Order of Man

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

00:00:04.960 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:00:10.340 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who

00:00:17.060 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.580 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler.

00:00:27.300 I'm your host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement. Today is your

00:00:31.700 Friday field notes. This is monologue, typically something I've been thinking about from throughout

00:00:36.540 the week or a question that gets asked or an experience that I had that triggers some of

00:00:41.860 these conversations. And today I thought I would address a very common question that I

00:00:46.960 get from a lot of men, which is how do I have the confidence to fill in blank? So how do

00:00:54.740 I have the confidence to approach women? How do I have the confidence to ask for raise?

00:00:58.560 How do I have the confidence to start a business? How do I have the confidence to any number of

00:01:02.720 things that we want to be confident in, that we want to move towards our goals or desires

00:01:07.820 or objectives or dreams? How do you develop that confidence? And I think that a lot of guys

00:01:13.340 tend to believe that if they just had the confidence, like if some magical fairy could sprinkle

00:01:20.560 little magical powder dust over them, that they could have this confidence, then all their problems

00:01:27.620 would be solved and they'd have all the things that they want to have. And unfortunately, I mean,

00:01:33.120 that'd be really nice, but unfortunately it just doesn't work like that. It has to be nurtured.

00:01:37.600 It has to be developed. It has to be built. So I'm going to explain how you do that. I'm going to

00:01:43.320 explain a better question than how can I gain confidence? A better question that will actually

00:01:49.840 create the right formula for you. And then we're going to talk about five ways to build up what it

00:01:55.480 is I'm going to share with you. Before I get into that, I just want to let you know that right now

00:02:00.000 we've got our battle planners are back in stock. I've got the leather one here. I just refilled it

00:02:04.440 with a new insert, but our battle planners are back in stock. If you go to orderofman.com slash

00:02:09.620 TWBP as in 12 week battle planner, orderofman.com slash TWBP. You can check that out.

00:02:16.620 Uh, hats will be back in stock soon. And then also check out our 30 days to battle ready

00:02:22.160 program at orderofman.com slash battle ready. All right, guys, let's get into this. So again,

00:02:27.280 the question is how do I develop the confidence to fill in the blank? It's the wrong question.

00:02:33.260 What you're doing when you ask that is you're chasing the outcome of something else. And the

00:02:37.840 correct question is how do I exhibit enough courage to achieve my goals and objectives? So you

00:02:44.260 don't need confidence. Everybody thinks they need it. Oh man, if I just had confidence, then I'd be

00:02:48.820 able to do the thing that I want. No, that's not how it works. What you need is courage. You need to

00:02:54.260 have the testicular fortitude to go out and do something that's meaningful and significant, whether

00:02:59.520 it's asking that woman on a date or starting the business or asking for the raise or having a

00:03:03.940 difficult conversation with one of your children. It just requires courage. Now, this is a beautiful

00:03:09.360 thing because you cannot manufacture confidence. You can't. You can fake it. You can have a bunch

00:03:17.500 of bravado and beat on your chest and tell everybody how alpha you are, but that's not

00:03:21.320 confidence. You're hiding something when you do that. It's ego. It's arrogance. It's pride. It's

00:03:28.100 fake. Everybody sees right through it. And if they don't, it'll come crashing down soon, any time

00:03:32.600 anyways. So we're not going to chase the outcome. We're going to pursue what produces the outcome.

00:03:42.140 And that's courage. It's just doing it because you know what needs to be done. You're afraid. I get

00:03:50.020 it. You see a beautiful woman. You're afraid you need to ask the boss for raise. You're afraid there's

00:03:55.400 risk associated with it. There's risk of rejection. There's risk of failure. There's risk of financial

00:04:00.480 loss. There's risk of being ostracized from a group. This is all ingrained into our biological

00:04:07.340 DNA over tens and hundreds of thousands of years for us to stay alive and pass on our genes. So you're

00:04:14.900 afraid and that's okay. But having that fear is a pretty good indicator that maybe you should do it. Now

00:04:21.980 we have to use some discernment. If you're on the edge of a cliff and it's a muddy and slippery, you

00:04:28.520 know, I probably wouldn't say just face your fear and walk on the edge of the cliff. No,

00:04:31.780 because you might die. But in most cases, that's not what we're talking about. You might get made

00:04:36.780 fun of. You might lose a little money. You might get some rejection. And so what? So what? So here's

00:04:43.100 the formula. Don't ask how I can gain confidence. Instead, how can I exhibit courage? Here's the

00:04:50.100 formula. Courage, if you exhibit that enough, will lead to competency, right? Because if I'm courageous

00:04:56.800 enough to take action towards starting a business, let's say, or making a bunch of sales calls and I'm

00:05:01.340 afraid of rejection or people turning me down and I got to make the bills, but I do that enough and I

00:05:05.720 get better at it. When I was in the financial planning practice, this was years, decades ago,

00:05:10.760 almost at this point. Man, that's crazy to think. It really almost has been two decades since I started

00:05:17.460 in my financial planning career. I would make cold calls and I was so afraid, but I did it anyways,

00:05:23.280 because I knew that was what was required. And then I got better at it. I started to have some

00:05:28.700 results. I started to have some success. I was tracking my numbers and I was seeing my conversion

00:05:32.540 ratios going up and I was getting new clients. And I built that business to a very lucrative business

00:05:37.600 over a course of about nine years because I had some level of competency. And then what happened is I

00:05:44.500 pick up the phone five, six, seven years into my financial planning practice. That was no longer a

00:05:48.780 concern of mine. I was confident enough that I could a get the appointment I needed or be not

00:05:54.840 get the appointment, but not have it wreck my life and just move on to the next thing. So guys,

00:05:59.900 instead of saying, how can I get confidence? How can I be like, no, just exhibit courage because all

00:06:05.640 that takes is a decision where you cannot manufacture confidence. It has to be organically built.

00:06:12.240 You can exhibit courage simply because you make a choice to do it. And it's not that you aren't

00:06:18.260 afraid. It's that you're afraid, but you do it anyways, because your goals, your desires,

00:06:23.660 your dreams and ambitions are worth more to you than being prohibited from the fear. So again,

00:06:30.920 the formula, courage, enough courage leads into competency and enough competency then naturally

00:06:38.720 inevitably leads to confidence. So let's talk about how you can exhibit more courage because

00:06:44.200 that's really what we want to do. We, as men, we want to be more courageous. All of it. I talk with

00:06:49.180 so many men on a daily basis who have these great ideas and these great visions and all the wonderful

00:06:54.100 things they're going to do. And they talk about their new year's resolutions. Most of them are not

00:06:58.040 talking about that anymore because they've stopped. They have these ideas and visions and dreams

00:07:02.040 and the way they like to see the world and they won't do it. They won't do anything about it

00:07:08.140 except for yap to their wives about how wrong the world is or how this is going to be the year.

00:07:13.540 I don't want that in my life. I've been there, no doubt, but I'm not interested in that. I'm

00:07:18.880 actually interested in improving myself. I'm interested in improving the environment around

00:07:23.360 me. I'm interested in being a value add to my people. That's my family, my friends,

00:07:28.080 my community members, my neighbors, et cetera. And that requires courage. So how do we do this?

00:07:31.880 Number one, make a plan. All right. Look, I'm going to give a little disclaimer on here.

00:07:38.000 Some of you guys listening actually don't need to make any plans because you've already done all

00:07:42.840 that. So you need to ask yourself, is that really you? Have you already done that? Because there is

00:07:48.740 a risk in planning for some of you in that you think just because you're planning, you're actually

00:07:53.940 moving the needle. You're not. You're only preparing to move the needle. That's it. So some of you guys

00:08:00.160 are over planners. You're too analytical. And therefore I'm not speaking to you about creating

00:08:04.620 a plan. You already got that one on lock for you. You just need to go for some of you. This tends to

00:08:10.240 be me more often than not is we just fly by the seat of our pants, wing it, hope it works out.

00:08:16.780 I'm okay with that because I know nothing is really all that catastrophic if it doesn't work out.

00:08:21.200 But there's some of you who are so afraid of what might happen, but you've actually never thought

00:08:27.520 about what might happen. You've never thought about how you would approach a conversation with

00:08:31.400 your boss or how you would actually start a business or how you would approach that woman.

00:08:35.520 You've never thought about if it goes south or goes the wrong way, what do I say? What do I do? How do

00:08:40.020 I pivot? How do I make this less uncomfortable? How do I ease out gracefully? You need to, they call it

00:08:46.380 red teaming. You need to go through all of this in your mind. Okay. If I do this, how is this going to

00:08:51.420 work? Again, this is not for you planners. Some of you guys are over planners and you're overthinking it.

00:08:55.660 If you've been planning for years to do something, just do it already. But for those of you who are

00:09:01.560 afraid of doing something and it's seizing you up a bit, you need to start planning that and play it

00:09:09.120 out, map it out. Okay. That's the first step. Number two, this is one, a lot of analytical people

00:09:16.700 mess up. And that is you make a bigger deal out of everything than it really is. And we can't do that.

00:09:23.720 We too often, we put too much weight on what might happen. You know, if your business doesn't work

00:09:31.220 out, what's the worst that can happen? You're going to be out some money. You're going to be

00:09:36.100 out some time. Are you telling me your life is going to be over? Are you telling me you're going

00:09:40.040 to be financially destitute forever? No, of course not. It's not how this works. If that woman rejects

00:09:45.260 you, like, are you never going to approach a woman? Are you going to be alone forever? Are you bound

00:09:49.800 and determined to be single for the rest of your life? Is that your fate? No. It just means she

00:09:54.560 wasn't interested for whatever reason. Like, let's take the load off our back for a little bit and say,

00:10:00.600 you know, not everything is as big a deal as I think it is. And not everything is as big a deal

00:10:05.160 as the news and media outlets would have it be, right? Because if they can make everything bigger

00:10:09.440 than it is, they're going to get you riled up, worked up, and then you're going to pay attention.

00:10:13.460 And that's what they want. That's what I want too. So let's not pretend that I'm immune to

00:10:19.860 hyperbole and making things seem bigger than they really are. Guys, like lighten up a little bit.

00:10:27.400 Okay. It's not the end of the world. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. You know,

00:10:32.680 I'm in the midst of dealing with some really difficult, challenging circumstances right now

00:10:36.980 with regards to my failed marriage and going through this divorce. I'm not being flippant about

00:10:43.300 it. So please don't misunderstand me. But I also know that life is going to be okay. And then I'm

00:10:48.620 going to make better decisions moving forward. And I'm going to meet new people and I'm going to have

00:10:53.400 new opportunities. And I'm going to continue to build powerful relationships with my children.

00:10:57.380 I'm going to continue to partner with my ex-wife in raising our children together.

00:11:00.880 Like it's okay. It's, it's, it's not good. It's not ideal. I would not wish this upon anybody,

00:11:07.680 but it's okay. I'm giving myself an opportunity to just take the backpack full of rocks off for a

00:11:13.760 minute and just let life play out, do the right things and have faith that it's all going to work

00:11:20.480 out. And you just have to get the reps in. That's the deal. You just have to get the reps in. That's

00:11:25.680 what builds competence. So we have make a plan. We have don't make everything a bigger

00:11:30.780 deal than it needs to be. A no is a no. It means nothing. Literally means nothing. If you go to

00:11:36.200 your boss and you say, Hey, I'd like a promotion. He says, no, you're not failure. Your life isn't

00:11:42.520 over. You don't have to quit. Like just lighten up, maybe ask him a few questions as to why that

00:11:47.620 is and when you can review it. Okay. Number three, this kind of falls in line with number two,

00:11:52.760 but I don't want us to be tying our worth to the outcome of our actions. You don't need to tie up

00:11:59.020 your worth in the outcome of your actions. Because if you do that, then you're never going

00:12:05.360 to swing the bat. You use that analogy. You won't. If you say, Hey, if I come up to plate

00:12:11.420 and we'll use this analogy a little bit more, if I go up to the batter's box, cause I'm coaching

00:12:14.400 my two sons baseball team. So I've got baseball on my mind. If I step up to, up to bat. And I believe

00:12:22.860 in my mind that if I strike out, that I'm a horrible baseball player. I don't, I don't deserve to be on

00:12:27.680 this team. I'm a horrible player. I let the team down. Like my life's over. I'm a failure. I'm a

00:12:31.800 loser. I suck. I'm stupid, whatever. How, how often do you think I'm going to be interested in going up

00:12:38.180 to bat? Never, never, because I don't want to expose myself to that risk. So if we think about

00:12:46.600 that in life, if you think that because you didn't get a raise, that you're a loser and you're no good

00:12:52.340 at this business and you can't provide for your family and, and everything's going to be horrible.

00:12:57.740 Then your boss is going to think less of you. And, uh, uh, you know, then, then maybe you'll get

00:13:03.320 fired. You're never going to ask for that promotion. If we're talking about women, you know, you see,

00:13:09.960 you see an attractive woman or, uh, you're acquainted with a woman you'd like to ask out. And you think

00:13:16.080 that if she rejects you, that you're a piece of shit, uh, that you're ugly, that you're not a good

00:13:22.580 human, that you're not worthy of love. These are all things people tell themselves. I've told myself

00:13:27.220 these, these things too. You really think you're going to go ask that woman out. You really think

00:13:31.800 you're going to approach that woman. Of course you're not. So guys, let's not attach our worth

00:13:36.600 to the outcome of our actions. Now we should evaluate the outcome of our actions because I need to know

00:13:42.700 if this works or not. So I can continue to do the things that work and revamp the things that don't,

00:13:47.180 but that doesn't have anything to do with my worth. Your worth is a divine son of God. It has

00:13:52.000 nothing to do with the fact that maybe you failed at something, or maybe you made a bad choice or a

00:13:58.180 series of bad decisions and it led to bad outcomes. Is your worth diminished? No reputation, maybe

00:14:04.420 credibility. Sure. Financial, you know, your pocketbook might be diminished and hurt in some way if you do

00:14:11.300 these things, but your worth as a human is not, and you can grow and you can develop and you can

00:14:16.200 get better and you can improve. Your worth has not been diminished. Your potential is still there.

00:14:21.300 It's still there waiting to be tapped into. And the only way again, to tap into it is to exhibit

00:14:25.820 courage. Number four, and this one, I know I talk about it a lot. So it almost sounds trite at this

00:14:33.620 point. Like I'm just beating a dead horse, but man, I can't tell you how important it is to surround

00:14:37.960 yourself with people who exhibit behaviors you're after. So you want to surround yourself with

00:14:42.780 courageous people, people that take risks, people that are not unafraid, but afraid and willing to

00:14:50.060 go into the fray anyways, because as you spend time with these people, you're going to learn from them.

00:14:55.040 You're going to ask questions. You're going to observe their behavior. You're going to see what

00:14:59.640 kind of results it produces. And even if you aren't asking them questions, some of that is going to rub off

00:15:04.420 through osmosis almost. Just surround yourself with people who are courageous. You don't want to

00:15:12.580 be spending time with flaccid jellyfish of men because that's what you're likely to become.

00:15:18.680 So people say, well, you know, Ryan, that'd be nice, but where do I find these people?

00:15:21.940 They're everywhere. They're everywhere. They're where you want to be, where you should be wanting

00:15:27.420 to be. They're at the gym. They're at church. They're in business ventures and business luncheons.

00:15:33.240 They're in chamber of commerce. They're at events that are pertinent and relevant to you. There's

00:15:38.840 coaches, there's mentors, there's emails, there's podcasts. You have to consume information that

00:15:45.380 not forces, but challenges you to be courageous. And you do that by surrounding yourself with these

00:15:51.500 kinds of people. So take an inventory of your life right now. Are the guys around you there because

00:15:57.400 they make you feel comfortable with your own decisions? I'll tell you what, it's hard. Some of the

00:16:02.660 people that I'm around are hard to be around at times, not because of them, but because of how

00:16:08.560 I feel. I was going to say how they make me feel, but they don't make me feel a way.

00:16:11.860 I decide to feel that way. But how I feel when I'm around these people, sometimes I feel inadequate.

00:16:19.220 Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing enough. Sometimes I see what they've produced and I have

00:16:24.620 not yet produced in my life. And that gap is a challenge, but you know what? I'd rather be a

00:16:30.860 little stressed out because of that than be stressed out because I'm not even working towards

00:16:36.900 my potential. Like we're both going to have stress. The guy who's sitting back and not reaching his

00:16:42.220 potential, he's going to be stressed out and bothered because he's not doing anything to achieve

00:16:45.900 his goals. The guy over here is working hard to achieve his goals and surrounding himself with

00:16:50.700 people who are doing good things is going to be stressed out because he's going to be pushing

00:16:53.940 and driving forward. Surround yourself with those types of people. Put yourself in those

00:16:59.300 environments. Assert yourself into the conversations. I mean, the gym is a perfect place to practice this.

00:17:05.460 I don't see very many people do this and I wish you guys would do it. I wish more people would do it.

00:17:10.120 Just go be social. Go be social. Instead of, I was thinking about this at the grocery store the other day.

00:17:16.240 If you want to practice how to connect and relate with people at the grocery store,

00:17:21.420 don't go through the self-checkout line. Don't. I know it's easier. I know it's more convenient.

00:17:26.260 That's why we do it. That's why it's there. I get it. But if you want to practice how to be social,

00:17:31.000 then go to the line with the teller, with the checker and talk to that person. Try to make it

00:17:37.500 personal. Try to make them laugh. That's a good thing to do. Try to make that person laugh. Try to make

00:17:41.800 it personal. Try to enlighten, enrich their day. See if you can do that. That takes courage. That

00:17:47.660 takes a boldness. And the more you practice, the better you'll be. And that leads me to the last

00:17:51.600 point, which is to practice being courageous. The more you practice, the more competency you'll have

00:17:56.560 and the more confidence you earn. So this could be little things like going in the checkout line

00:18:04.100 instead of going to self-checkout. Talk to somebody. Another one I see a lot of guys deal with is,

00:18:09.820 and this is, these are little things, but this is how you can practice is asking for things.

00:18:15.380 Like if you're at the grocery store and they ring you up and it's a hundred dollars, ask them,

00:18:20.740 Hey, is there, are you guys running any specials or discounts? I know when you say that, or when I

00:18:25.900 say that some of you guys, your heart's beating a little faster, even as I say that, Oh my gosh,

00:18:29.520 I would never. Right. That's the reason you should do it. It's not about the discount. Okay. I know

00:18:34.100 you can pay the a hundred dollars. That person knows you can pay the a hundred dollars. It doesn't make you

00:18:38.000 cheap or anything else to ask for a discount. It just is, takes a little bit of courage to be

00:18:43.680 able to do it because there's risk associated with it. Somebody might think less of you. They

00:18:48.120 might laugh at you. They might mock you. So that's why you should do it. And if they say no, cool. Hey,

00:18:53.180 no problem. I just thought I'd ask last week, get a special. I didn't know if it was still running.

00:18:57.120 That's it. No big deal. Again, to point number two, it's not that big a deal. Here's another one you

00:19:01.860 can do when all the guys at work are like, Hey, we're going to go out like to eat. What do you guys think?

00:19:06.680 Where should we go? We should be the guy who's like, yeah, I want to go here. I want to go to

00:19:10.360 this place, make a decision, assert yourself. Not many men do that. Oh man. I don't know. I just,

00:19:15.840 I don't want to rock the boat. No rock the boat. You don't need to be a dickhead about it, but it's

00:19:20.860 okay to rock the boat occasionally into assert yourself practice. If you're feeling, man, I really

00:19:27.720 don't want to go to the gym or start jujitsu, just go practice being courageous. Maybe you don't

00:19:33.580 commit to signing up, but you commit to going to one free class tonight. It's pretty non-committal

00:19:38.760 something you can manage. And at least you did it. At least you did it. I hope this helps guys.

00:19:45.380 I really want more of us to be courageous. The world needs more courageous men. It's, it's,

00:19:49.940 it's lacking for the courage that we need in our men. Most of us tend to be a little spineless at times.

00:19:57.300 And we allow ourselves to be railroaded by others and get stepped on and pushed around.

00:20:02.340 And when we see things wrong, or we see injustices, or even to see things that we want,

00:20:06.200 we're afraid to tackle those issues because it might make somebody feel bad, or they might get

00:20:11.080 upset, or they may not like me anymore. That's not manly behavior. I'm not pointing fingers at you.

00:20:19.160 I mean, these are things I need to work on as well. I write these things down because they're

00:20:22.540 things that I've been processing in my brain. I've had that question too. How do I develop more

00:20:26.200 confidence? We're not after confidence. Confidence is the natural by-product of courage and some level

00:20:32.540 of confidence. So again, make a plan. By the way, if you need some planning tools, I have two for you.

00:20:41.220 I talked about them earlier in the podcast, the 12-week battle planner. That's the one I have

00:20:44.560 right here. That's at orderman.com slash TWBP is in 12-week battle planner. And then the 30 days to

00:20:50.360 battle ready at orderman.com slash battle ready. The battle ready program is a series of

00:20:56.080 emails. It's free. So check that out. So make a plan. Number two, don't make such a big deal of

00:21:02.380 every little thing. It's not really that big a deal. That'll alleviate some pressure, which is

00:21:08.360 going to hopefully force you to move forward. Number three is don't tie your worth to the outcome

00:21:14.460 of your actions. Number four, surround yourself by courageous men. And number five, practice in little

00:21:22.720 environments that are relatively safe. And then you'll notice that you're getting better and better

00:21:26.780 and better. And then you can evaluate. Am I more confident this month than I was last month?

00:21:31.520 The answer is you will if you do these things. All right, guys, that's it. I'll be back next week.

00:21:36.820 Until then, go out there, take action. Let's all of us become the men. Amen.

00:21:41.120 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be

00:21:46.740 more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

You Don't Need Confidence, You Need Courage ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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