consider making small wooden tables for people

00:30:50.000 or wooden bookstands. They're ancillary products. If you can make a table, you can make a bookstand.

00:30:55.320 Do it. If that's what the market demands. All right, guys. So there you go. I hope I convinced

00:31:01.280 you. I know I didn't get into the weeds of all the nitty gritty details of what you need to do to

00:31:05.740 be a success. But I think ultimately the greatest obstacle you're going to have is just getting

00:31:09.980 started. Y'all know you should do it. How many of you are going to start? I really want to see more

00:31:14.620 businesses. So reach out to me, connect with me. If you have questions about how to start a business

00:31:18.860 or what I've done here, I'm an open book. I'm happy to share any of that. I was going to say,

00:31:24.560 I've never been scarce. I have been scarce in my life with my information. I'm not anymore

00:31:28.360 because I realized that there's only really a couple of types of people in the world.

00:31:33.200 There's the people who need your advice and there's the people who won't take your advice.

00:31:39.840 And so the people, if you could share all of your secrets, you could get, if I could get

00:31:43.680 Elon Musk in here and I could say, Hey, share with us all of your secrets about how you had your

00:31:49.240 such, such tremendous business success. You're going to have a large group of people who aren't

00:31:55.460 going to do anything with that information, even if you divulge all the secrets. And for the other

00:31:59.900 type of people, the second type of people, even if you do diverge or divulge, excuse me, all of your

00:32:06.540 secrets, or you don't, they were going to figure it out anyways, because that's the type of people

00:32:10.300 they are. So you might as well build up goodwill with them, right? If somebody calls me and they're

00:32:14.920 like, Hey, I'm going to start a men's movement. I'm like, well, F you, like, I'm not going to help

00:32:17.980 you with that. Why would, I don't understand why I wouldn't either. I shared everything and they

00:32:23.160 don't implement it, which doesn't hurt me any, except for my time, or they do implement it and

00:32:28.740 they were going to do it, whether I shared or not. And then if I wasn't good to them, now I just

00:32:32.360 create somebody who I have contention and animosity with. Don't I want partners? Don't I want to network

00:32:37.120 with people? Of course, of course I do. So guys, I want to see you do more of this. I gave you some

00:32:44.220 reasons, hedging your bet, making more money, reducing taxation, building fulfillment, acquiring

00:32:48.720 new skills. And I gave you that, that a small little framework, finding something you really

00:32:53.680 enjoy talking with people about it in your market, selling something, anything, and then implementing

00:32:59.120 feedback as you receive it. I hope that helps. Let me know. And if there's other conversations you

00:33:03.400 want me to have and talk with you about, please let me know as well. You can do that at, well,

00:33:07.340 on Instagram, it's probably, yeah, it's probably best on Instagram at Ryan Mickler. In the meantime,

00:33:12.400 check out the wait list for the Iron Council, orderofman.com slash Iron Council, and our free

00:33:17.240 Battle Ready program, which might actually help you flesh out some ideas for your business at

00:33:21.760 orderofman.com slash Battle Ready. All right, guys, we'll be back next week. Until then, go out

00:33:28.800 there, take action. Let's all of us, self-included, all become the men we are meant to be.

00:33:33.640 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

00:33:38.220 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the Order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - April 28, 2023

Why Every Man Should Start a Business ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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