 George Bruno with the 21 Report, the 21 Convention Patriarch Edition, and I'm talking with my friend Alexander Cortez. Welcome. How you doing George? Good, good. Good to see you, as always. Yeah. How was the convention this weekend? I really enjoyed it. The convention... Yeah, for those of you guys probably remember, if you've watched the last 21 Report from October, the Twin Conventions, very large event, very large mix range in terms of the ages. This one it was predominantly. It was fathers, obviously. But having that element here where it's men who have children, have professional lives, pretty much all of them. They live, they have a death of experience that a year and a guy doesn't have, there's a seriousness in the conversation and a depth to it and a nuance that hadn't been there before I felt. And there was a new level of discourse for the male spear, since a lot of what typically gets talked about is men who are at this entry point of, I want to get better with women. I want to, I need to physically get myself improved. I need to sort of rearrange my mind set as to how do I approach my relationships. But now you happen who've had relationships and they've had kids and they've been modeling something for them. So their perspective is on it, it's just at a whole different level. And that was something that really impressed me in the conversations I had with the gentleman's in the hallways at dinner during lunch, where we used to be talking about, like how do you model good behavior? How do you establish a good relationship with your wife so your son can see how many women are actually with each other? Because you're really playing out for the future. And that was cool. It was purely very cool. And fatherhood is something I've thought about a lot. And like I said, it took everything to serve this new unexplored territory where I thought was very, very healthy. I noticed the same thing. There was a seriousness here because the topic is very serious, isn't it? Well, that's how it could not be. I expressed this during a sort of red man show where I've always thought that masculinity at its highest form, it's expressed through fatherhood. Because at that point, the consequences of everything you do, everything becomes a third order effect. It's not just your behavior and how it's going to affect you, it's how it's going to affect your child today, tomorrow, and into the future. So it's almost like a fourth level of that. And you really have to consider what do I actually believe? What are my principles, what are my values? And what is this going to do for my son? What is this going to do for my daughter? If I make a mistake now, I'm going to know it. Which is a very wild thing to think about. As a single person, my behavior reflects me. It certainly can affect other people, but I'm the one that's going to hit hard. But when you have a child, it's not just going to be you, it's going to be them. So what do you really believe? What is your relationship with the world at large? It really forces you to confront all the incoherencies and sort of hypocrisies and what you think about things on so many levels. I've been talking with a lot of the speakers and a lot of the guests here with topics that are hopeful, positive, optimistic. And I've talked to so many people on the outside who have said things like when I mentioned children, they would say, oh, I would never want to bring a child into this world the way this world is. And to me, that's kind of like dark and despair and gloom and doom. What would you say to the guy who had or the woman, even the woman who has that mindset, I wouldn't want to bring a child into this world? I would tell that person to use their psych term. They need a cognitive reframe. You have to consider that you maddy, and you really have to take a step back from someone's own bullshit. Well, this is what I think. Let's take a step back. We're living in 2019. We obviously have technology that enables us a huge little power over lives, enormous little buttons. During the dark ages, during the dark black plague, the black plague, 25% population is dying. There's still people having children. People are still reproducing. People are still raising families. People are still believing that the future is going to be, if not a better version of the present, but it will still be a living version of the present. Things are not going to continue on to this sort of, I don't know what you even call it, sort of like this presuppose death spiral where everything ends. So like that level of cynicism, I think someone has to really confront that. Like, why do you really believe that? Because there's also a little like almost a cop out to that. Everything's going to end. There's no point. So what does that say about your behavior? If I tell you that in 10 years, the world comes to it in 12 years, whatever the lunacy is now, well, is there any consequence in anything I do then? I guess nothing matters. That's a very easy way to never have to examine anything and what you're doing. Or to never consider like, do you actually value anything at all? Do you have relationships? Do you love people? Does your job, does anything matter to you about yourself? Apparently not. And then people, when you ask it to them that way, it's like, oh, okay, maybe you don't, maybe you're not so committed to that idea. There's enormous level of mobilization today, like with the economy, with everything, where you do have the power to change quite really at your fingertips. You can click a video and watch a play and someone could change you. So this idea of the future being this terrible awful, no good realm that we're all going to live in, it's very shallow. It's very shallow, it's very much like a cop out. We're like, okay, I want to have kids and like, you want to be selfish when you're telling me. You're very content with being purely, purely selfish in the way that you can almost consider sinful. I've thought that there has never in history been an ideal time to have children because every era has had its problems. You always have challenges. Perhaps there was a point, I mean, obviously you're more years than myself, but this is always the cliché of the 1950s, maybe 80s, 1952, the American dream period. For some people that did sort of exist, but even for others then it did not. There was still poverty. There were still people who didn't achieve that. Then even prior to that, like think of, we talk about how bad the world's supposed to be. Think of the people who grew up during Great Depression, 1930s. What was their view of the future? Or if you were in the stock market crash then it was 100 years ago. People lost everything. Everybody's literally poor. They're living in dust-double-dirt towns. They're still having kids. They're still trying to make their way to a better environment. They're still just trying to survive and guess what people did. That produced a very strong generation of people. So like not investing in children, kids are sure of your test of like whether you really love life. Are you going to fail that test before you even take it? Maybe. Yeah. Having children is like planting a tree. A tree is for the future. Like you will never live long enough to really enjoy a fully grown tree. And as our children grow up, we're going to be older and they're the ones who are our legacy, our names and our character and our genes live on through our children. Absolutely. Well that's a question of thought. It is about legacy ultimately. What am I doing that will outlive my time on this earth? Hopefully it's something. You have a new venture or I would say you're looking at a new venture and some collaboration with other content creators and I was pretty excited to hear about it and I know it's in the very infantile stages at this point and I love seeing collabs like this. Do you want to share anything about it? Definitely. So it's called self-optimization summits. So for those of you guys you likely are aware. So Ed Ladmore and Tanner Guzzi. So all three of us are very personal friends and we decided to do this almost it was actually over a year ago. So we've been sort of been playing it out and a lot of processing into it for a long time. You've done really good at keeping it quiet because I just heard about it. That's good. But it's called self-optimization summit and it was sort of this collective how should I say like this dialogue we had where like three like and I get along very well. I talked to Tanner in the past and then we sort of arrived at this point where like you know what each of us have a certain collective skill set that's very complimentary. Obviously people know me for being sort of like the physical fitness guy and then you know Tanner obviously is a he's the one that does style and presence. But if you look at each of us and you know Ed too you know he's sort of like known for like sort of the mindset. Now he's moving to personal branding. All of us have sort of made pivots into what we do where you know people know me for fitness but there also is an element for those who sort of get to know my content. There's an element of philosophy and self-development and mindset and cognitive development. You know Tanner is truly very much patriarchal. He has four children. He's very devoted to his family. He's a religious leader in his community and he can really speak to that at depth and Ed's same thing. He was yeah went from being heavy weight boxer, got his physics degree. Now he's in the personal branding realm where he's like sort of really matching his social media game. So it's sort of like a level of being a renaissance man. I'd like to say with all three of us where there's multiple levels that we can offer to somebody and there's you know to use a good cliche term. We're all firing on all cylinders. We're all physically fit. We all run our own businesses or businesses or businesses you know multiple. We all have good relationships with our family. You know we're all men where we're pretty well established and you know our confidence and our approach to things, our ability to problem solve. So we had this idea well if we had a sovereign and that sovereign self-opinization summit where we put sort of all those elements together and we take men who they're past the beginner stage. They're already trying to get fit. They're already trying to address these things. We take a group of men and we really develop them to the highest level that we can within that week's time frame and give them a real strategy plan that if you let's say you've already gone from 0 to 50 you want to go from 50 to 100. And that's something that doesn't get addressed enough I think sort of in the market at large. It's very easy to speak to beginners. That's very I could tell I got you need to go lift weights and you go do these things to be more confident. Yeah that's very generic advice but what comes next after that. Yeah and then you know even for the gentlemen here they've had they've had children they have jobs at professions. They're not struggling with these deep questions of self-confidence and you know I don't want to need to go to the gym I guess they know that already. Yeah so what's what exists for them? So we had it with SOS we had this idea that if we can put together this intensive experience where you can work with three of us for a week and have these serious conversations over and over again for an hour and we can really dive into what you would like to improve on what you are quote-unquote struggling with or you know what is an element of your business where you think the three of us could really benefit you. You know and that's really the personal professional that we merge over. So we're playing that for November I want to say it's the week of and we're fourth through the tenth and it'll be in Los Angeles so and we're excited about obviously it's also a chance for three of us to just spend more time together and hang out at a very basic level. But I think that'll be a great thing and then like I said like as the male spear grows and we have these different things coalescing I think what will emerge out of it is a very very high caliber of man. Yeah and we like to sort of like you know sort of read the spear point on that. Yeah I think it sounds exciting it's it's going to be transformative. I think so. It's immersion that's what it is total immersion. What advice would you give someone about even though you're not a father and I will say yet. Thank you George. Not yet and I'm sure you will be someday. Talk to some guy out there who maybe is filled with despair maybe he's nihilistic about fatherhood. You have thoughts about that. Yeah I'd love to have you talk to that guy. So if you're a man in a position where you're having that sort of very stereotypical kind of nihilism where I feel negative about the future I would never want to have kids you really have to consider what the definition of masculinity is and whether it means anything to you on a deep level beyond this the shallow stuff you know means being a man being strong but being physically attractive. Women like me it's very generic hopefully I make enough money that I pay for myself. Yes it is those things but what is it that inspires people about a man what is it that draws you to a man that you see him and he fills you with a belief somehow that you have more potential than yourself. You almost have to go back I think for a lot of minute childhood where when you watched a cartoon when you watched a superhero when you watch someone that was monogamous and larger than life and you want to be that guy you want to become that guy because you represent something to you that a man could go out into the world and he could change things you could lead people he could have a positive effect not just on himself everything around him and do you have that within yourself on a very you know profound level that has to start as a belief nobody takes themselves from place of despair you know to a place of prosperity simply just by action does it require action yes it absolutely does everything requires action but it starts as belief it starts as potential your potential within you should always exceed your actions outside of you so do you have anything within you that you can start tapping into that's that that is the energy that's the mindset that's the kind of man that when you meet him and most every man is using met somebody where they were really impressed by that guy and they almost envy that they could be him they have that kind of energy they have that kind of energy where like he just seems or he like he's infinite like this guy does not stop you know this man does not stop moving this man is always going to be doing creating solving a problem living becoming a better version of himself that's all within you that's all within you and that's what you have to look for and even if you don't see it can you start expressing it if you start expressing it you can go from zero to one when you go from one to two and you go from two to three then you do have that you do have that and as I said it starts as a belief it starts as a belief and then you will transmit and manifest that into action and that's how you can take yourself from a very very dark place to a very very enlightened place but if you're not willing to you know ask yourself that question if you've dismissed all potential within yourself at all well then you know where that goes and that will always go down you know life is having our hell to ping upon your orientation that what you either look down you will look up so which one will it be and that's always the question I tell people I can ask you the question but you'll have to give yourself the answer I can't give that to you you take that out of yourself I love that I think you're going to make a great father thanks George because you're a great man I appreciate that means a lot coming from you thank you thank you