Order of Man - January 31, 2025


Will it Make the Boat Go Faster？ ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES


Episode Stats


Length

19 minutes

Words per minute

191.99834

Word count

3,708

Sentence count

213

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I share a concept from my good friend Kip Sorensen called "Will It Make the Boat Go Faster" and how you can apply it in your everyday life to improve your productivity and happiness.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
00:00:00.000 I've seen so many men do one of two things.
00:00:03.460 Either pick a course of action and believe just because they picked that course of action
00:00:07.140 that they're locked into it indefinitely.
00:00:10.020 Well, you're not.
00:00:11.220 At some point, if you're doing the wrong things over and over again, that's just stupidity.
00:00:16.520 You can change, you can pivot, you can adjust, even if it's something that you committed to earlier.
00:00:21.460 Another thing that I see guys do is they just stay in the game way too long.
00:00:30.000 You're a man of action.
00:00:31.600 You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart your own path.
00:00:35.980 When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.
00:00:40.420 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.
00:00:45.500 This is your life.
00:00:46.600 This is who you are.
00:00:48.020 This is who you will become.
00:00:49.740 At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
00:01:00.000 Men, today I want to share a concept with you that I came across from my good friend, Kip Sorensen.
00:01:05.360 Many of you know who Kip is.
00:01:06.960 He is my fellow co-host and podcaster on our weekly Ask Me Anything.
00:01:13.360 Several weeks ago, he had shared a concept with me, and he just simply called it,
00:01:17.640 Will it make the boat go faster?
00:01:19.880 I was intrigued by the concept I'm going to share with you today, and I did a little research.
00:01:24.080 He sent me a few articles, and I thought I would share this concept because I think if
00:01:28.700 more of us incorporated the idea of the will it make the boat go faster mantra, we'd be
00:01:35.500 able to use it as a litmus test for the activities and priorities that we set in our lives.
00:01:41.840 If you're anything like me and the millions of men that we reach on a weekly and monthly
00:01:46.060 basis, you know just as well as all of them that we are busy.
00:01:50.580 We are consumed.
00:01:51.720 We have activities and hobbies and interests and kids pulling on us for their attention
00:01:57.760 and potentially a spouse or a partner and our own career pursuits and activities.
00:02:05.580 So like we've got a thousand things to do on a minute-by-minute basis, but how do you decide
00:02:11.420 what is going to be the best for you?
00:02:13.240 So today I'm going to share with you, again, this concept of will it make the boat go faster?
00:02:17.460 And I'm also going to share with you two other things that are crucial, two other factors
00:02:22.200 that you need to incorporate into your everyday planning to ensure that not only are you living
00:02:26.860 by the will it make the boat go faster mantra, but that you're also able to incorporate this
00:02:34.140 towards productive and healthy goals that you, not me, not anybody else, have deemed important.
00:02:39.500 So let me give you a little bit of a backstory here.
00:02:41.380 Uh, the will it make the boat go faster mantra comes from a gentleman by the name of Ben Hunt
00:02:46.500 Davis, uh, Ben Hunt Davis was, and I'm just going to read this here.
00:02:51.000 He says here was part of an underachieving men's eight who in 1998 set themselves a crazy goal
00:02:59.180 of winning the Olympic gold medal in just two years time.
00:03:02.880 They developed a whole new way of working and began challenging every single thing they
00:03:08.120 did with the question, will it make the boat go faster?
00:03:12.200 If it did, they would keep doing it.
00:03:14.560 If it didn't, they'd try something different by focusing on their performance.
00:03:18.800 Their results started to improve, giving them the belief that their crazy goal may not be
00:03:24.960 so crazy after all.
00:03:26.380 On the 25th of September, 2000, Ben and his crew won gold at the Sydney Olympics.
00:03:33.320 And now their story acts as a reminder that with the right approach, people are capable
00:03:38.200 of amazing things.
00:03:40.580 I love that story.
00:03:42.460 When I heard Kip talk to me about it, I knew I had to dig deeper.
00:03:45.860 And the fact that you have this underachieving men's rowing team out of Great Britain who were
00:03:52.360 not expected to do anything miraculous or wonderful in just a period of two years went from an
00:03:58.180 underachieving team to a team that literally was at the top of the world in the 2000 Olympics.
00:04:06.620 Guys, I think we can learn a lot from this lesson.
00:04:10.240 Will it make the boat go faster?
00:04:11.720 Now, not all of us may have Olympic aspirations, but I still think the principle applies whether
00:04:16.900 you're trying to reconnect with kids or just have deep and meaningful relationships and
00:04:22.520 conversations with them.
00:04:24.300 Maybe you're trying to take your marriage to the next level, or maybe it's been on the
00:04:27.320 rocks over the past several years and you're trying to improve it.
00:04:30.340 Or perhaps you're thinking about how your career has flatlined.
00:04:34.760 Maybe it was on a certain trajectory and something happened and now you're finding yourself trying
00:04:39.040 to figure out, how am I going to do this?
00:04:40.940 How am I going to get better?
00:04:41.760 How am I going to make more money?
00:04:42.760 How am I going to serve more people?
00:04:44.740 Maybe your health is struggling.
00:04:46.240 Maybe you're a few pounds overweight.
00:04:48.320 Maybe you're morbidly obese.
00:04:50.440 Maybe you're dealing with a health or medical condition.
00:04:53.060 But if we take this mantra, will it make the boat go faster?
00:04:55.800 I think we can use everything that we do on a daily basis and really measure it against
00:05:00.300 our own priorities and objectives.
00:05:02.700 And this is one of the first things that I wanted to share with you earlier when I was
00:05:05.680 talking about it.
00:05:07.260 If you are going to adopt this mantra, then it's almost an assumption, but I do want to
00:05:12.380 make sure I'm very clear about this, that you actually have goals.
00:05:16.640 That you have a vision for yourself, that you have goals and objectives and things that
00:05:22.660 you want to accomplish in life.
00:05:24.740 I think there's a lot of men out there, and I know this because I talked with these guys
00:05:28.140 on a daily basis who are just going through the motions.
00:05:31.120 They're just uninterested in life.
00:05:33.200 They're not inspired.
00:05:34.120 They're not motivated.
00:05:35.780 Maybe they've been beat up, whether it's self-inflicted or external circumstances beyond
00:05:39.940 their control that don't really have any thought about what they want in their life.
00:05:43.960 And if you're going to adopt this mantra, then the first thing you need to do is really
00:05:46.820 consider what do you want your life to look like in the next month, in the next three months,
00:05:51.060 in the next year, in the next five, the next 10, the next 20 years.
00:05:54.100 If you don't know what that looks like, there's nothing really to measure against.
00:05:58.300 And you can't ask yourself, is this going to help me be more effective and efficient towards
00:06:02.080 those goals?
00:06:02.620 But if you spend some time really thinking about and writing down what it is you want
00:06:06.620 to accomplish in some different areas of your life, I have this journal right here.
00:06:11.440 And if you can't see this, obviously, you know, you can check it out on YouTube because
00:06:15.980 we are trying to grow our YouTube channel.
00:06:17.600 And, but this is a journal that I have and I write in it just about every day about my
00:06:23.440 vision for the day.
00:06:24.220 What would make a, what would make a successful day?
00:06:26.620 Uh, I went and took my second son to lunch today.
00:06:30.800 We, I go to lunch with one of my children every single week and I took my second son and
00:06:34.620 I really spent some time this morning, not a, not a lot.
00:06:38.120 It doesn't have to consume my time and tension and energy, but I did spend some time this morning
00:06:42.500 thinking about what, what would make this a good lunch?
00:06:46.920 What would make this enjoyable?
00:06:48.360 What would make the, what, what is the goal of the lunch?
00:06:50.420 Is it just to talk?
00:06:51.260 Is it to connect?
00:06:51.940 Is it to ask him questions?
00:06:52.960 Is it to lead him?
00:06:53.840 Like, what is the actual goal?
00:06:55.240 And then what would actually move me towards that goal?
00:06:58.700 And, uh, I would say at the end of our lunch today that I felt pretty good about the conversations
00:07:03.180 that we had and the time that we had together, even though it was only about 45 minutes or
00:07:07.420 so.
00:07:09.160 So I think about my kids, I think about my career, I think about my, my goals and with
00:07:13.920 regards to my health.
00:07:15.660 And I spent a lot of time thinking about it, even before I did this podcast, what do I want
00:07:20.120 to address with you today?
00:07:21.060 What do I want to talk about?
00:07:22.700 Um, what, what subjects do I want to cover?
00:07:25.240 And not only this, but I think about other topics that I want to cover.
00:07:28.640 I've got a list of about a thousand different topics that I can cover on Friday field notes
00:07:32.420 because I care about it and it's important.
00:07:35.880 Podcast production, the way that we present ourselves, the quality of the audio and the
00:07:39.680 video that I present to you are the things that I'm investing in, in the business going
00:07:44.600 to help this move the needle. 0.79
00:07:45.860 But if I don't know what it looks like to move the needle, then I have no idea.
00:07:49.640 So guys, if you weren't spending any time thinking about what your life looks like, what
00:07:55.240 you want it to look like, what your goals and objectives are, just go get our free tool.
00:07:59.180 It's completely free.
00:08:00.340 It's going to get you on the right path.
00:08:01.700 It's at order of man.com slash battle ready.
00:08:04.500 You're going to get 17 emails and it's going to walk you through what a vision looks like,
00:08:09.260 walk you through objectives and four key areas of your life, your relationships, your physical
00:08:14.580 health, your mental, your emotional health, uh, your connection with other people, your
00:08:20.040 finances.
00:08:20.640 It's, it's going to cover the gambit.
00:08:22.660 It's going to cover the entire thing and it's going to help you identify what exactly you
00:08:26.880 want to accomplish.
00:08:27.620 Now it might not be perfect, but over time and doing this every single quarter, like I
00:08:31.300 have been now for 12, 13, 14 years, you're going to see tremendous results in your life.
00:08:38.380 Now, once you have your objectives, now you can actually use the mantra.
00:08:44.560 Will it make the boat go faster?
00:08:46.180 So if your boss comes to you and says, Hey, I have this opportunity that I want you to
00:08:51.140 take advantage of, and you have career aspirations to grow within the organization, then you can
00:08:56.400 very simply say, well, you know, I think that will make the boat go faster.
00:08:59.800 I think I'm going to try it.
00:09:01.760 The other thing I like about this mantra is that it gives you the opportunity to pivot because
00:09:07.120 at the end of the day, we need to experiment with different things.
00:09:10.220 We might try a different tactic or a strategy at work and find out that it did not in fact
00:09:17.520 make the boat go faster.
00:09:19.600 It actually made it go slower.
00:09:21.420 And in that case, what you're doing is you're giving yourself permission to pivot, to adjust,
00:09:25.400 to change.
00:09:26.540 I've seen so many men do one of two things, either pick a course of action and believe
00:09:31.600 just because they picked that course of action that they're locked into it indefinitely.
00:09:36.360 Well, you're not.
00:09:37.120 At some point, if you're doing the wrong things over and over again, that's just stupidity.
00:09:42.880 You can change, you can pivot, you can adjust, even if it's something that you committed to
00:09:46.560 earlier.
00:09:47.820 Another thing that I see guys do is they just stay in the game way too long, way too long.
00:09:56.520 They don't want to be quitters.
00:09:57.420 They don't want to look at, be looked at as failures and they're just trapped into the
00:10:02.020 thing.
00:10:02.460 I guess that's kind of along the same lines, but what else they'll do is they won't even
00:10:05.860 take action at all because they're afraid if they do something that they can't pivot
00:10:10.580 down the road.
00:10:11.240 And that's not true.
00:10:12.740 You can be in relationships that you realize may not work out, but you want to explore that
00:10:18.060 relationship.
00:10:19.440 You can test hobbies and interests and activities and realize, you know what, that isn't something
00:10:24.540 that I was interested in pursuing.
00:10:25.900 I tried it and it wasn't that great.
00:10:28.240 You can try things at work.
00:10:29.540 If you're an entrepreneur, if you're a business owner, even if you're an employee and you have
00:10:32.900 some responsibility within reason, of course, and when appropriate, you can try different
00:10:38.000 things to see if the business grows or see if it doesn't, which leads me to my next point,
00:10:43.320 which is an after action review.
00:10:45.280 Guys, at the end of every action, engagement, encounter, task, hobby, interest, podcast,
00:10:50.000 conversation, lunch, whatever, you really need to be contemplating the results of your
00:10:55.960 performance.
00:10:56.900 Did it work?
00:10:57.660 And you need to be very objective.
00:11:00.420 I know at times we can trick ourselves and fool ourselves into thinking that we're doing
00:11:05.520 better than we actually are.
00:11:06.700 But unless you're measuring the things that you want to improve, you have no idea as to
00:11:12.640 whether or not they're improving.
00:11:14.520 So if you want to lose weight and get strong, you need to document your weight and you need
00:11:19.100 to document how much weights you're lifting.
00:11:21.760 If you want to become a faster runner, then you need to measure how fast you're currently running
00:11:26.540 and how fast you're getting.
00:11:29.660 If you want to grow your wealth, you need to look at where your cash is coming and where
00:11:32.740 it's going and how much you have invested and what your assets are and what your liabilities
00:11:37.840 are.
00:11:39.100 You need to test those things.
00:11:40.340 If you're trying to build a relationship, you need to come up with some metrics about
00:11:43.160 am I being a good father?
00:11:45.680 Am I coaching my kids' teams?
00:11:47.260 Am I spending one-on-one time with them?
00:11:49.000 Am I having deep and meaningful conversations?
00:11:51.720 Am I actually tracking those things?
00:11:53.240 Because if I'm not, it's easy to say, yeah, yeah, I'm being a good dad.
00:11:56.260 I'm putting food on the table.
00:11:57.380 It's not enough, guys.
00:11:58.580 It's not enough for me.
00:12:00.240 And I don't think it's enough for you.
00:12:03.180 So this is a three-part system.
00:12:06.920 And I work very well.
00:12:08.740 If you've been following for any amount of time, you know, these Friday field notes are
00:12:11.500 always about the frameworks that I use to have success in my own life to varying degrees.
00:12:15.760 But the framework is very simple.
00:12:18.180 Know what you want.
00:12:19.660 And only then can you ask, are the things that I'm doing leading me to what I want?
00:12:24.580 That's the will it make the boat go faster mantra.
00:12:27.520 And then the third component is, did it actually work?
00:12:31.240 Did it make the boat go faster, so to speak?
00:12:33.600 If it did, keep doing it.
00:12:35.500 If it didn't, try something new.
00:12:38.080 But give yourself permission to experiment.
00:12:40.440 Give yourself permission to try new things.
00:12:43.920 Give yourself permission to pivot and adjust when things aren't working.
00:12:47.680 And we always, as objectively as we can, base it on, will it make the boat go faster?
00:12:53.620 That's one of the things that, among others, that I really like about this mantra is that
00:12:58.040 it's objective.
00:13:00.580 If in a rowing competition, and trust me, I know nothing about rowing at all.
00:13:06.120 But if they're rowing five kilometers, I don't know if that's too little, too much.
00:13:12.200 I have no idea.
00:13:12.860 But if they're rowing five kilometers, they can see it took us this long.
00:13:18.420 And here's what we did.
00:13:19.860 We trained this way, or we all lost weight, or we rode a different stroke, or we gained
00:13:26.300 weight and put muscle on, or we started to eat these things and didn't do this.
00:13:30.260 You can look and actually see, did that make you actually faster or not?
00:13:35.020 So you have to objectify the results.
00:13:37.780 It's very easy to make them subjective because we're so emotionally vested in our decision-making
00:13:42.960 process that if we're wrong or it didn't work, then we could possibly view that as an indictment
00:13:49.500 against our character.
00:13:50.600 It's not.
00:13:51.260 It just means it didn't work.
00:13:53.320 And I would say it's an indictment against your character if you don't pivot and something
00:13:57.480 didn't work.
00:13:58.120 It would classify you, at least from where I sit, as stubborn or arrogant or hard-headed.
00:14:04.480 And none of those are very redeeming qualities.
00:14:08.380 So guys, plan your goals.
00:14:12.940 Plan your objectives.
00:14:13.860 Plan what you want.
00:14:14.980 Use our free resources, orderofman.com slash battle ready.
00:14:19.460 Then start testing one at a time, by the way.
00:14:22.300 We don't need to change everything all at once because if we do that, things will change,
00:14:26.460 right?
00:14:26.620 If you do different things, you'll achieve different results for better or worse in your
00:14:30.600 life, but you won't know what to attribute those results to.
00:14:34.640 So you don't need to change everything all at once.
00:14:36.800 That's a huge mistake a lot of guys make.
00:14:39.180 So for example, they're trying to get fit and then all of a sudden they're like, I'm
00:14:42.220 going to diet.
00:14:42.900 I'm going to cut out carbs.
00:14:44.480 I'm going to reduce my caloric intake.
00:14:48.120 I'm going to increase my water intake.
00:14:50.780 I'm going to go to the gym for 45 minutes every single morning for six days a week.
00:14:55.540 And then I'm going to do cardio three days a week.
00:14:57.420 It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
00:14:59.500 Hold on.
00:15:00.680 Like, we'll get there.
00:15:01.760 We can get there.
00:15:02.560 I promise you.
00:15:03.240 You have time.
00:15:04.240 And the healthier you get, the more time you'll have.
00:15:06.680 But we'll get there.
00:15:08.140 Just for now, let's just change one thing and see if it works.
00:15:11.540 If it works, then we'll stay with that.
00:15:12.840 And then we'll incorporate something else.
00:15:15.640 So that's the, will it make the boat go faster mantra?
00:15:18.600 And then again, the third component is the after action review.
00:15:21.000 We also have a free resource for that too, which is at orderofman.com slash A-A-R as an
00:15:27.540 after action review.
00:15:29.360 You can check that out as well.
00:15:31.120 Guys, I hope that helps.
00:15:32.120 I'm going to dive into this more.
00:15:33.220 And I'm going to ask myself when I do my own plan and I've got my battle planner right
00:15:36.640 here.
00:15:36.880 It's on my desk every day because I go through it every single day when I do things or when
00:15:42.640 I'm tempted to do things.
00:15:44.240 That's another thing.
00:15:45.080 A lot of guys have vices and temptations and things that are keeping them from accomplishing
00:15:49.060 what they want to accomplish, whether it's pornography addiction or alcohol abuse or gambling
00:15:55.020 or just being lazy and being distracted or letting their emotions get the better of them.
00:16:02.780 You can ask yourself, is what I'm doing in this moment, this very moment, making the boat
00:16:07.680 go faster?
00:16:08.800 If it's a yes, you're good.
00:16:10.540 Keep doing it.
00:16:11.000 If it's a no, stop the behavior.
00:16:14.340 Do something else more effective.
00:16:16.600 And guys, last thing on the note of will it make the boat go faster?
00:16:19.720 I've spent a lot of time thinking about the events that we've done over the past nearly
00:16:23.220 decade now.
00:16:24.660 And I remember thinking how hard it was at first to get people to events because I didn't
00:16:29.860 know how to do it.
00:16:30.980 And then I remember years into the process thinking how easy it was to get people to events
00:16:35.920 because we sold out all of our events.
00:16:37.620 And what I'm realizing now is that everybody has an event.
00:16:42.040 There's a program.
00:16:43.120 There's a course.
00:16:43.820 There's an event.
00:16:44.500 There's a mastermind.
00:16:45.360 There's a this.
00:16:45.900 There's a that.
00:16:46.800 Every single person on the planet has something they want you to attend.
00:16:50.680 We're busy.
00:16:51.840 We have a lot of time to, excuse me, we don't have a lot of time to do unnecessary things.
00:16:57.260 So I had this thought years ago, but it just came to fruition over the past several months
00:17:01.680 that if we all have events, what if we banded together?
00:17:06.000 So instead of going to my event and that guy's event and that guy's event and that guy's
00:17:09.340 event and that guy's event, and you could go to seven or eight or 10 different events
00:17:12.100 throughout the year, which you can't handle.
00:17:14.060 It's not possible.
00:17:14.840 We brought all the events together to one place where you got to hear from some of the
00:17:21.820 things that I share and some of the things that Larry Hagner with the Dad Ed shares or
00:17:26.300 Connor Beaton with Man Talks or Matt Vincent with Not Dead Yet or Matt Boudreau with Apogee
00:17:31.620 Strong.
00:17:32.940 We also just had Sathya Sam come in and secure his spot as a speaker at this event and Dr.
00:17:39.280 Robert Glover with No More Mr. Nice Guy.
00:17:41.820 Guys, I don't want you to go to all the events.
00:17:43.740 You can't do that.
00:17:44.720 You want to be there.
00:17:45.680 I jump on Instagram sometimes.
00:17:47.100 I'm like, I want to be at that event.
00:17:48.200 I can't do them all.
00:17:50.240 But you can come to one that incorporates all of them with it.
00:17:54.200 So if you're interested, check it out.
00:17:55.620 It's at The Men's Forge, themensforge.com, and you're going to get access to me and the
00:18:01.980 guys from my community, Larry, Matt, Matt, Connor, Robert, Sathya, and a couple other
00:18:07.460 guests that we're working with right now.
00:18:08.720 That's May 1st through the 4th, 2025, just outside of St.
00:18:11.960 Louis.
00:18:12.420 It's at themensforge.com.
00:18:15.520 All right, guys.
00:18:16.420 That's all I've got for you today.
00:18:17.760 We will be back on Tuesday for our interview.
00:18:20.580 Until then, go out there, take action, ask yourself, will it make the boat go faster and
00:18:25.860 become the man you are meant to be?
00:18:27.580 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.
00:18:35.780 If you're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be,
00:18:39.820 we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.
00:18:42.960 We'll be back on Tuesday for our interview.
00:18:48.780 Thank you.