Invest in Self-Improvement, Take a Year For Yourself, and Never Seek Validation | ASK ME ANYTHING

Ryan and Kipp open with a conversation about building, creating, and the satisfaction that comes from seeing your work in the world before diving into another Ask Me Anything. This week, they tackle questions on approval seeking, self-development investments, measuring progress, unpopular opinions, intuition, instant gratification, rebuilding after divorce, and designing an intentional reset year. They also discuss why progress often feels invisible, how to involve family in personal goals, and why growth requires structure instead of endless information gathering. If you're trying to become more intentional and build a life with purpose, this episode delivers a practical perspective. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS 00:00 - Intro & catching up 06:48 - Approval seeking vs being likable 20:10 - Investing in self-development 24:30 - Measuring personal growth 26:42 - Unpopular opinions 35:49 - Escaping instant gratification 39:30 - Taking an adult gap year 45:53 - Showing progress to others 53:00 - Getting spouse buy-in for big goals 01:07:00 - Why systems beat information 01:09:30 - Wrap up Battle Planners: Pick yours up today! https://store.orderofman.com/products/order-of-man-annual-battle-planner Order Ryan's new book, The Masculinity Manifesto https://www.amazon.com/Masculinity-Manifesto-Establishes-Influence-Credibility/dp/1684513316/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1665048672&sr=8-1. For more information on the Iron Council brotherhood https://orderofman.link/iron-council. Want maximum health, wealth, relationships, and abundance in your life? Sign up for our free course, 30 Days to Battle Ready https://orderofman.link/battle-ready-0

• 0:00Speaker 00

  We know. And then what we try to do, and this is a page out of your playbook, Kip, is if we don't like it, we try to circle around it, we justify it, we try to logistically back out of it, even though we know that that's what we shouldn't do. I know it sounds a little cliche, but it resonates with me and it's this, it's always the right time to do the right thing. So do the right thing. When you exercise your intuition, it becomes more predominant in your decision-making process.

• 0:32Speaker 00

  Kip, what's up, man? How's the week been? We are recording this on a Friday, even though it gets released on a Wednesday. So how's the week been?

• 0:39Speaker 01

  Good, busy. I don't know, you know how it is, homeownership is the kind of the joke, right? It's always something to be done. I mean, you know this, our second, our second place, it's actually called Sherwood Shores. And it's really funny. The last time we were talking with some neighbors, they're like, oh, you're, you're down visiting Sherwood Chores. And I'm like, oh, that's better named.

• 1:05Speaker 00

  That's a way better name.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  Sherwood Chores. Yeah, because that's all I did for the last couple of days is mow lawns and I had some shingles that needed repairing. It's just, I don't know, it always seems like there's something. Yeah.

• 1:18Speaker 00

  I think.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  But I like it, you know? And, and I think you're, Leo, get stuff done. So.

• 1:24Speaker 00

  There's something to say about being productive and, and then also, well, with my line of work, you don't really see tangible results. You know, sometimes you do, like a man might say, oh, I got a promotion, or I'm getting married, or I'm having my first kid. And that stuff's really rewarding to me. But it's not like I get to go use the workbench that I just built, or, or, you know, live in the house that I constructed. So there's definitely something to be said with working with your hands, because it's just there and tangible. Like, have you ever been? Like driven around with a friend who maybe is a contractor and he's like, oh, I help I put that roof on or I I installed that landscaping or I poured that concrete.

• 2:09Speaker 00

  And although I never really wanted to do that, I was in landscaping for a little bit and and I did some electrical, I did some heating and air. I've done a lot of things. Anytime I got into that line of work, I just, I'm like, I want to get out of this line of work. But there is something to be said, it's very rewarding from that regard, from that aspect.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Totally. I remember that's when I got the bug around being a software engineer. Is I remember I I built this real estate tracking app. It was for managing tenants. And I remember the first time I walked, I was walking down the hallway and I saw someone with my app up on their PC and they were using it. And I remember like,

• 2:53Speaker 00

  Oh, that's cool.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, look at that, you know, like, they weren't using it because they just showed it to them. They were just using it in their day to day job. And I was like, that's awesome, you know?

• 3:03Speaker 00

  I feel that way to a lesser degree, probably when I see somebody wearing an order of man hat or an order of man shirt, or I'll be driving down the road and I see a decal on the back of somebody's pickup. And I'm like, hell, yeah, that's awesome.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, totally. Or, you know, we had a preview call last week of in the Iron Council. You know, I'm sure those preview calls, I mean, they made me feel good. It's not even my org, right? Is these guys sharing and kind of pouring into other guys about what they're getting out of the Iron Council. It's like, yeah, it's working. Isn't that awesome? You know, and it's making a difference.

• 3:37Speaker 00

  It's funny, though, when somebody is wearing a shirt, I usually approach them like, dude, that's a, I'd like the shirt. I usually say something like that, like, ah, it's a cool shirt. And it's interesting because quite often people be like, oh, yeah, it's this cool podcast I listen to. And I, I kind of play along with it. I say, oh, what's it about? And they'll tell me and they'll give me their pitch. I'm like, man, that sounds pretty cool. Like, who's the host? And I kind of lead it into that. And then I, I'm like, that's my podcast. And usually they look at me like, wait, what? Like, you like that podcast? Like, no, it's my, like,

• 4:15Speaker 01

  That's me.

• 4:16Speaker 00

  I'm the, I'm Ryan. They're like, wait, what? And it's always a pretty funny joke to laugh about. Yeah.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  That's funny. Well, I've had.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  No joke, my daughter's a freshman in in high school and this boy that she likes that she's kind of hanging out with. Um, I don't know, remember how it came up, but he's like, your dad's on the Order Man podcast, huh?

• 4:43Speaker 01

  And Kika's like, why? And she's like, I listen to that sometimes. His, I know his voice. And I'm like, all right, now I gotta be watching what we say a little bit more than normal.

• 4:55Speaker 00

  Cause you know, Asia's not gonna listen to it, but if her boyfriend's listening to it, then

• 5:00Speaker 01

  And these boys are impacting my daughter. So now the stakes just got really high. Yeah.

• 5:05Speaker 00

  You know, that that reminds me years ago, um, we had a question that came in on this podcast and I, and I don't remember exactly, but it was a father that has a daughter who was dating somebody that he didn't like.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  And he said, how do I, how do I deal with this kid? He's, he's a punk. He's young. He's a punk. And I'm like,

• 5:29Speaker 01

  I already know the answer. I remember this.

• 5:32Speaker 00

  I told him, I said, you better treat him like your son, because he might be. So you put your arm around him and you lean into him, you pour into him, you serve him, you straighten him out when he needs to be straightened out. You talk to him like a man and you bring him under your wing and you love on him like you would love a son because he might actually become a son and there's nothing you can do about it, other than be a good influence in his life. So.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  And what are you doing? Setting the tone, setting the standard? I mean, e- even depending on how you show up, he might self-select and go, oh, man, this standard's pretty high from this guy, you know, like, maybe I can't, maybe I'm unwilling, you know, maybe I'll back out, you know? So.

• 6:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:16Speaker 00

  Cool. Well, I'm sure we've got a lot of other questions, so let's jump into them, man.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. So we're gonna, we got some questions from the Facebook group as well as the Iron Council, uh, which, which is our exclusive brotherhood. Well, I'm sure we'll have opportunities to talk about what we do in the IC throughout this call. Um, so Todd Martinez, uh, one of our battle team mentors, uh, in a kind of a pivotal role within the Iron Council. His question, last week you talked about approval seeking and how it can negatively affect our sovereignty, likability. Can you take you, uh, likability can take you far in business and relationships. How can a guy know he's crossed over to, from being likable to approval seeking?

• 7:03Speaker 00

  Hmm. That's an interesting question. And, and I have kind of a different perspective than a lot of people do on the approval seeking thing or the likability factor. I actually believe that there's some people that you should be very concerned with their approval of your performance and the way you show up. You know, I, I, for example, I really care about how my kids think about me because if they don't think highly of me, and there's been plenty of times where they haven't, then I can't be influential in their lives. And I think one of the questions last week was from a guy who said, how do I, how do I raise my kids in this environment where they're being taught all this degenerate, dangerous ideology. It's like, well, yours

• 7:46Speaker 00

  has to be the loudest voice. And in order for it to be the loudest voice, you have to be the most influential. And in order for you to be the most influential, you have to be the one who's the most trusted. And in order to be the most trusted, you have to be the most liked even, and I'm not saying that you can't be harsh or disciplined where needed, but you have to be somebody who they admire and love and respect and appreciate. Uh, since the same thing with my business partners with you, Kip, I, I care about your opinion of me. It's crazy to me that there's an idea that permeates that says, well, if you don't like it, that's your problem. No, that's my problem. If the people I'm trying to lead don't like and

• 8:28Speaker 00

  trust me, that's my problem. And it's the same thing with my clients and the people listening to this podcast. If I didn't care about what they thought of me, I wouldn't show up prepared for this conversation. I wouldn't have the microphones and the audio equipment and the visual stuff behind me because it just wouldn't matter, but it does. And I think that's really important, which leads into the answer to the question, what is the motive of building, we'll just call it building influence? Is it to prop myself up? Is it to make myself feel better to step on other people to get mine at the expense of others? Or is it to serve other

• 9:09Speaker 00

  people? That's the line. And I can't tell you if you do this one thing, then you've crossed over the line, but I would really have somebody consider what their motive is. If your motive is, I'm doing this, I'm showing up powerfully, I'm coming prepared, I'm building rapport and trust with my people because I want to serve them, then that's a good motive. If it's, I just want to feel good, I want to feel important, I want to feel valued, I want the accolades, I want the notoriety, then you've crossed the line. I think that's pretty understandable. And let me ask you,

• 9:52Speaker 00

  Kip, in what ways, very, very granular, very, very specific, in what ways might you be able to tell if your motive is off? Do you have any ideas there?

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I think if it's not tied to something outside of me, then I know it's about me.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  But what would be the warning sign? Like, what would be? Is it something that you would say? Is it some sort of behavior you might be engaged in?

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's it's when, oh, man, I don't know. Like, what comes to mind is that, I don't know. Let me run with this and you can tell me if you can relate to this or not. But I feel like if it's really focused on me, then there's this heightened sense of concern. There's more stress, actually, when it's about me. There's less stress when it's outside of me. Like, I use the example of, you know, as you know, we both, we both have many opportunities to speak in, in front of large audiences. And the times when I'm the most nervous, it's because I'm worried about me.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  I'm worried about seeking the approval and looking good. And it's about me. It's not about the influence and the message. Once I get connected to, whoa, whoa, this isn't about me. This is about me influencing them. It's about me presenting opportunities for others to see something for themselves. Not, it's not as stressful, which is really interesting. So maybe the trigger is if I feel this heightened level of stress, I'm probably making it more about me than them.

• 11:38Speaker 00

  I think that's good. Yeah, I think that that stress level. Yeah, so I wrote a couple of things down here, too. So number one for me is if you start to fall into the comparison trap, because that was a conversation from last week as well, then you know you're, you're being self-absorbed. And I'm not saying it's always bad. I'm just saying that's a little red flag that you might be aware that you're more concerned with your appearance and how you look and your status than you are actually serving people. It might not necessarily be that, but it's something to consider. And the other one, and this is a pet peeve that I have. And I probably, I probably do it. But when I hear other people do it, it just irks me.

• 12:22Speaker 00

  And it's anytime you're in a team setting. And in order, and when you're taking credit for something, maybe it's building something or picking up a new client or completing a task, you use the words me, mine, I, I hate that. It bothers me. It's like, wait, you've got five people here that are on your team and you're talking about this project and you're talking about, oh, yeah, my idea was to do this and I really did this thing to implement. It's like, no, the other five people on the team did this together. You all did it. So I would be very careful of those words in the context of credit.

• 13:06Speaker 00

  And what they ought to be replaced with is we and ours and us. So catch yourself doing that because I've done that in the past and I probably still do it to some degree. But when it comes to credit, make sure you're including, it's a collective thing. And because if you're saying I mean mine, you're trying to position yourself above other people and it's, it's gross, actually. It's, what's the term you use? Icky, yucky. What do you say?

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Yucky, icky. Real technical term, icky.

• 13:39Speaker 00

  So just a couple of things to be aware of.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  Ryan, do you feel like this is something that is just a constant struggle though? Right? Like this is something, this isn't like, do these two things, you're good to go. It's this constant fluctuation and battle of making sure that the ego isn't driving the direction of what you're doing and that it's actually something else. Cause that's kind of what we're talking about, right? Isn't that what we're talking about is don't let, you're not letting the ego drive what you're doing and making sure that it's about the team or it's about a bigger purpose and kind of losing yourself in it.

• 14:16Speaker 00

  Most of, most of.

• 14:21Speaker 00

  Character development is perpetual, probably all of it. It's not, it's not static. There's no endpoint. It's not some achievement that you unlock and you never have to worry about it again. It's not like running a race. You run the race and then you're finished. It's the race is over. You hit the finish line. The end. It's something that you continually have to be vigilant about because of the, the, the concept that we've talked about Kip, this natural man. And the natural man is weak. He's lazy. He's immediate gratification. He's vain. He's egotistical. He wants all the results without the effort. And that natural man never goes away. In fact, what's funny about it, maybe not funny, but

• 15:06Speaker 00

  interesting to me, is that it's biologically hardwired into you for a real purpose, by the way, to be that natural man. When we started walking this earth, thousands, tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years ago, your job was survival as a human, as a human being, a homo sapien. And in order to survive, you need to really do just about two things at the most basic level. You need to consume as many calories as possible and expend as few as possible. So our biological hardwiring is training you to be lazy. It's training you to be gluttonous. It's training you to maybe want to take from somebody else because that's

• 15:47Speaker 00

  way easier than acquiring it yourself. It is, it is in your DNA to be the natural man. And it isn't until we start thinking of ourselves as elevated men that we constantly fight against that natural man. And that's why I call it a battle. Some guys are like, well, is it really a battle? No, not in the literal sense. I'm not going, I'm not putting on my shield and my armor every day and going to, with my sword or my pistol to kill the enemy. That's, that's not what I'm talking about. It's a battle every day with your natural self. And it's a difficult battle and it never ends.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, and depending on how life is going, we can move down that pyramid from Maslow's hierarchy of needs and that shit's going to turn into a battle real quick. If we're down at the bottom, right? And life is getting difficult and we're in survival mode, then absolutely, right? You're going to want to be maybe a little bit more self-centered and focused.

• 16:45Speaker 00

  Well, and you can even look at crime rates and statistics. Poverty-stricken areas have higher rates of crime, drug abuse, domestic violence, fill in the blank. Why? Because they're fighting for survival. They're not elevating, they're not elevating themselves. And some people will say, well, no, it's because you have money and you can afford nicer things. No, no. People often talk about homelessness being a housing crisis. No, it's a, it's a drug problem. It's a mental illness crisis. If, if I gave, well, and you could mark my words right now. I think it's, it's, I want to say it's Seattle. It might be Portland, Oregon. They're pretty much the same twin cities of desperation and despair.

• 17:29Speaker 00

  They, they just created these housing containers. They're like 70 square foot housing containers. And they spent millions and millions of taxpayer dollars to try to get people off the streets. It'll work for a week, definitely will. But those people are going to thrash those units. They're going to bring their drugs into their units. There's going to be violence because they're all congregating together.

• 17:54Speaker 00

  It's, it's not going to go over well. And that's a little experiment. Mark my words, in the next two to three months, that will be a failed project. Because it's not the issue. The issue is they haven't addressed the basic needs of living.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, you're not elevating the individual, right? It, it's just a Band-Aid, right? Until you elevate people so they can be self-directed in their improvement, then everything's going to be a short-term win.

• 18:23Speaker 00

  I actually heard somebody that was critical of billionaires. That seems to be a growing trend, which I don't, I can't even wrap my head around that. But she had said that if you took away all of the billionaires money within a very short period of time, they would have, they'd be billionaires again. Of course they would. And she was saying, but I'm willing to give it a shot, you know, and, and she was being a little tongue in cheek and, you know, she hates, she hates abundance, but she's not wrong. If you took all of the billionaires money away, within a very short period of time, they'd all have it back. Why? Because it's not about the money. It's about the skillset. It's about the mindsets. It's about the skillsets. It's about the connections

• 19:03Speaker 00

  people like that have. It's, um, we have to address the real problems, not the symptom of the problem. It might not even be a symptom. Sometimes it's a completely uncorrelated symptom. Uh, people do this all the time with immutable characteristics. It has nothing to do with immutable characteristics. It might have to do with a culture, right? So why relative to the amount of, of white people in this country, do black people commit a disproportionate amount of the crime? Is it because of the color of their skin? No, no, it's because of the culture. Yeah, that's it. So it's, um, it's kind of interesting stuff.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  All right. Julian Sepulveda, do you budget an annual fixed amount or percentage to self-development tools and education? If so, how do you come to that number?

• 19:56Speaker 00

  I don't know that I, that I, I don't do that. Uh, but I have done that in the past where I will take 20%. Actually, yeah, about, I'd say about 15 to 20%. As a, as a previous financial advisor, I really tried to save a lot of money and part of it was to go to passive investments, you know, the stock market, real estate, business stuff, and then other parts of it was self-development. So what I would, what I would encourage you to do is to start with whatever you can. And self-development might mean going to the library and picking up a free library card. Or it might be paying $10 a month, or whatever it is for an audible subscription.

• 20:39Speaker 00

  Or it might be spending $10,000 a year on an executive coaching program. Or spending a couple grand and going to an event, or paying $97 a month and joining the Iron Council. There's varying degrees of investment in yourself, and all of those are investments in yourself. Some people will say, well, I can't afford that. What can't you afford? You can't afford to go to the library? You can't afford to listen to podcasts on your commute that are free? You can't afford to spend a little time reading at the end of the night before you go to bed? What is it that you can't afford? Because all of those are free. But what I would do, like anything, is start with what you have, where you are right now. And if all you can do is say, hey, you know what?

• 21:23Speaker 00

  I'm just going to buy a $10 audible subscription and I'm going to listen to two books a month? Cool, do it. But do it with the intent to learn what you need to learn. And also do it with the intent to increase that level. And that's the most important thing. It's not what is the dollar amount? It's the fact that next month, or in the six months, or whatever it might be, instead of spending $10, maybe make it a goal. Hey, I'm going to spend $50 every month for the next quarter on self-development. And then the following quarter, 75. Following quarter, 100. Maybe next year, you get up to $1,000 a month in self-development. But the biggest thing is not where you're starting. It's the fact that you're progressing. So figure it out, lock it in right now. If it's $10, great. Next month, maybe it's 20.

• 22:08Speaker 00

  Next year, maybe it's 100 a month. But that would be where I would focus as opposed to what is the dollar amount I should be spending?

• 22:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, totally. And I love that you gave us scales of this, right? I mean, it's like intentionality, right? Your investment might just be time. It might just be a library card. But the point is, are you prioritizing it, whatever it is? And I would say, where possible, identify the outcome of what winning is, right? So if you hired a coach, I would say, okay, how do we know the coaching is working over the next three months? What's the outcome that you're expecting from that investment? And get really clear on that. And the same thing even with the Iron Council, right? So you guys that join us in the, in the Iron Council. You should get clear, right? And we do get clear. That's part of the systems that we have is,

• 23:00Speaker 01

  what's the objective? What am I planning to achieve at the end of this quarter? And is it working? That's an outward expression of making sure that your investment is, has an associated ROI to it. And, and I love that in the IC, we literally do that as part of our system. That's how you know it's working or not. And that's why guys can hop on preview calls or have conversations and say, it's working. Why? Because they're measuring whether it's working or not on a regular basis.

• 23:29Speaker 00

  We have a new self-assessment tool that I should have ready next week. And it's, it's self-assessment, so it's not going to be perfect. It's not scientific, but it's five questions in each one of the quadrants that guys go through. And then they give themselves a score and they can get up to a hundred, a hundred points. So the five questions worth five points each, 25 times four quadrants, there's your hundred points. So you go in and you write down what your score is. And then you keep that with you and then you work your battle plan. We won't get too deep into that today. And then next quarter, at the start of next quarter, you do the self-assessment again. Are you two points more, two points less, 10 points more? What worked well? What didn't? What do I need to change in order to improve my performance for next month or next quarter?

• 24:13Speaker 00

  Having those self-assessment tools is really valuable. And then I would also say, one of the challenges with self-development is it's not always real tangible. There are a few elements of it. So if I start getting in shape, you can measure that, right? How much weight did you lose? What's your body fat percentage? Did your lifts go up? Did your runtime go down? You could, does your blood work look better? Your business, your business and your finances? Do you have more clients than you did last month? Are you making more revenue? Do you have less debt? What's your tax liability? It's very tangible. It's easy to wrap your head and hands around those things. But the one, well, there's quite a few actually that are hard. And this is where you need to be a little creative. How do you measure spirituality?

• 24:57Speaker 00

  Because a lot of guys come to the Iron Council and they say, I want to build a closer relationship with God. I think that's worthwhile. What does it mean to you? Like, how does, how do you actually measure that? Or a lot of men will say, well, I want to be a better father. Worthy goal. Absolutely. You should be a better father. What does that mean? How does it look? How are you going to know? And the best thing that you can do in those situations is create.

• 25:23Speaker 00

  A tracking system. So spirituality, let's take some metrics of spirituality. Maybe it's how closely the connection is between you and God. Like, do you feel his presence in your life? And then you do it on a scale from one to five. Another element of spirituality is how often are you praying? And you give yourself a scale from one to five. How often you go to church? How often are you fellowshipping other people? How often are you reading your scriptures? How often do you feel at peace throughout the day? These are all ways to measure spirituality and then you put a number to it. And let's say you got 50 out of 100. Great.

• 26:07Speaker 00

  Measure yourself, have goals, have things that you want to do, objectives, and then measure yourself next quarter. And if it's higher, you know you're doing better.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I like it. I like it. Hey, and if you guys want to join us in the Iron Council, that's theironcouncil.com to sign up and learn more about what we're doing there. All right, Roger Bayers, what's an unpopular opinion that you have?

• 26:32Speaker 01

  Ryan doesn't have any unpopular opinions at all.

• 26:37Speaker 00

  The real question is unpopular to who? That's the real question, right? I have all sorts of unpopular opinions with feminists and liberals and government officials. Probably all of my opinions are unpopular to those people, which I would say find your tribe or build your tribe of people. Look, I'm not telling you to create an echo chamber. I have a lot of insight that comes in from outside of my circle. But when it comes to the important matters of self-development, self-growth, leading my family, I turn to my inner circle. When it comes to rounding out my thought process and the information I receive,

• 27:21Speaker 00

  I try to be a little bit more well-rounded in my approach and that. But yeah, I mean unpopular opinion, men and women are different. There's only two sexes. Gender and sex are closely related, if not relate completely the same thing, synonyms.

• 27:41Speaker 00

  Every, it just seems like every righteous thing is unpopular these days.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:49Speaker 00

  I can't think of one in particular that someone would be surprised about, I'm pretty vocal about, for better or worse.

• 27:58Speaker 00

  Here's one.

• 28:00Speaker 00

  People won't like this, but I actually think it takes more than just a piece of paper to actually call yourself an American. And I had made a post about that and a lot of people were upset with me. I do. Like, same thing with being a man. You might be biologically a male and we use the word man for that, but I think it takes more than just biology to actually be a man. And I feel the same way about being American. If, if you're here legally in this country and you've done it the right way, or you were born here, yes, technically you are an American. But if you don't espouse American ideals, if you hate liberty, righteousness, truth,

• 28:44Speaker 00

  justice, the pursuit of freedom, you're not an American at heart. You're just an American on paper. And I think there's a distinction between the two. And I think as Americans, we ought to be very aware of that and not allow people into this country who don't espouse the American ideals. Now, look, I'm all for debating how we administer that.

• 29:05Speaker 00

  Right? We should be debating that. We should be talking about what is the best way for citizens to pursue liberty and happiness? We should discuss that. But what's not open for discussion is are we able to pursue liberty and justice? So that might be unpopular. And I know it is because I made that post the other day and people cried to me about it.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Dude, I love that idea. In fact, it's, it's almost like if, if you don't read the constitution and if you're not like inspired, like excited, then, then you're not an American. That should absolutely inspire you and you should get like excited when you're living in a country that's based upon those ideals.

• 29:50Speaker 00

  Right. Well, people, people, when I make claims like this, people will often say, well, you just don't want to hear dissenting opinions. No, that's not, no, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that certain things in my mind, I'm not the supreme authority on it, but in my mind,

• 30:11Speaker 00

  there are things that are not subject to interpretation.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:15Speaker 00

  It's just as simple as that. You know, here's an interesting story. Years and years ago, my ex-in-laws had a foreign exchange student stay with them. She was from Thailand. And she was, she was amazing. She was brilliant. She was funny. Like, the whole family really liked her. And she just jived really well with the community and with the family. And I went over to their house one day and she was studying flashcards of US presidents. And she asked me if she could challenge me. And I'm like, oh, great. Like, yeah, sure, let's do it. And she knew all of them. And I knew like five.

• 30:54Speaker 00

  It's pretty sad, and I've done nothing about that, by the way, but it's pretty sad that people who come to this country and do it legally and who are excited about the American dream and what it might mean for them, that they know more about this country than us. About our founding, charter documents, about our revolutionary history, about the wars we've engaged in, about when certain policies were implemented, when certain land was purchased. People outside of the country know more about it than us. And that's pathetic. That is really pathetic. And I'm, and I'm guilty of it. But it is pathetic.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Well, and I, not to riff too much, but I love that story because what is it? It's someone being intentional about their situation versus sometimes when we're brought up into something, we just go along to get along. I even think about people that are raised within a religion. They'll be like, oh, I believe this, but they didn't choose it. They didn't pause in their life and go, is this what I am choosing? And make a conscious choice to take that on. And you may have been born and raised in America and quote unquote, being American, but have you chosen, have you chosen to be American?

• 32:18Speaker 01

  If you did, you would probably approach it differently, right? You would probably read up on things, right? But you're just kind of going, you're being passive with it. And I think we all have an opportunity in life where we might find ourselves being passive in our marriage, being passive as a citizen of America, being passive in our religion. And what's awesome is that any moment we can say, you know what? No, I'm not going to be passive. I'm going to choose this and I'm going to be intentional about how I show up.

• 32:47Speaker 00

  You use the word passive and I think it totally makes sense. I would use the word complacent and maybe we're just, you know, speaking over each other on that one a little bit. But another funny story is sometime last year, I live in Southern Utah. It's beautiful. I'm 20 minutes from the base of Zion National Park. We've got beautiful red rock. It's high desert, so it's not real lush and green, but this red desert rock, it looks like Mars and it's cliffside. It's beautiful. And when the sunset or the sunrise hits the red cliffs, it just, it glows. It's incredible. And there's a convenience store that I go to that's right next to the gym that I work out at.

• 33:31Speaker 00

  And so in the morning I'll go work out and then I'll, I'll drive over to the convenience store and I'll usually get a Red Bull. That's my vice. I get a Red Bull and get my energy for the morning. So I get, I roll into this gas station after the workout and I'm tired and I see this Sprinter type van, 15 pack van or Sprinter van and a big group, like 10 to 12 Asians jump out of this. And, and a lot of Asian people come to Southern Utah for Zion National Park. A lot of Europeans come for the park as well, but this big group of Asian people, men and women, young kids jumps out and they're just chattering and smiling and like laughing

• 34:12Speaker 00

  and like they're taking pictures of something off in the distance. And I immediately, I'm like, what are they taking a picture of? And I look over and it's Pine Valley, which is one of the big, bigger mountain ranges here in the area. And the sun is just hitting those cliffs just right. And like I said, it is glowing. And I've seen it a thousand times. Every morning I see it. In fact, my gym has floor to ceiling windows that overlooks Pine Valley. I see it every day. And I never took a picture of it like that. And when I looked over and I saw they were taking a picture of, I was like, oh yeah, that's actually, that's actually pretty cool.

• 34:56Speaker 00

  But that's the complacency. Same thing with your wife, you know, and I've, I fell prey to this, you know, you're married for any amount of time and you think I've got things locked down. She's not going anywhere, you know, date night starts slipping away. You start having fewer and fewer conversations. And before you know it, you're completely distant. You feel like roommates are worse and it just, it happens. You gotta be vigilant.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  Yep, totally. Nick McElroy, McElroy, what's your advice to men who live their lives in a society of instant gratification via social media and who have lost the ability to look inward and rely on their instincts and intuition judgment, intuitive judgment, sorry.

• 35:46Speaker 00

  My first response that I was thinking is if you're talking about somebody else, there's not really a whole lot you can do until they recognize it themselves.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:58Speaker 00

  I mean, you can talk with your kids, you can talk with your friends about why instant gratification is not going to serve them, but I mean, when you look around and you see people driving brand new 100,000 plus dollar trucks and you know, they can't afford it, it's hard to tell that person, hey, you shouldn't do that. Why shouldn't they do that? They got this new truck. Everybody's telling them how cool it is. They feel better, but how are you going to compete with that? Now, if you're talking about it for yourself, that's something to be aware of. And what I would say, especially as it relates to the intuition, you just need to listen to it more. It's the same question as asking me, how do I build bigger biceps? You use your biceps more.

• 36:41Speaker 00

  You train it more. How do I become a better public speaker? You do more public speaking. How do I become a better listener? You listen more than you talk. The answer is, or the question is the answer. So how do you develop intuition? You, you exercise it more, or you, I should say, you act on it. When you have a feeling, do it immediately. As long as it's not catastrophic, right? Like if you're thinking, "Ash, jump off that bridge." Probably, you know, probably don't do that. I want to throw that caveat into that. And I guess what I would say is, the severity of the consequences ought to determine somewhat the amount of time you spend pondering and contemplating.

• 37:26Speaker 00

  But I'd argue that most of us get this premonition. I would call it divine guidance. And we know, we know. And then what we try to do, and this is a page out of your playbook, Kip, is if we don't like it, we try to circle around it. We justify it. We try to logistically back out of it, even though we know that that's what we should be doing. I was talking on the Friday call for Iron Council this morning, and I know it sounds a little cliche, but it resonates with me. And, and it's this. It's always the right time to do the right thing.

• 38:04Speaker 00

  So do the right thing. And the beauty of that is,

• 38:11Speaker 00

  I'm trying to think of an analogy or a way I can explain this better.

• 38:16Speaker 00

  When you exercise your intuition, it becomes more predominant in your decision-making process. And again, I think this is divine guidance. In a way, it's kind of like the parable of the talents, if, if you guys have read that, where the master gives the man who goes out and uses his talents effectively to multiply them and to serve other people. He get, he actually takes from the one who buried his and gives to the one who actually went out and deployed it. And I think the same thing is true of your inspiration and your, and your, your insight, is if you use that and exercise it, then you will be given more insight because it's evident that you're actually going to lean on it.

• 39:00Speaker 00

  So that's how I look at it.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Mara Jin Usherveld. I'm 37 years old. I got divorced from my eight-year-old. I got divorced from my eight-year marriage. We were together for 17 years. She got the house and I sold everything and temporarily moved back in with my parents. I have no debt and I have a blank canvas. What is your opinion on taking an adult gap year to travel and etcetera? How could I use it to refine my bearings and but prevent myself from drifting?

• 39:40Speaker 00

  Um, yeah, if you're in the position to do that, I would definitely do that.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:46Speaker 00

  If you're not married, I'm assuming you don't have kids because you would have said that if that were the case. Uh, or maybe you did say that, maybe I missed that. Um, no responsibility as far as like financial obligations. You know, the only thing that you would have to consider your. If you've been together with somebody for 17 years, you're probably what 40 at least.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:08Speaker 00

  So.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  37.

• 40:10Speaker 00

  Oh, you did say that. Okay. So what's your? Like, what's your job situation? You know, if you were to leave, is that going to ruin and mess up a career? That's something to consider, not saying you shouldn't, but it's definitely something to consider. Uh, but so I would say, I would say, yes, if, if you can do it financially and from a responsibility standpoint, absolutely 100% you should go do that. Would you agree with that first before I give them a couple of ideas here?

• 40:39Speaker 01

  Absolutely, absolutely. I, I think it's a great idea. And, and the definition of gap year, that could be anything. That could mean I'm going to temporarily work remotely from a different country. But there's some value in this idea of a reset. So absolutely. Now, what it looks like, it could be a different, a number of different things.

• 40:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I, I would be careful of calling it a gap year. Because when I, when I think of gap year, what I think of is I wasted my time for a year. Wallowing in my own self pity. And I hope that's not what you're doing. It doesn't sound like you are. You're being very deliberate and intentional about it. But the first thing I would do in, in this situation is to go back to what you said earlier, Kip. What are you trying to accomplish? That's the first thing you need to know. If you want to go tour the world, where are you going to go and why? Is it because you want to see other cultures? You want to learn how other cultures work? You want to get a different perspective? And if it is a different perspective, what kind of perspective are you aiming for? Is it spiritual?

• 41:44Speaker 00

  Right, a lot of guys will go on spiritual sabbaticals. Okay, that makes sense. You have a goal. You're going to go visit Buddhist monks and Roman Catholicism and Islam. And you're going to go tour all of these places and learn about religion and spirituality. Okay, that's good. You should do that because you have a goal. I would not start doing this until you had a clear goal. Or let's say you have this, I don't know what your job is, but let's say you're in manufacturing. And you want to tour the world because you have this really cool idea for bringing back American manufacturing. And so you're going to tour to destinations. And I don't know what those are because I'm not in the world.

• 42:25Speaker 00

  But let's say Denmark or Japan or Germany, you know, German engineering. We think about that a lot. Go to the places that are going to relate to what you're trying to accomplish because that's going to give you a better time learning whatever it is you're trying to learn and however it is you're trying to develop your life. If it's, if it's learning about health and wellness, you know, maybe you do go to some Asian country where they're notorious for longevity of life. There's areas called blue zones in the world where people live historically healthier, longer lives. And if you're on a health crusade, go to those places. They know what they're doing. Figure it out.

• 43:07Speaker 00

  Enlist in workshops and other places that are going to help you achieve your goals. But that's what I would say is like, don't wing it. Unless, unless winging it is your goal. Like, I don't know. I just want to fly by the seat of my pants. I'm going to get a one-way ticket to every place I go and just stay there for three weeks and learn as much as I can. That's kind of a goal in and of itself, too.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I love it. I'm just curious, what would you do?

• 43:35Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  What comes to mind for you?

• 43:40Speaker 00

  I would really love to tour. Are you saying like, where would I go? Or what would be my goal?

• 43:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, like all sudden, both, like all sudden, life changes, no responsibilities. You have a reset year. What's something that comes to mind that gets you excited? Like, you're like, that would be awesome.

• 43:59Speaker 00

  I think I would really like to immerse myself in the work of different cultures. So I would go to Africa and work with professional hunters in Africa. Or, or, or, or, um, uh, I don't know what the equivalent is, but like fishing game where they're tracking down poachers. It's like, cool, I would want to go do that. Or I'd want to go build a school somewhere for impoverished people. Or, you know, I'd want to go to, man, I actually really haven't thought a whole lot about what I would do. But, uh, oh, here's one, go to Japan and learn about their, their building process.

• 44:41Speaker 00

  I can't remember what it's called, where they connect odd shaped joints together. Like learning, I would want to go with a carpenter and, and learn Japanese traditional architecture.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, that would be cool.

• 44:54Speaker 00

  That's what I, that's what I would do, like, try to immerse myself in the work of men in, in other cultures and see what their life is like.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, that would be fun. That'd be fun.

• 45:03Speaker 00

  Wouldn't that be cool?

• 45:04Speaker 01

  You know, one thing is coming to mind, I'd love to go to, um, spend like six months in just Thailand and just train every day.

• 45:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:18Speaker 00

  That would be cool.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  That'd be fun. All right, Justin Lott, what would be the best way to show your progress of being better to someone aside from writing it down? So the key is showing your progress to someone else. The individual doesn't see the changes because changes are small improvements and only wishes big changes done yesterday. So a little bit of this, it sounds like Justin's on his path of progression. He feels like he's progressing. He wants to show this progress to someone else, maybe some advice around all of that, but.

• 45:54Speaker 00

  I, why?

• 45:58Speaker 00

  Like, why do you, why do you want to show them? Is it so they'll pat you on the back and say, good boy for doing what you should have been doing all along? And I'm not even being accusatory. I've, I've been there. And I've had to ask myself, why am I trying to get the praise and notoriety from other people? And I get it, especially if it's somebody close to you, your wife, maybe you and your wife are having a hard time and you're like, hey babe, I'm making progress. I want you to see it. I tend to lean, I tend to lean more towards letting your actions speak for themselves.

• 46:31Speaker 00

  People know, people recognize it and they may not acknowledge it. And I'll tell you why people don't always acknowledge it. It's not necessarily that they don't see it. It might be that they're skeptical.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:44Speaker 00

  Right? You've got a track record of behaving one way. You've changed over the past two weeks, three weeks, month, 90 days, whatever.

• 46:53Speaker 00

  And they're skeptical. So why should they praise you for doing the thing that you should have been doing all along when they're not even sure it's going to stick?

• 47:02Speaker 00

  So give some people some time, give yourself some grace. And I won't say slow walk it, but just let the chips fall where they may. People will recognize your behavior, but it takes a lot of consistency and effort over time. I'll tell you what the trap is of trying to get other people to see your progress.

• 47:25Speaker 00

  They're going to think you're manipulating them.

• 47:28Speaker 00

  And that's a problem. Okay. If I go to you and I'm trying to like constantly suck out praise from you, or I'm trying to constantly get your validation, you're going to question my motives for doing that and rightfully so. If I go to my wife and I say, hey, um, look babe, here's all the things that I've been doing. Here's all the ways I've been changing. She's going to think, wait, are you doing that for me? To get me to behave a certain way? Or are you doing that for yourself? So when you start trying to get the validation of other people, they question your motives and they should.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. And let's be honest, you might be doing it to manipulate them to, with the intent of trying to sway them. And that's somewhat in the space of compliance. And, and we're not, I, who knows, Justin, if you're doing this, but like, it's not going to work.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  That that comes with premeditated resentment. I go out of my way to adjust to appease Ryan and all that I'm doing. And eventually, guess what? Ryan's not going to um see, or I'm going to have some expectations of how he should be treating me. And guess what? They're not going to match. And then I'm going to be frustrated.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  That I that I'm not getting the praise that I've been trying to get out of you from a manipulative behavior. Because I'm trying to show you all these. No, dude, like, let it. That's exhausting. Like, even talking about it makes me like, energy drains out of my body. Like, dude, just do it for you. Let it go. Get committed to something and get after it. Why? Because you want to. And then whether they realize the change in you or not, it doesn't matter. And you're doing it for the right reason anyway. And guess what? When you do it for that, the chances of you being successful just skyrockets. But if you're doing it just to appease someone else, the chances are it's not going to work anyway.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  You're going to eventually get tired of it and you're going to go back to old behaviors. Because you were never doing it for you anyway. You're doing it for someone else.

• 49:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, you can only do something so long. And not achieve the result that you desire before you stop doing the thing. Yeah. And so if your desire is, I want her to acknowledge me. And she never does, you're going to throw in the towel quicker than you ought to.

• 49:58Speaker 00

  I would also say, well, this goes back to just doing the right thing. You said because you want to, I think you said?

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:05Speaker 00

  And I agree, if you want to. I would also say because that's what the kind of man you want to be would do.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:14Speaker 00

  The way you're now showing up for your wife, let's say, is the kind of husband you've always wanted to be. And that's the motivation. Because you're showing up for your kids the way hopefully you are now. It's because that's what a good father would do.

• 50:29Speaker 00

  Period. End of story. End of discussion. I would also say, and this is important, the way I'm going to say it's going to sound funny, but instead of worrying about the praise of others, learn to praise yourself. Not in a self aggrandizing way, not an arrogant, egotistical way, not a look at me, look how much I've done and look how much better I am than you or anything else, but learn to validate yourself. And you do that by tracking where you currently are and looking back. It's okay to look back sometimes as long as it's not drawing you backwards and say, whoa, look how far I've come. You talked about this last week, Kip, with your Ironman training. You said something to the effect of, hey,

• 51:13Speaker 00

  you know, I wasn't as awesome as I could have been, but I was way better than I was.

• 51:19Speaker 00

  And that's something to be proud about. We should be proud of that. Not prideful, but proud of the work that we've done and how far we've come. And when you can do that for yourself, ironically, this is where people will start to notice it and follow you. And that's actually a very good sign of validation, by the way. Some people will want whoever to say, hey, tell me how great I am. Tell me how far I've come. And it feels good. There's nothing wrong with that. If people want to do it. I pay compliments to people all the time because it makes people feel good. And I think they deserve it. But the greatest compliment in your self-development that anybody could ever give you is following

• 52:00Speaker 00

  you. Is asking for your opinion. Is valuing your input or your insight. It's not saying, oh, I really love and appreciate, look how far you've come. It's, hey dad, what do you think I should do? I'm concerned or confused about this. That's the best, that's the truest sign of somebody that sees you as a valuable part of their life.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. So Ryan, with all this in place, based upon everything we just said, when do we share? Right? When, when do I intentionally share with my spouse or my kids of what I'm working on and progress that I made? Like with the right intent, right? I'm doing it for me, not for them and not to, you know, stroke my own ego. When, when are the benefits or when do I intentionally share what I'm doing?

• 52:50Speaker 00

  It's, it's very simple. You share when their enlistment in what you're doing is crucial.

• 52:58Speaker 00

  So the spouse thing, I think we can understand, we can talk a little bit about that. But another context might be, let's say Kip, you're my boss. And I want a raise, or I want a promotion, or I want to take on a new project. I'm going to come to you and say, hey, Kip, you know, I've, I've done these things for the past year and I'm really excited and here's how much revenue we've been able to generate because of these new ideas that we implemented based on the idea that I had a couple of months ago. And I actually want to take this further because I think I can do it. And I've proved that this is a legitimate idea. Can you give me the opportunity to do this? So I, I shared my success with you, but I didn't do it to toot my horn.

• 53:43Speaker 00

  I did it so I could enlist you in the cause.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:47Speaker 00

  That's when you start to share.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  And what I love about it, Ryan, is most guys wouldn't do that. They covertly go, well, I'm going to do this thing. And then I'm going to like have all this progress and Ryan's going to see my, my effort and he's going to promote me, all without involving me in the conversation with this covert contract.

• 54:08Speaker 00

  To be in it.

• 54:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally, totally.

• 54:12Speaker 00

  Well, and so let's take a scenario with, with a spouse. Let's say you've got this great business idea, but you're full of ideas and you're also full of shit and track record shows that. And you go to your wife and you're like, hey babe, I'm going to start this business. And she's like, oh God, here we go again.

• 54:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:32Speaker 00

  And then you're like, she won't, she won't support me. It's like, dude, last business venture, you blew $10,000 in six months of your life. Why would she support that? Like, she's, she's obligated to do that? Like she, she has things that she cares about too. So if you want to start the business venture, what I would go, what I would do is, hey babe, I want to talk with you about an idea that I have. Do you have some time tonight or this weekend or whatever? And then you sit down with her and you're like, I just want to show you some of the things I've been doing. I've got this business plan. I've got this business idea. Here's the research I've done. Here's what I've, the time I've invested into it. Here's the pros and cons. Here's why I think I would be good at it. Here's why I don't think.

• 55:16Speaker 00

  You're not asking for her permission, by the way, guys. Like you're not asking for her to, to say yes. You're enlisting her. She has to be enlisted in the business, even if she's not part of the business. Because if she's not, Kip, have you ever had something that you've done that Asia isn't fully supportive of?

• 55:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does not work out well.

• 55:38Speaker 00

  Is that harder or easier for the project?

• 55:41Speaker 01

  Harder to do. Yeah, harder to do.

• 55:43Speaker 00

  So streamline it, grease the grooves, make the process easier and getting her enlistment is crucial.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally. You know, one thing that, that I think Phil, over the last couple of months, we've talked about this in our council, so I'll just bring this up because I think men struggle in this area. Is there's some value of your kids should know what you're about.

• 56:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  And what you want to achieve and seeing you put effort towards it. Why? So they, they have a model of like, oh God, dad wanted to do this thing that was really difficult. I see him working. I see him doing this hard thing. And now we're being the lighthouse of what this looks like. Sometimes if we don't tell our kids about it, they don't know that we're working on something. And, and, and we don't get to share the struggle with them and they don't learn. So like, enlist your kids also as, as a way of teaching them about what you're doing. And, you know, we do hard things and we, we sacrifice and we delay gratification to, for the achievement of something else.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  But you kind of got to let your kids know about these things so they can learn and grow from your experience.

• 56:56Speaker 00

  Right. I was writing a couple of things down here. You know, my kids, they know what an iron council preview call is. They know what a Friday iron council call is. They know what a battle team is. Like they know that because I share it with them. I used to just say, hey, kids, I'm gonna go jump on a call. And then I was confused why they didn't understand. Well, because to a child who wants to spend time with you, it just means less time for them. That's all it relates. That's all it translates to. Dad's on a call, which means he's not with me.

• 57:28Speaker 00

  But then you start sharing it like, hey, check this out. This is what a preview call is. This is what I do. Here's how many guys were on the call. Listen to this story. This guy was struggling in his marriage and we talked him through it. We worked him through it. We've been working together for six months and now they're doing great. Or he, this guy just started a brand new business and he quit his old job because he's starting this new business. My kids hear stories like that. So when I tell them, hey, guys, I gotta jump on a call. This morning I was on the Friday iron council call and my youngest son, he got out of bed. He's like, Dad, can we hang out? I said, yeah, I'm gonna jump on my call. He's like, okay, cool. When you're done? I'm like, yeah, absolutely. He has no problem with it because he knows what I'm doing. And I also hang out with him after the call, like I said I would.

• 58:11Speaker 00

  But they also know what it's like to run our merchandise store. Like I've got one of our new shirts on right now in the merchandise store. And my kids have all been part of packaging. They've been part of customer service. They've been part of taking it to the post office. And the other day, my youngest son was taping up a box and he just looked like dog crap. The way he taped it is all wonky and weird. And he turned it over like he was gonna use it. And I said, hey, are we gonna use that box? He's like, uh... I said, you know the answer. He's like, you're right, no. And I said, why aren't we gonna use that box? And he's like, because the way it looks matters.

• 58:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. The way it looks matters. When somebody gets a shirt, we want it to be awesome. We want their experience to be great. They took out their wallet and they spent 30 bucks with us or 100 bucks or 300 bucks. They deserve to get it the way that it's intended. And he's like, yeah, I know. I said, it's okay. We all get lazy at times and that's what happened, but catch yourself. And he's like, okay. And it was fine. He gets it. He understands it because we talk about these things.

• 59:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. I love it. I love it, man. In fact, talking about Iron Council, oops. I got my call coming up, so.

• 59:35Speaker 00

  Okay, you gotta get going. Do you have time for one more question real quick?

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 59:39Speaker 00

  Or no?

• 59:41Speaker 01

  Twenty minutes. I got, I got twenty minutes.

• 59:43Speaker 00

  Okay, we'll be fast. Well, I was gonna tell you that traditional Japanese wood joinery stuff that's called Kagumi, I think is how you would pronounce that. So I did look that up. But it's actually really interesting. People should look into that.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  Dude, I know what you're talking about. I've seen a couple like social media reels and I'm like, that is amazing.

• 1:00:02Speaker 00

  It's cool. Yeah. Um, this one comes from Philip Snyder. He said, he really likes the episode that I did on capitalism being masculine. As a capitalist himself, he wanted the perspective of a trend for men buying land and building a compound for their family and quote unquote, ten of their closest friends. They grow their own food, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, he called that a commune from his perspective. And he also said, it seems like a common dream for some men to in our movement to become completely removed from modern society and the global economy. In your opinion, where on the spectrum of capitalism do you see this urge for communal isolation? Is, is it ignoring the reality that we're all part of the global economy?

• 1:00:43Speaker 00

  Or is the isolation of small group tribal model the ultimate symbol of sovereignty? Um, that, there's a lot to it, but what I would say is that you're still participating in a capitalistic society. If everybody's contributing their own set of skills, right? Because when we think of capitalism, we think about money and money is just a agreed upon metric of, I should say, measurement of value. That's all it is. This is going to represent, let's say a dollar represents one unit of value. Now I get to decide what is valuable, the same way Kip, you get to decide what is valuable.

• 1:01:25Speaker 00

  So if I said to you, Kip, I would like to buy your leadership training.

• 1:01:33Speaker 00

  In order for that transaction to take place, I have to believe that what I'm going to get is worth more than what I'm going to give you. And this is where it gets interesting. You conversely have to believe that what I'm going to give you is worth more than what you have to give me. It's such, it's mind blowing if you really think about that. Both people think they won. That's what makes it beautiful is that the transaction does not come at the expense of anybody else, whereas other forms of economic systems, there's an expense. It's a finite pie. It comes at the expense of somebody else, but capitalism, true capitalism does not.

• 1:02:18Speaker 00

  You can do that in a small setting without dollars. You just don't have the dollar to do it. And so how do you do barter, trade? You live in this commune, for example, and maybe the women in the area are responsible for growing the food and the men are responsible for building things. That's a system of capitalism where we're trading value in order to serve each other effectively. So I like that idea and I don't think you're separating yourself necessarily from the global economy. I would still be aware of what's going on in my city, in my state, in my country, because those things will impact and affect property taxes and other things that I might need to go into town to buy and rules.

• 1:03:03Speaker 00

  Excuse me, got something stuck in my throat there. So I think there's a, I think there's a happy medium, but if somebody wants to go live off grid and, and escape, do it. I'm, I'm fine with that. There's enough of us that are going to contribute in different ways that that's not going to be a hindrance on society because 10 people decide they want to live together and live off the land. Do it. You can do it, make it happen, do it.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like you said, it's still capitalism. I find, I find the, the move to globalization really interesting in the sense of said who that this is a good idea?

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? Like, we have this default way of like, oh, we're part of a global economy. Or we should, or it's great for cultures to integrate and whatever. I'm like, says who? Right? Like, I don't think we're capable of it, to be honest with you. I mean, look at us. We can't even handle social media and have too many inputs. What do we find ourselves doing? Get distracted with everything outside of our realm of control, that we stop focusing on what's within our realm of control. Maybe we're not capable of dealing at the global level. And we were intended to be in tribes. And that's where we focus better. Why? Because we're focused on, on areas of our control versus things outside. I don't know. But it's interesting. Do you have thoughts about that?

• 1:04:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, you're right. Multiculturalism is a horrible, horrible experiment. We've seen it.

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:32Speaker 00

  Even in this country, what happens is people come into this country in such large numbers, that they don't assimilate to the American culture. And so what is the American culture? Who the hell knows?

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:44Speaker 00

  We have no idea. And people will say, well, you know, diversity is strength. Is it? What if we're in a rowboat, Kip, you and me, and I'm rowing north and you're rowing south? We would both agree that we're rowing in a diverse way. Who's gonna, where are we gonna go? We're not going anywhere. We're rowing against each other. Versus, both of us get in the same rowboat, and you row on the right side, and I row on the left. Okay, now we're still diverse, but at least we're rowing in the same direction. That's why this monoculture idea is so much better. And by the way, we can still do exchange with other

• 1:05:25Speaker 00

  cultures. But we just don't have to adopt. This is the problem, is everybody thinks, and this is part of the American problem. We have this idea of freedom and the right to free speech, and it's beautiful. I love it. But what people have believed because of the right to free speech, that everybody's speech is equally valuable.

• 1:05:48Speaker 00

  And it's not. And the same thing is true of cultures. Not all cultures are the same in value. Some cultures are horrible, horrible cultures, which is why they should be allowed to go away.

• 1:06:03Speaker 00

  And some cultures are better than others. And how do you know? By their fruits, ye shall know thee. So we can still exchange and do commerce with different countries, but I'm not interested in embracing other cultures that are at odds with ours. It doesn't help anybody. It waters down everything. It muddies all the water. It creates rifts. Everybody's going in their own direction in different way. And then everybody just gets pissed and kills each other. And we see that.

• 1:06:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally. Well, there's another unpopular opinion. Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say, we should have added that to the list from earlier. You know, your guys' call to action, I mean, we talked about earlier, one of the questions is around self-development and investing in yourself. And, and I feel safe in saying this, Ryan, this podcast, the reason why we do this, and I've seen this from you time and time again, and the intent is to pour into men so they can show up more powerfully in life. Period. We want you to do that. Whether it's going to the library, whether that's listening to podcasts, reading books, whatever it is, man, get on this path of becoming a better version of yourselves.

• 1:07:13Speaker 01

  And if you want to, you can also band with us and do that. And that's joining the Iron Council. And so to learn more about that, go to theironcouncil.com. And always open for enrollment and glad to welcome you new guys. I always love, I love those preview calls, but one of my favorite things every Friday is we have, we have these all hands calls. And one of the questions I ask new guys is, why are you here?

• 1:07:40Speaker 01

  Where are you from? But why are you here? And I love it. I'm here. Why? And they declare themselves. I'm here for this reason. And it's inspiring, even for us guys that's been in Iron Council for, you know, eight years. And so, um, yeah, so to learn more, go to theironcouncil.com.

• 1:08:00Speaker 00

  And I'll just add one other thing, Kip, and I know you got a jet, but the library is great. I used that example earlier. It is great, but there's a downside is that there's no structure to the learning. You can get as much information as possible. I can get on my phone and get as much information as possible. Does that mean it's going to serve me? No, not if it's the wrong information, or not if I don't understand how to translate it, or not if I don't know how to apply it successfully. And that's the difference between self-directed learning and learning in a system that's proven to work. So I'm not saying replace the library, replace self-learning. I'm saying supplement it with a system because

• 1:08:43Speaker 00

  that's going to help every other aspect of your self-development journey. All right, guys.

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  I mean, oh, go ahead. Sorry.

• 1:08:49Speaker 00

  Nope, you're good.

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  No, I was just gonna say, we're in the information age. Access to information is not the problem.

• 1:08:54Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:08:56Speaker 01

  It's how do I apply it?

• 1:08:59Speaker 00

  And what?

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  How do I apply it to my life? And what do I apply? Yeah, totally. And that's exactly what we do.

• 1:09:06Speaker 00

  All right, guys. Great questions today. Keep them coming. We'll keep giving the answers and we'll catch you on Friday. Until then, go out there, take action and become the man you are meant to be.

• 1:09:16Speaker 02

  Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. You ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you are meant to be? We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.