 George Bruno with the 21 Report. We're at the 21 Convention Patriarch Edition, and I'm talking with Tanner Guzzi. Welcome Tanner. Thanks George Wow All I can say is wow. We took a change of direction during this convention Have you felt that? Absolutely. It's been really fun because You know, I've been here. This is my fourth year being part of this and As much as I've enjoyed coming and being a part of this over the past few years I'm married. I have four kids, you know And so a lot of times as we talk about it in previous years There's been a lot of talk about pickup or dating or all these other things and you know, I understand that there I mean, there are more men who are in that position kind of within our sphere of the internet Than there are who are in positions that we're in whether that's you know married or divorced or fathers or anything else like that But to have this kind of expansion to where this is something that is now Being acknowledged as this is this is a major part of masculinity is it's not just you how many women you can sleep with? But what's your legacy? What are you leaving? I felt like this weekend that I personally am more amongst my own people Then I then I have in previous years. Yeah In other Conventions we've gone wide this convention. We've gone deep and I feel that too Even the chats and the conversations outside of the meeting area in the social areas in the restaurants and the lounges at night Are about families and fathering Our conversation that we had last night Was the kind of conversation that I like having me too and you're right It was fun to hear that or to be involved with other conversations with other men that have been here Even the workout the breakouts that were done in the workshops and stuff. There's just a different level of Gravity and seriousness to this because you just you do you have more you have more on the line Than when it's just you or when you're looking at the potential risk as opposed to the real risk of where you are When you're when you're in this situation and so there's just a different Yeah, there's a different level of gravity that comes with the conversations that everybody was having and that doesn't mean that they weren't Enjoyable or that there's not a lot of enthusiasm or optimism or excitement because that's one of the things It's been really fun to hear is how many men already just after the first day I feel like they have more tools to be able to go home and be better at their job is being a patriarch being a father and That kind of stuff and so it's fun to see. Yes, there's the gravity and the seriousness of it But with that comes an added measure of enthusiasm and excitement for the things that they're already walking away learning or at least That's been my experience. That's why I'm excited to see how things go today and tomorrow a new life skill. Yeah, absolutely Yeah, and it's not just applicable to how you are as a father Because that ability to be a patriarch to be able to lead that translates into your relationships with women that translates in your Relationships with other men that works from a career perspective There's so many other applications for these skill sets and a lot of times it's stuff that kind of gets left behind Because we just focus so much on the male-female Intersexual dynamics and there's more to being a man than just that right and there's grandfathers here, too Yeah That's kind of exciting. Yeah, I love seeing that and I personally, you know Tex and I were talking last night at after after our dinner and it's really fun to hear his stories being a grandpa Versus what it's like being a dad and it just makes me excited to you know We love my wife and I recognize that we're in kind of the good old days right now And we're really grateful that we get to recognize that we're in it right now Yeah, and we're excited for what it's going to be like when we get to watch our kids deal with the struggles and everything else That comes with being parents and we just get to be the grandparents and you guys had a child fairly recently, right? Three months ago. Yeah our fourth Congratulations. Thank you. She is fantastic and she's the dynamic that she adds to the family has been great. Oh, that's wonderful Yeah We chatted last night about Learning how to be good with women Teaches you how to be good with women Learning how to be good with people Teaches you how to be good with men and women, right? I like the idea of learning how to be good with people Yeah, I do too because There's no reason to I mean, yeah There's certain things that you need to do to specialize, but it's really interesting to start with a Specialization as opposed to a broader skill set and then niching down especially because I don't know any men who don't deal with other men Yeah, right, you know like it's not you don't get to live in this bubble where the only people you deal with are women and it's only women that you're Romantically interested in that's it. So of course it's going to be who view and benefit you to get good at interacting with people And then if that still doesn't translate well enough to your dating and relationships Then yeah, niche down further and get better at that but start off with just general people skills and then go from there All right, so being a father of four What is the oldest child you have? She's about to turn seven. Okay, and What is the the breakdown of male female children? I have three daughters and one son and my son is the second one Okay, so we got it. We got to make more Everybody all my wife my daughters everybody wants everybody wants more boys. Yeah, so we we got to keep going I Was talking yesterday and I said As we all know that men and women are different which also means that boys and girls are different How have you seen that your boy is different than your daughters? Man in a lot of different ways one of one of the ones that's the more fun is How he engages physically with me my son loves to fight and loves to wrestle and I'm actually very grateful for being involved in this community and being able to recognize that that's just Normal healthy male behavior instead of something that needs to be curtailed because my son, you know He's five. He doesn't necessarily understand all the boundaries about it yet and he and I play pretty rough You know, he's now old enough where I can like give him a dead leg and you'll watch him It hurts a little bit But he also wants to think it's funny and be brave and everything and then he'll have times where he'll come up And he'll be like dead face and sock me in the face. It's like, okay, that's off limits We got it We got to set the boundaries here and everything my daughters as much as they love to kind of wrestle on the bed or have me throw them around the The aggression component of it. It's not there Right, there's just not that desire to see how far they can push me right or to see how far they can push themselves They just love to be tickled and just love the physical contact and that kind of stuff Whereas my son really likes to push it and see where that is and so it's really fun to get to understand that that doesn't mean that He's broken. Yeah, it just means he's a boy and rather than trying to squash that We just have to channel it and help him understand that it's like you don't get to play with mom or with your sister It's the way you play with dad or with your friends and there are certain things You don't punch somebody in the stomach You don't punch them in the face You can hit them in the arm or something else like that and you have to under you both have to understand that you're wrestling and that It's fun and teaching him how to navigate all of this and helping him Learn when things don't go well how to navigate all of it. It's it's a blast to get to do that with him other things are that My all of my daughters when they play on their own You were talking about this yesterday I really appreciated this in your speech because it was fun to acknowledge this They will they will play pretend and they will do voices and hi, are you good? You know do all this kind of cute stuff and my son He just makes noises because he sees driving cars or yeah doing stuff and and it's just a totally different way of playing So it's fun to see that it's gonna be really fun to see How those changes expand and broaden as they get older and what that's gonna be like Let's take a look inside your household at some of the rituals That you have with your kids. Are there any special things that you made up any Fun little games to help them calm themselves down Help them go to sleep Share some so our nightly routine as far as bedtime is concerned And I shared I shared this in this speech So you guys will be able to see even a little bit more in depth by going and watching that as well But what we do is we it's called the guzzy breakdown and so we will One of the kids will lead or my wife or I will lead and we'll say who are we guzzies and what do we do? And then we start off with hard things and we have everybody talk about what are the hard things that they did that day And then we'll do the same thing with good things kind things and fun things And so it's a way to kind of decompress talk about the day. We asked them, you know, why was that hard? What did you do to conquer it? How did you feel after you were done? You know, what did it feel like to do a kind thing? How did it feel to have somebody do kind things for you? We go out of our way to my wife and I a lot of times forget to do fun things And so it's a really good reminder that even if it's me just taking another five minutes to play dolls with one of my daughters or to wrestle with my son or something else that That they need to understand that mom and dad are not just all work and no play but that we need to do fun things as well So we'll do that then we'll say prayer together as a family and then we'll do a bedtime story and I love to read to the kids I love to get into it and do voices and everything else like that Yeah, and then they'll often do You know my son sleeps in his own room my daughters are in a room together And so they'll they'll read themselves especially because my two will just know how to read and so They'll read together and do that kind of stuff and then it's pretty peaceful after that There's a few nights where somebody will come out and I need a drink or I need this You know, we kind of got to kind of get them through that but for the most part It's a pretty good routine to just kind of get everybody finished for the night. Yeah It's hard to think about your troubles when you're doing the guzzy breakdown Yeah, yeah, and what's so great is that when they do talk about the hard things and that we start off with that We really do deal with a lot of the struggles throughout the day It helps us be able to talk about them and talk about why they were hard and everything as opposed to It just kind of fading off into the distance and nobody getting to really decompress from it Yeah, especially because if they talk about if they say that their hard thing is something hard that happened to them You know, we had to leave Muzzy's house early. Okay. Well, that that's not you doing a hard thing So what did you do to conquer it or how was your attitude about it or what could you have done better? And so it's it's a learning opportunity for them to yeah, that's awesome. It's fun. We used to do a PSO We did it what I call PSO times three which was a Problem solution and outcome and we would talk about problems that we had the solutions and what's the outcome cool? and We had to do that three times and What it did was it instilled in them that there's solutions to almost everything. Yep Almost everything. Yeah. Yeah That's good. Yeah How do you share and I talked about division of labor in my speech? How do you share? Labor in your house peacefully It helps that we are part of a fairly traditional culture It helps that my wife and I are on the same page as far as I'm not I'm not a begrudging patriarch from my perspective Yeah, and she doesn't resent that in my in me either Yeah, and so it is very much a kind of a traditional division of labor where My wife cooks and she cleans and does dishes and stuff like that She's the one who does and folds the laundry and that kind of stuff I'm responsible because I work from home And I don't necessarily get to like clock in and clock out a lot of what I do is stuff That's related to work a lot of the time. Yeah, but even things like I'm the one who takes out the garbage I'm the one who does the yard care and takes care of that kind of stuff And so it is a pretty good division at the same time You know there are times when especially now because we have a three-month old like we don't get the luxury of a lot Of that division of labor happening the way it should because She's nursing a lot of the time and so if she's nursing and I'm just sitting on the couch and laundry needs to be folded I'm not gonna go red pill Rambo. I love that term. I was like, nope. Sorry. That's not my job It's like I would like you know that can be one of my kind things and I I really appreciate that my wife And I both have enough of a dynamic. We actually had this happen last week where I helped her out with that And she kind of apologized to me and she said I hope you don't resent me That that I can't do all this and I'm sorry that I can't do all this and it's like no trust me I know you and I both know that this is not a slow creep into this now becoming my responsibility But it's me having an opportunity to do something kind for you Because I know that your workload is much bigger than it will be in six months when she's sleep-trained or she's not nursing As frequently or what it was six months ago before we even had her So we were adaptable while we still have kind of that traditional division of labor as well Family is the center of everything in this country, isn't it absolutely? Why do we why do you think that is? Because family is where Family is where both good and bad behavior are modeled Family is where culture stems from it doesn't happen on a macro scale and then shrink in it starts on a smaller scale And then grows out and the idea that it's so crazy to me that Somehow it's this revolutionary rebellious or offensive idea that in order to raise healthy boys and girls They need to have a man and a woman as parents in their lives So they can understand the complementary nature of the sexes that just seems so simplistically common sense and the idea that People get so upset by that is it's crazy to me But it really is like if you want your kids to know how to deal with men and women They need to be in the home with men and women right they need to have and they need to see mom and dad have a healthy relationship And how they interact with each other they need to see the complementary nature of it The fact that mom tends to lean towards security dad tends to lean towards freedom and expansion and those are good things and if parents can be on the same page on that and even acknowledge that there are times when I want to I Want to push the kids harder and my wife will record will want to Comfort them more do something else and we both kind of talk about it and recognize it's like well in this case We should probably lean more towards comfort or in this case It's no we should lean more towards let them do it and let them deal with the consequences But we work as a team on that kind of stuff and so even the fact that our kids get to see teamwork Well, how do you not have a functioning society? When you have a functioning nuclear family and you teach those skills and you have those behaviors modeled And then it just gets to expand outward from there because it really is a it's a microcosm for all other human Interaction we were talking about guys just being good with women But you get good with people when you live in a good intentional nuclear family, right? Yeah, I Talk to some guys and I'll say else. Do you have any children? That's part of my if I'm meeting somebody for the first time or socializing and I get to know them a little bit by getting them to share a little bit and So do you have any children and they'll say no and then there's so many people that feel the need to add this I wouldn't want to raise children in today's world and that always has rubbed me the wrong way What how would you react to that and what do you think of that? I Mean morally we're in in a pretty weird corrupt time But we still live in a pretty great time in all of human history And there will never be an ideal time because I mean you go back to when my parents were born and things were great It was post-war and everything else and but if you understand the way that history works in these big cycles You understand that you have kids being born into a time where there's going to be a lot of Moral rot because of how easy their lives are or they were brought up in times during war It's like well How am I supposed to bring kids into this world because they could physically be dealing with things? There's never been and there never will be an ideal time to raise children There's always going to be a risk and I think a lot of times that's more used as self-justification As opposed to a real reason it's something that they come in they bring in after the fact Yeah, as opposed to it's like I would really really really really like to have kids But I just can't justify it with the way the world. I don't think it works like that for most people Yeah, that's responding to the world with fear exactly. Yeah, and there will always be something to fear in the world always and Dropping out. Yeah, I Made a comment yesterday in my speech Knowing that it wasn't the audience that needed to hear this but those that will watch the speech in the future especially a lot of the Past 21 convention people the pickup artist guys and all those guys That the highest and best use of your sex organ is to make babies It's not all about just Recreational casual behavior, right? Comment on that Yeah, I You know and this is one of those where I can't separate my thoughts on that from my Religious beliefs my theology and everything else and I know for a lot of guys who are watching that just means automatic disqualification And you know what so be it But we're just that is the minority though, right? Yeah, that's we're not gonna let the minority Determine What we say absolutely. No, absolutely. You're right. That's why we're gonna. Yeah. Yeah, but that's the way we were designed Yeah, is Biologically the way that everything fits the way that everything's supposed to happen is we're designed so that we not only have a physical biological desire, but we have a spiritual desire to To procreate to multiply and replenish to have children and to not just have them But to be involved with them and to raise them and to have them be we we get it from a selfish perspective of a legacy And and I think a lot of men will hit the psychological wall of No, you don't like lose your sex appeal But you lose your legacy appeal if you get to a certain age and you haven't had kids or you haven't done anything Beyond just satisfy your own desires And so you hit that psychological wall and it may be later and it may be a little bit easier to recover from but that doesn't mean That it's not real and it doesn't mean that it's not devastating We are we're designed to have children and there is something my own experience with it has been that Without the responsibility of being a patriarch without the responsibility of my wife staying home and not being able to bring in any income without the responsibility of trying to provide a good life Physically materially spiritually socially every other regard for my kids. I Would be I would just be an adolescent still I would if it forced me to grow up. I wouldn't be an entrepreneur I wouldn't be as interested in self-development. My health would not be where it is my Desires to continue to improve myself my discipline. None of those things for me existed Before we had kids. Yeah, they didn't and so I know a lot of men will think of kids is as a Burden or as a ball and chain or anything else and for me it's been rocket fuel It's it's it's taken me from being this perpetual adolescent who was adulting Into somebody who can confidently say I'm a man. I'm a patriarch I'm living up to what my responsibilities are and it gives me all the more fuel to do more and be even better and Teach my kids how to do that and continue that on and so I love the responsibility That comes from it and we are designed to desire that yeah, yeah I think we are built to be able to handle increasing loads of weight on our back Mm-hmm, but we don't put the final terminal load on our back all at once right and I mean We don't do it in the gym. We don't do it in any other regard either. Yeah Comment on this men Want to have a legacy? Women want to have babies Men want to build a family women want babies Do you believe that's true that we're wired that way? Well, I do I think it's I Think that there's a way that can that can be misinterpreted and it can go a little bit too easy where it's just okay well, I had my baby and Now I don't want to do anything else or the big my only concern for the baby is how it elevates my status and that the Other moms think that I've got a cute baby or anything like that I don't think that that's the case But I do think that it's very interesting and I think even that applies to the differences between men and women where For most men, I mean I was this way with my oldest where it took me about six months to really develop a real love and affection for And obviously there was that protective desire and everything there but to really get to know her I was she was about six months in and it's been fun as we've had more to watch that that age gets slowly younger Yeah, but I think one of the things that's really interesting is From the time they're born until the time they're about seven or eight mom is primary and she's supposed to be because it's protection It's building. It's all this other stuff And then as they get to that age and then they start to go out in the world Then dad is supposed to be primary and I think that that really ties into this idea that women have this desire for the baby Face and to be involved with babies and everything because that's where they're the most needed and that's where they're the most Competent and capable in raising children Obviously dad is still present, but he's secondary in that regard and then it should be this shift and it hasn't been and we need to make That shift because that's what makes men better That's what makes kids better and that's also what makes women better is when we can watch that shift happen Where dad becomes primary then it becomes how do you represent our name? How do you carry out our legacy? How do you become the best version of yourself as opposed to you get to stay home and have things be easy and be in Your bubble or anything else? Yeah, so I would say that I do agree with that But it's not one to the exclusion of the other, but it's who primarily is interested in one and who primarily is interested in the other Yeah, you weren't boxing for a while. Uh-huh Tell us about that so I had my I had my first fight about seven months ago and this actually ties into what we've been talking about because I Never been in a fight in high school or anything else like that you know, I had not really ever been engaged in any sort of physical violence and I felt like I don't want if I have to do something with my kids to protect them to protect my wife for something else I don't want my first time having to deal with any sort of violence to be a time when it really matters I want some sort of familiarity with this and what it feels like and even then I trained for a couple years And I didn't want to you know, I enjoyed sparring and that kind of stuff But the idea of taking an actual bout, you know and fighting was scary and then Every night as we're doing our guzzy breakdown and we're talking about guzzies do hard things It's like dad because these do hard things. This is a hard thing But you need to do it. And so it's been very much a great opportunity for me to I mean I've watched my wife give birth to four kids unmedicated, you know, like she's done We should the last one she had at home And I can't go for three minutes in the ring with a dude who wants to punch me in the face But I get to hit him back How am I setting the example that I want to set about we do hard things if I shy away from stuff? Just because it's difficult or it's a little bit. I saw the pictures and it looked like it hurt Oh, he got me. He was much better boxer and I got I got rekt and even then I'm grateful for it because I came out fine I mean it hurt and it hurt for a lot of days And I don't know if I'm gonna get to fight again because he deviated my septum and my die like I can't breathe very well or anything Yeah, I mean there's there's real consequences to it. I think I'm gonna start doing Jiu-Jitsu Yeah, but I'm really grateful for it and my wife is grateful for it, and I hope one day my kids are grateful for it because Dad does hard things too. Yeah, I have to lead by example And I can't do that if I tell my kids that they have to do things that they're afraid of that are good for him Yeah, if I'm not willing to do that as well speak to the person watching there about fatherhood about being a parent Speak to the guy who says I wouldn't want to raise children in this world. Give him some hope The best thing that I can tell you as far as offering some hope is that as Crazies the world is you have more control over your dynamic than you think you do if you are the caliber of man Who's willing to do the work willing to create an intentional family willing to do the kind of things that are necessary Then one you'll attract the kind of woman who actually is interested in following your lead and becoming part of your team as opposed To it being this conflict of the sexes to it'll give you an opportunity to create a culture and a family dynamic that's going to Be conducive to actually raising healthy kids and then three It will allow you to continue to expand in your own beliefs and in your own growth until you can find other people Who are similar and then you can become part of a Broader and a bigger culture that leads to all that as well right now You probably feel alone in your desire to become a better version of yourself because we live in a world of people Who don't we just want to be more comfortable? We don't want to be better But if you keep doing the work and you keep building towards not just being a better version of yourself But living up to your full potential which really is fatherhood and legacy and everything else You'll find the opportunities to do it and so don't just rationalize backwards and say that it's too dangerous It's too risky for me for my kids for anybody else because you can create an environment in which this does work for you How can people find you? Best way is masculine-style.com. That's my site. I love that we didn't even talk about style stuff But if you want to hear more about this stuff, the best way is on Twitter It's at Tanner Guzzi because I talk about fatherhood and self-development and all that kind of stuff there So follow me on Twitter Great talk Tanner. Thanks George