 What he represents is patriarchy. We're here to do work as men, as patriars. There's nothing more natural than being a father. Welcome back to the 21 convention third edition of the Patriarch event live here in Orlando, Florida. I'm excited to introduce our next speaker. In fact, I asked to introduce our next speaker. Let me get kind of the credentials out of the way. He is a licensed marriage and family therapist. He has been married for 37 years to the same woman. They have kids and even a grandchild. He has some quite the amount of skin in the game. And he's got something to talk to you guys about today that's going to be pretty impactful. We were actually talking about it a little bit before and I'm really excited for what it is that he's going to be bringing to the table. But on a personal note, Ken, our next speaker is, you know, you come to events like this and every once in a while you meet somebody that you just click with immediately. There's not only this instant rapport, but this instant respect. It's somebody that you know really truly believes what it is that they're talking about. They have enough experience to know what it is they're talking about. And they also have enough real good intent that they're sharing it with the people that they are because they want to see the world improve. It's not this desire for selfish gain. It's not this insecurity to maybe have other people like him. But it comes from a genuine place of altruism and wanting to see the best in other people and having the ability to see that potential of the best in other people. And so with that, I'm very excited to welcome Ken Curry to the stage and have him see the best in you and help you guys attain that. Thanks, sir. Gentlemen, I am glad to be here. Thank you, Tanner, for the introduction. Yes, I've been married 37 years, three kids. I have a practice. I'm a marriage and family therapist. And so the practice that I have, for about a quarter of what I do, I work with couples working with marriage and about three quarters of what I do, I work with men. And I tell people that I empower men. And that's what I do. And amazingly in our culture right now, empowering men triggers a lot of people. It seems to be a problem. I actually every once in a while, I'll be invited to a class. We have a number of therapy schools in the Denver area. And I'll be invited to come and speak and share with what I do. And every time when I go, I talk about how I build men. I strengthen men. I help men become strong. And when I say I empower men, a number of people in the classroom have a really big problem with that. Because that's kind of how our culture is. And so today, because I empower men, I'm going to talk to you about power. So we're going to go over the power grid that I've kind of created and developed and question, how do you do power? So I'm going to start off with just thinking, asking the question, what is power? And so there's a lot, I mean, there's books beyond books written about this, but I just want to make it really simple for you guys. Power is I can do what I want. And the I part, it's your autonomy. It's being, having sovereignty. It's having agency or responsibility. I'm me. I can do. I have capability and skill, freedom, what I want. I can do what I want. So when you think of power, when I talk about it today, that's what I want you to think of. Problem is, is that because of what I was just talking about with our culture, most men in our culture, especially the younger men coming up, don't know what the heck to do with their power. We don't know what it means to be a strong man. And most of us, we push it away. We don't know. We fear being a powerful individual. That's a problem because men were designed to be powerful. And so how is it that we fear our power? For me, it's been a lifelong journey. I just turned 60 years old this year and I go all the way back to junior high school and that was the early 70s when I was in junior high school. And I remember teachers teaching that as a man, I didn't need to be powerful. I needed to, it goes way back. And so today we think about it, the things that we hear from our culture, things like toxic masculinity, that's more recently. You hear this a lot and you hear the, what is the thing about, don't pursue the job being a boss or a leader. Back off, what do they call it? Lean out is what I've heard it. The women are leaning in, men need to lean out. Don't pursue work where you're going to have a position of power. And so that's what's talked about. And this goes way back, like I said, back to the 70s. Back then, instead of calling it toxic masculinity, they would say you're a male chauvinist pig, something like that. And then later, if you remember back into the 80s and 90s, the whole thing that was really shared was, especially on TV and all this is, the Ray Romano's and the Tim Allen's and trying to think of the other guys, Homer Simpson, just the men are buffoons. They really don't have any power. And so what do we do with our power? And so the whole thing of the fear of our power or not understanding our power or thinking that if I'm powerful, something's wrong with that, that's a problem. Especially the whole thing, you know, Anthony's called this event the patriarch event. And so thinking about that, the patriarchy is evil and men are oppressors. And so this is the language that's used. And so of course, what do you do with your power? We don't know what to do. We hesitate with it. We don't really, we don't pursue it. So because we have a fear of power. Like I was saying, I've had that my whole life and it's been an amazing journey for me to begin to come to a place where I actually enjoy my power. I actually understand my power and that's what I want to give you guys today is a little more of a glimpse of what power is and how to be able to carry it in a very responsible and loving way. So here's my power grid. We're gonna start off this with the X, Y axis. So we'll start off with the Y axis. So on the power grid, we're gonna look at the top two categories are no freedom and the bottom is where people have freedom. So when we look at it, the top two are the people in the category have no freedom and the bottom with freedom. And then on the X axis, over on the right, we have the category of zero sum. On the left side is the category of abundance. So this is really a really important part of this whole thing. If you guys know, or if you've heard of the zero sum idea, zero sum essentially is plus one minus one equals zero. So what the zero sum power is, is that the plus one is the person that has power. The minus one is the person has no power. So on the right side of the quadrant is a winner and a loser or it's a person with power or a person with no power. And that's the zero sum category. Now here's the thing. Most of the world lives on a zero sum belief in how you use power. It's just kind of that's the way it is. A person has power or a person has no power. It's either or it's black and white. On the other side is the whole idea of abundance power. This is what I want you guys to capture today, is the idea that there is plenty of power to go around. It's not limited, like zero sum, if one person has the other person doesn't, in a family, in a marriage, in a relationship, at work, wherever you are, there is a ton of power to go around. And that's what I want you guys to remember about this. So let's go ahead and move into the next category. So the bottom right is the whole idea of competitive. And so here's the thing. In the competitive quadrant, you're free. You're free to engage in whatever it is. And this category is called power two. I have the power to play the game. And so the competitive quadrant, it's zero sum. It has to do with sports, business, pickup artists, politics. You know, you think about it in sports. If trying to think of a recent game, who knows who's, I can't even think of anything right now. But the category of, I think I saw the Lakers lost to the, who was it? Man, I can't even think of it. Anyway, so it was to Stefan Curry and the Golden State. I think it was. So the Golden State was a plus one. Lakers were minus one. So it was a competitive thing. There's a winner and a loser. You think about it in business. You know, the guy, there's a person who gets the account or the sale and the person that doesn't. There's a winner and a loser. You think about politics. You know, that you have all the voting and everything and there's a winner and a loser. Somebody wins it, somebody loses it. The pickup artist world. You know, somebody's going after this woman. There's a winner and a loser. It's a very, very zero sum. Somebody wins, somebody loses. That's the competitive quadrant. And I want you to really see that. You have the power to play the game or not. And there's a lot of guys that have chosen not to play the game. That would be the MGTOW movement and some other categories like that. The next quadrant is coercive. So this is the place where the people in the category have no power except the one person has power and that person is the whole idea of its tyranny. Power over is the category that I want you guys to see here. So power over would be a warlord or somebody who has authoritarianism or totalitarianism where there's one person that owns the country and runs the country and everybody else doesn't have a say in it. It would be like when Genghis Khan went over and just took over places and you didn't have any... If he took over your town, you didn't have any say in it. He just took over and that was it. And this is power over. I'm sure a lot of you guys have experienced bosses like this where the boss is just totalitarian, authoritarian and you have no say as an employee. You've probably experienced that. You may have experienced this in your home with a dad or a mom who was more of a tyrant where you had no say in whatever it is that you wanted to do. And so they basically told you what to do. And so that's the coercive quadrant. Now I have this category over here that's kind of interesting. This is called victim power and the whole idea of victim power and this is a really strange thing because the person who's the victim or takes the role of the victim or the oppressed, it's really interesting how you go how could they have power? But they do especially in our culture and they gain power through guilt, manipulation and shame and where they're able to make you do what they want and put you into a submissive role even though you have the power. This is what's happened to men everywhere because what we do we submit and give our power to somebody to make them happy or to make sure that they like us or whatever category that is. And this is, it's really unfortunate. This is what's happening to a lot of our young men. They see it and they go, okay, I'm not going to be powerful and I'm going to give up my power and let someone else, usually the woman, have power. And so whoever's playing the victim manipulates and guilt them into giving them the power. And that's just like, it's a really strange thing but I put it over here toward the coercive thing because it is another category of the tyrannical power, the power over interning. The next quadrant, we're going to be moving over into the, we're still in the no freedom category but it's into abundance and this is the category of the colonial. If you remember, colonial in the United States started off as colonies. We were a colony of Great Britain and so this is power over but it's with a benevolent dictator. Now here's the thing, the words benevolent dictator is an oxymoron. It's like, how can a dictator be benevolent? Well, the dictator or the one who is the colonizer has the other people's best interest in mind. The thing about it is that the person, and this is what's happened in the United States at that time, the colonizers came in and we as the United States were like, no, I want freedom. I don't want the no freedom category. I want, I know that you're a benevolent dictator but you're still a dictator and so then we had the Revolutionary War. We were able to win our freedom. But the way that it's in abundance, think about other categories of colonization. I just saw recently a map of the whole continent of Africa and that thing was just butchered with all kinds of different colonies and so it's like Spain had some and I think Belgium even had one. I think the Congo and then there was the Dutch and the Germans and the French and everybody had a piece of the pie except I think two countries. I don't remember exactly which countries they were but the whole of Africa was colonized. But I think the best illustration is probably India. So when Great Britain came into India, there wasn't a lot of infrastructure. You know, India had so much abundance. There was so much there and when Great Britain came, they helped with infrastructure, creating railroads and roads and creating with political structure and they created all this stuff so that so that it was the benevolent dictator thing. So everybody could share in the abundance but the problem was is that Great Britain got a lot of money from trade for that and so eventually I think India became free and it's crazy how more recently it is. It's been a long time since they were under the thumb of Great Britain but as far as it's a colonial thing, it was no freedom but it's in abundance because there's a lot of goodness to go around. You'll see this with some workplaces where it's like the boss knows the best and kind of runs the show. You see this with parenting as well and I'm gonna go over more of what this looks like as a father here in a little bit as well. So the next one, this is the quadrant in freedom and abundance. This is the category of power for and this is the one where I really want you guys to think about and really consider because this is what we don't really hear about that I as a man am going to become a very, very powerful individual and my power is not over whoever I'm with but my power is for whoever I'm with and so this is a really, really important part of this so calling it the collaborative, I'm in this together. We're here together, we're working on it, we're sharing abundance, you're free, I'm free, we're able to do what we want. In a workplace, this would be a place where there's a lot of inventiveness and innovation and exploration and where people are free to expand and create something and when they do create something they're able to really experience the abundance of the goodness of what they've created and you see this very few places but every once in a while you see somebody create something, some kind of invention or a software thing and the company actually makes them a millionaire where they're able to do really well with it because they've been able to be free and they share in the abundance with that. So, gosh, so let's see. So the whole idea of power for means becoming the strongest, most powerful man that you can be and it's for the whole point so that you can love others well and care for the people that are under your well-being and in your influence. Your power is for you and it's for the people that you love. So let me go over this again and just kind of looking at it as being a father. So the competitive quadrant, this is a really fun quadrant and a lot of people recently they kind of taken a lot of competitiveness outside of kids so you have, you know, everybody gets a participation award or you, you know, we're not going to have a winner and a loser but I would tell you that it's really good for kids to be able to experience winning. It's really good for kids to experience the humility of losing. It's a really, really important thing. So as a dad, being able to play games with your kids, being able to wrestle with your kids, one of my favorite things with my kids is, or yeah, it's wrestling. I loved wrestling and the thing about it was is if I have three kids and when they were little and we would wrestle, if they worked together as a team, I would always let them win and rarely would they actually work really good as a team. Finally, they started figuring it out but it's like if they worked together because they would always try to do the same thing but if they worked together and one of them got my arm, one of them got my other arm, man, it was like, it was awesome and it's kind of, you guys probably have heard Jordan B. Peterson, he would, he has this thing about the rats where you talk about if the big rat allows the little rat when they wrestle to win at least 30% of the time then the little rat would keep his, he would keep in the game and they would keep wrestling but if the big rat didn't let the little rat win at a certain amount of times then the little rat would lose interest and so this is what you want to do with your kids, you want to play, you want to wrestle. Man, games has been a really big thing with my family. One of the games, well, I don't know if you guys know who Klaus Tuber is. The Klaus Tuber is a legend in our family. He's the guy that created the game. Gosh, where's my head? I know what it is, settlers of Catan. He created that game, we love that game. And so Klaus Tuber is a hero in our family because we're playing it all the time. Now we're playing it, my kids are in their 30s and once every quarter, every three months we have a big family game time and they're always coming back over and we're playing games and it's a heck of a lot of fun. And so competitive, get your kids in the competitive, play games, enjoy each other, win, lose, help your kid to experience what that's all about. As a father, the coercive, the whole power over, hear anything, now this is what the language of our world or our culture says is this is where patriarchy is. That's why the patriarchy is so evil because it's power over. All the guys I know, not a lot of guys that live there. There are some guys that do, like I said, there's some bosses that do the power over thing, but most men that I know don't do this kind of power, but some guys do and sometimes you do. Now here's the thing, I want you to see that sometimes it's absolutely reasonable and right to do the power over tyrannical type of power. And that is, there are a few times and it's very few times that it is absolutely important for you to make the call, to be able to say that this is where we're going or this is what we're doing, especially like in a really unsafe situation where you have to command and demand that people do certain things. Like imagine if your three year old toddler is starting to go across the road, grabbing your toddler and putting him back over here, that's very tyrannical, that's totally power over and absolutely appropriate. And so it's really important to be able to think about when would I use this type of power? It's rare and it's not as often but you do have to have it in your skill set to be able to say periodically I'm going to make the call and I'm going to be a tyrant. But it's not as often as what the people who would say that patriarchy or evil is evil would think, it's rare. Most men are weak and beta. How do you get past this? How do you be a real man? How do you be a husband and a father? That has been where we drop the ball as men is because we're too accepting. We're too tolerant. I'm calling for intolerance for evil. We need to be able to properly identify with the definition what is masculinity. We need men to stand up and do heroic things. Building a tribe of people who are of like mind who you can depend on and hold you accountable, who will call you on your BS. I call the official tagline for now with 21 convention is America's last stand for masculinity. I think it is. The event and it's as a reflection of the manuscript really. You come out and you consciously attend and start talking with these people because people who are coming here are coming here to discuss big ideas, important ideas. Not just talking about being masculine but okay, you've done all the self development. What are you going to do with it? The Colonial Quadrant is actually a place where you're going to hang out a lot as a father when your kids are younger. And when your kids are younger, you know, baby to toddler into the elementary school. It's like, yeah, you are a benevolent dictator. You do know what's best for them. You do tell them when they're going to go to bed, when they're going to get up, when they're going to go to school, what they're going to eat for dinner, when they're going to take a nap, what you're doing this weekend and going to visit grandma. You're telling them everything. You are directing them. You are a benevolent dictator. And for little kids, that's absolutely appropriate. Being able to understand that it is power over. I'm telling them what they're going to do. They don't have much freedom. Now, as your kids begin to get older, it is absolutely important to move down into the bottom left quadrant, into the collaborative where you as a man are going to allow your children to grow in their strength. And your work is to empower them to be able to make decisions. You're empowering them to be able to have a great skill set, to build their capability, to build their sense of self, to build their confidence. Absolutely important for you as a father to do that and to begin to give them autonomy, to give them freedom, to let them choose. It's a really important thing to be able to live in the collaborative. So as your kid as a 10-year-old, you probably have 10% where they have the ability to choose what they want. But by the time they're 20, 18 or 20, they got like 90, 95% of their own ability to choose what they want and having their own power, their own freedom. And you as a father have transitioned from the colonial to the collaborative where now they have the ability to choose and to be able to make the decisions that they want. And so it's really important to be able to think about how each one of these quadrants is a place that I do live as a father. And I do make the different, I have that different posture with them. One of the things I want you guys to think about because it's like the whole thing, and you know how they talk about check your privilege? Well, privilege is just my ability. It's my freedom. It's my power. And so check your privilege like you check your oil. Make sure it's working just fine. Remember how I was talking about how they guilt or shame you and they go check your privilege. Okay, I'll check it. Oh, it looks really good. That's great. And so don't fall for the shaming and the guilting because here's the thing. What you're wanting to do is create strong privileged human beings as a father. You want to become strong. You want to become privileged. You want your kids to become privileged and strong. And it's just the language. They're saying, you know, check your privilege. I'm saying, yeah, because that's what a father does. A father is going to empower his family. And so how do you, as an individual, build your power? And this is a really important part of this whole journey as well. So personally, think about it. That's why you're here. That's why you're here. You want to be able to build your integrity. You want to be able to build your internal frame with your values and your character. You want to be able to build your identity to where you know who you are and what you're capable of. So all the personal things that you need to build on to be able to make yourself a stronger human being, a stronger man is really, really important part of this whole thing. The physical thing, you know, we got Ajak here. You know, he's going to tell you guys, if you guys even remotely are interested in building your physical power, he would be a great one to be able to begin to follow on whatever social media you have. The physical is all about self-care. It's all about taking care of yourselves. Men suck at this. We're horrible at taking care of ourselves. We don't go to the doctor. We don't eat right. We don't exercise. We don't get the sleep that we need. And those are the most important things. Exercise, lift, move, move, move, eat right. Figure out what the heck is good nutrition. Quit eating crap. It's like we eat horribly. Get your prostate checked. That's an important thing. I just got over prostate cancer this last year. It kills a lot of guys. And so get yourself, take care of yourself. It's a really important part of this physically. The next one is presence. This is one of my favorite categories actually. Second favorite, because the next one voice is my favorite. But these two categories, we don't ever really listen to it. Presence and voice. Presence is how do you have presence? It's your posture. It's your confidence. It's how you come into a room. It's how you interact. How's your handshake? How's your eye contact? How do you interact with people? Tanner just said, it's as cool as your clothes, right? It's your, yes. Talk to Tanner about that category for sure. Your style. That's what it is, style. So your presence, what do you bring into the room? And you guys all know men who when they come into the room, it's like everybody knows it. There's a guy, he comes into the room and you know. He's not sucking the air out of the room. He's bringing air into it and everybody sees him. Everybody understands he has presence. It's a really significant thing to be able to develop in your life. The next one is voice. And this one's really important because as you are a young man, the main part of what young men actually when they experience power or they build power, usually it's physical power. It's with my muscles. It's with my strength physically. But as you age, like I said, I just turned 60. I still feel like I'm pretty strong but I know a lot more limitations that I'm aware of than when I was 30. And so my physicality is diminishing but the place where an older man has more power than you ever imagined is with his voice. And with his voice and the things that he says and the things that he's able to communicate and the wisdom that he's able to give to everybody else, there's a hell of a lot of power in the voice, in the wisdom, in his words. And that's a really powerful thing to be able to understand. So as you start to understand what it means to set a boundary, what it means to say no, what it means to hold somebody accountable, what it means to be able to bless somebody with wisdom and knowledge. It's a really, really significant part. And this actually is something that is, I was talking about young men who don't have a lot of power. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of older men who are doing this as well. I mean, how many gray hair grandfather older men that you know of that you would go to and go, teach me, you're a sage, you're a mentor, I need your knowledge, I need your understanding, tell me and teach me what you know. Give me your voice, give me your wisdom. There's not enough men like that. And so that's a really powerful part of this. The whole idea of relational, this is a really significant one as well because most people don't understand how you can build your power and influence by building relationships. The first one I'd really like to talk about is the whole idea, well, let me, as your family for sure, one of the things that I think is really, what's the word, not difficult, it's a problem. It's very problematic in the manosphere. When men talk, you probably have heard this different concept. So I heard an acronym a while back. It's called DILIGAF. You guys might have heard of that. Do I look like I give a fuck? It's the whole idea of, you know, how many fucks do I have to give? You know, all this stuff. And that's the language that people use. Well, here, this is what I want to tell you guys is give a fuck. Care deeply. Relationally, attach deeply to your woman. Attach deeply to your children. Give a fuck. Care, care deeply. And the problem is that a lot of people in the manosphere, it's more like, I don't give a fuck. It's like, no, that is not okay. That is not okay. Attach deeply to your family and to some really good friends. And the thing is what you're going to find is your influence grows. And as you build relational categories, you're able to build your influence and your strength and your power. Jack Donovan talks about building your tribe and building your community. It's really an important part of the whole thing of building your tribe starting with your family. But care deeply for them. Give your life and your soul to them. It's a really important part of this whole thing. Now, let me get the last one is creation. Have a vision for your life. Know where you want to go. Create the life that you want. Start building it. When you have a vision, you're able to see, this is where I want to go in my life. This is what I want to do with my life. This is where I want my children to be at the end of when I'm gone. This is where I want them to be. I want them to be empowered. I want them to be strong. I want them to influence the world like I never could. I want them to be expansive and grow and build something so much greater than I ever could. That's what I want to be able to do. It's creating a legacy. That's a really powerful part of us as fathers, being able to create a legacy. So become a power team. This has been really fun for my wife and I. So as our kids got older, so one of the things that I heard long ago was an insurance guy was telling me term life insurance. And he goes, you want to have term life insurance until your kids are okay when you die, right? And so when you die was a category or if you died at a certain time and that's when you'd stop term life insurance and so the guy was talking about when your kids graduate from college they're probably gonna be just fine without you. And so that was the category. I kind of had that in my mind that this is what I wanted to do is build my family to a point where they were sustainable by themselves. So 2000, let's see, it was December of 2015. My youngest son, he was the third one to graduate college. He was able to graduate college. And so it wasn't time for me to die yet but then May of 2016, this is what was really cool was when my wife graduated college. She had early on when we started having kids she had put having, finishing her college degree she put that on hold. And so as the kids started going through college she started going to college as well. So May of 2016, my three kids and my wife were all graduated from college. And so this is my turn with the term life insurance thought anyway was I could die and everybody's okay which was great because guess what? I'm not dead and I'm able to still give a lot of power to my family to empower them to build a privilege to grow them and I'm so happy now. I mean, I've got a grandson two of my kids have their own homes all three of my kids have really good jobs. My wife has a really cool career and she's growing in it and building it and it's insane. So I've got a great job. I'm doing really cool things. I'm living out of my passion. My wife is growing and so here's how it works. Here's how abundance power works. Remember abundance power is unlimited as I start to empower my wife because she helped me to get through college and my master's degree and now I helped her get through it. Now she's actually providing so much more. I'm providing so much more and as we build this thing she becomes more powerful. I become more powerful. Our kids are becoming more privileged. Everybody's becoming more powerful and having so much more influence on the world. It's absolutely freakishly amazing becoming a power team. It's awesome. You see how it's totally the opposite of the zero sum type of power where that would be so limited because I wouldn't want my wife to be powerful because she'd be taking my power and she wouldn't want me to be powerful because she's thinking I'm taking her power and it's this fight and this trying to grab as much as you can and scratch for that that limited amount of power with the zero sum. But it's not that way. And so the reality of it, I think it's reality is power is freakishly abundant. There's so much out there and the more you empower her the more she empowers you. The more you empower your children. Man, you guys are moving to some awesome places. Especially if you have a really cool vision where you want your family to go. It's just amazing to be able to do that. So empower everyone you love. Your wife, your kids, your friends. Expand your influence. Empower your community. Make a massive influence in your world because you have done the work to empower yourself. Don't fear your power. When you are powerful, great things happen in the universe. It's not hurt and pain and all this stuff. When a man is powerful, it is amazing. And what I want you guys to see is when you're powerful, you can use your power in abundance by empowering everybody else and you empower somebody else. You're not losing your power. They're becoming more powerful. You're becoming more powerful. It's a really cool way to live. So just in final, my final thoughts become the strongest, most powerful man that you can possibly be so that you can love others well. And live power for rather than power over. Thank you. So I guess we have a time for questions and I'd love to be able to field whatever questions. Michael, you have something? Or just come on up to the mic. Yeah, come on up to the mic if you have something guys. Any thoughts, questions, anything? Sure. What do you think is... I love this idea of the complementary and kind of the aggregate power, right? Where it's rather than being zero, some you can expand upon it. How do I ask this in a way that doesn't sound like I'm dogging on you and your wife because I'm not. But your focus on where things are with her right now is her going back to school and getting a career. How does it work with the more kind of complementary nature of the differences between men and women? What if she's not interested in a career? How can you help her build her power in a complementary way that doesn't lean into necessarily bringing it out into the world, but into other things that may be more kind of naturally, not even naturally, but traditionally where a wife would find herself. Does that make sense? It does. I'm just trying to think of how... Because I think, yeah, let's say I'm just trying to think of how she would expand her own influence in the community or the family. How she instead of getting a job or building a career, she might work with your church community or potentially maybe helping at the school. Just somehow just getting her out there doing her passion. Eventually, like right now, we do a lot of work with our grandson as far as watching him and stuff like that. So as far as, yeah, it wouldn't be all the time. I think for my wife, she was like ready to build a career because we had already built our family. And so it was timing where this is what she wanted to do and it was awesome. But I think, yeah, it's the freedom to be able to do what you want and allowing her to be able to expand. But I think it would still be expansive. How can she move an influence rather than just sitting at the house eating bonbons or whatever the heck they do, right? That they do. That sounds horrible. Does that hit your question, yeah? Yeah, it's giving, because remember the power was I have the freedom to do what I want. And so it's building that capability to do that and just keeping that thing going for sure. Yeah, other questions at all? Thanks, Ken. It's a great talk. And speaking as an Englishman, probably the only one here, that idea of colonial power. Oh, so you're the one. Yeah. Yeah, the famous bridge. That idea of colonial power has turned in the UK into guilt. Yeah, yeah. Very prominent collective idea of guilt that when people begin to show that idea of power and bring that out themselves to try and, I guess, exhibit that strength and that masculinity, we get shunned and it's almost looked down upon by the community because there's so much guilt. There's so much shame in what was went on in the past. How do we begin? How do I begin as a man that believes these things and wants to do these things for his community, for family, for friends? How do I begin to go about making this change without losing more people than I already have? Because I've lost a lot of friends and family through all the COVID stuff, the vaccines, whatever else, political views. How do I begin to make these changes, whether it's community or family? Yeah, that's a great question. And I think the biggest thing you're talking about is how do you, I think, how do I not let shame, guilt, especially that collective guilt that you're talking about, we can't carry that. And we have to begin to live unapologetically. And so being able to say, I mean, in the States, we kind of have a similar thing with that, with slavery. Do we still, are we still guilty of that? And in a sense, or even that women didn't have rights until 1963 or whatever it was, right? And so it's like, yeah, being able just to, we can't carry the guilt. We have to just set that aside, because the whole idea of what that is, it's not living in abundance, but it's living in the scarcity side of things. And if we're gonna live in abundance, we can't live in the deserve what's called the deserve equation. And the deserve equation is, I don't deserve this because of my guilt, right? And so, gosh, I'm trying to think of where I heard this, but when it comes to deserve, what men do is we go, what I've done right minus what I've done wrong equals what I deserve. And for every guy, that's less than zero. I mean, every time we do that. So we deserve shit, we deserve nothing. And I think that's kind of where you're sitting is if I'm guilty of this, I deserve nothing. So then I totally deserve not to have power or not to be privileged or not to enjoy abundance. But if we do that, we will never be able to live the life that we want. We will never be able to live in a thriving fashion. And so we have to get rid of the guilt, the shame, the deserve equation and just get rid of it and start to live in the thriving and be able to say, I don't deserve it, but it's out there to get. It's out there to enjoy. And I'm gonna be responsible to try to enjoy it and try to get as much as I can and as much as I can for my family as well. I hope that answers that. Yeah. Any other thoughts, questions? Yeah. Hi, Ken. Hey. Long time listener, first-time caller. Um. First-time. So I have two questions for you. One is the guilt and the shame that younger guys are experiencing. What do you think are the main pathways that instills that guilt and shame with them? And that's one question. And the other question is, I know you're working a lot with guys in groups. What are the main issues and pathways that bring men to your groups? Okay. So the first one was how do I see it with the young men and the guilt and shame they feel? Yeah. Um, gosh, it's a... You think about my circumstance as growing up. And I said, I started to sense this stuff in junior high. But I was just sensing it. I was starting to hear the rumblings of this, that, you know, the whole thing of, like I didn't hear the toxic masculinity until way, way later. But the rumblings of it was something's wrong with me as a man. Something needs to chill out. I can't have power as a man. And I heard that from a number of different places. School, church, the culture. And I only can imagine that today, I mean we're talking 50 years later, from when it started, how you guys who are younger, you probably hear it dramatically, overtly, that you need to put your power away. You can't, you have to feel guilty for being strong because you are an oppressor. And I think it's, Sean, it's got to just be so, um, like prevalent. And so that goes back to that whole thing that I was talking about just a minute ago, is we can't let that shape us. We can't let that shame us. We have to begin to live unapologetically that I'm a man, not that I deserve to have power, but there's power to be had. I'm going to live in a powerful way, regardless of what the story or the narrative is. The story is, you know, if I'm powerful, everybody's going to be powerless and everybody's going to be oppressed and victimized. And that is not the truth. That's not the truth. And so what's the story? What's the narrative? And I think the category is, is that most young men are listening to a narrative that if you're powerful, then everybody else is not going to be powerful. Everybody else is going to be oppressed or victimized by your power. Not true at all. That's not the true narrative. That's not the true story. And then the second question, how do men come to my groups? Is that kind of what it was? Yeah, and usually it is that, usually something in their life, shit hits the fan, something that is really, really, usually guys will enter into therapy or the groups because of a lot of desperation. You know, my life's fallen apart. My marriage has fallen apart. You know, I've lost my job. I'm addicted to porn. You know, too much anger in my life. You know, this type of thing. And so what I'm talking about is the exact list that I had up there. Deal with your personal shit, become stronger, build your identity, know who you are, build your own self-care, make sure you're doing okay as a man. That's the, what do you call it, the prescription to be able to get out of that because your life's fallen apart because you're not taking care of yourself because you're not building yourself and becoming the strong man that you were designed to be. You're letting life run over you and you're not making decisions and you're not taking care of yourself. So that's where we go in the groups. I want men, like I said from the very beginning, I empower men. And when you're empowered, those are the things that we're, that I was talking about that you wrestle with don't have so much influence over you. So other questions? I'm thinking about this from a perspective that you're a therapist. With your men in your group, what are the traits of the men that leave therapy and accomplish what they need to accomplish? And the traits of the men that just kind of get stuck and stay there. Therapy has to have an end, right? It has to have a goal eventually. And it seems like a little, you do it longer than I am a pastor. So I don't, I'm not a therapist. I don't do the same thing. And I think it seems to me that therapists tend to be more patient. So, so how do you, what does success look like? What are the men that have those traits that move on and you accomplish the goal? Does that question make sense? Yeah, I think the main category that is the most significant thing that men deal with or that they grow with is the idea of their identity and knowing who they are. I think that's a really significant part of this because we've listened to the stories of everybody telling you who a man is or who you are as an individual. And most guys have this sense that something's wrong with me. I suck. I'm not good enough. I'm horrible when I have power. You know, how, whatever it is. And so most guys don't really have a good idea of who they are as a man or as an individual because we've listened to all these other stories out there. And so I think that's probably the most important thing. When a guy becomes confident with this is who I am and he has a good sense of himself and he knows that he has inherent value within and he knows his limitations. He knows that he's not all that. He has great humility and so it's a really good balance of knowing who he really is carried with humility and gratitude. It's like that's a space where he goes, I'm doing all right. That's probably the most important part of when a man knows that when I know that he's done really good work there's a lot of the stuff we work with but that's probably the primary thing that internal frame of I know who I am. That's probably the most important part of it. And that's really, that's why I said that's the first part and the whole person, building your personal strength is knowing who you are for sure. Yeah, anything else guys? All right, thank you. What he represents is patriarchy. We're here to do work as men as patriarchy. There's nothing more natural than being a father. I'm Will Spencer from the Renaissance of Men here for the New 21 Report. I'm sitting with Ken Curry, marriage and family therapist, author, public speaker. How are you doing, Ken? Thanks Will, good to see you. Good to see you. Absolutely. What was the title of your talk this year? I've talked to, I'm going to be doing two talks. Okay. And so my first talk was to the Patriarch Convention with men, fathers. And the title of that was the power grid. And so I was talking about how men do power. And especially the biggest part of it was the distinction between how the world does power and it's more of a zero sum power. Remember zero sum is the plus one minus one equals zero, which means that when it comes to power, somebody has the power, somebody doesn't have the power. And so that's how the most people see power as a struggle between who's got the power and who doesn't have the power. So in essence, my conversation with the guys was the opposite of that, which is abundance power, which is the belief that there's plenty of power to go around. And in abundance power, it's not a struggle for who's got power, but how do we empower everybody? And so my challenge for the guys was how do you become as powerful as you can as a man with not with the assumption that if I have power as a zero sum power, it's power over where I have the power as a dad, but it's power for, where my power as a man is for my family, for my wife to really empower her, to empower my kids, to empower my community, to empower my friends because with abundance power, there's plenty of power to go around for everybody. And the more powerful I become as a man, I empower my wife, she becomes more powerful, she actually begins to empower me. And we as a power couple begin to empower our kids and they become more powerful, especially as they move into their teenage years and begin to learn how to build their own power and their own sovereignty, their own autonomy. And as they become stronger, they get in through school, they build their trades, they build, they're able to then really expand their influence in the world and everybody becomes more powerful. So in essence, that's kind of the gist of the conversation that I had with the fathers yesterday. So that sounds like a conversation that you've had out in the world quite a bit or perhaps try to. Do you notice a difference between out in, say the regular world having that conversation with the men here at 21? Like difference in how the conversation goes, let's say. Yeah. Oh my gosh. So out in the world, so to speak, the different times that I've been able to, because I'm invited quite often to talk to different groups about what I do and in essence, and I always describe this, what I do as a therapist as a man, part of my mission, my passion, my, what I want to accomplish in life, my purpose, really is empowering men. That's what I really feel like that's in essence, empowering men. And so when I talk about empowering men, most people live in the zero sum world. So they kind of, they get triggered or they question, how can you empower men? That's not right. And actually, most men feel that that most men don't know what to do with their power because they've heard and listened to the narrative and the story that's out there that if you're powerful, you're an oppressor and you're an abuser and you're, you're a tyrant or you're, you know, your power is over and you're keeping everybody down and all this and that is so far from the truth. And so kind of the difference between being able to speak in the world with people who live in a zero sum ideal versus here at the 21, this is a fun place because the guys, they're soaking it up, going, oh, that's what my power is all about. My power is in a tyrannical power. It's a power for my power is for other people. And so really encouraging other men to become powerful and strong is a really good thing. And the guys feel, they feel it and go, that's amazing that that is what I'm called to do as a man. And they don't hear this message. They don't hear the, yeah, they don't hear the, gosh, what do you call it? The encouragement or challenge to actually become stronger in anywhere else on our planet. Because they're called to, you know, give up their power or to be small or to withdraw and yeah. So I think that's an answer to your question. No, that's perfect because I think a lot of people look at 21 and they think, oh, this is men being powerful so they can be powerful over women. Over, right? And that's not the character of what's going on. It's kind of counterintuitive as far as the world's concerned but we know what it's really about. It's like, it's a beautiful thing. Yep, the whole idea of power for is a beautiful thing. It really is. It's I'm becoming as powerful as I can as a man not to be power over and to control and to be authoritarian but to use my power to protect, to provide, to encourage, to strengthen the people who I love. And that's a really different type of message than most men have heard. Was there a man who approached you after your talk and said, wow, you know this maybe without giving away too many identifying details like did you have an experience for a man connecting with you and saying this really landed for me? Um, it's funny because this time it didn't happen. Okay. And so, um, yeah. What happened before? It totally happens before. This time under the circumstances that we had because there was a, my speech came on the heels of another guy who was a really significant speaker. And I think the guys were fairly glassy eyed with that. But because his speech was so powerful when I was, so when, when it was afterwards so I didn't, it's interesting that you ask, but it was, you know, I didn't have that kind of interaction. Because I think the guys really, it was like they had gotten a really strong, um, what do you call it? Almost like a fire hose. A really intense information that morning. Yeah. The men here, they take in a lot. And there's a lot to take in. There's a lot. There's a lot. Yeah. How would you compare this year's 21, which is now the 21 summit to previous years? I know there's three conferences. There's ones. There's two conferences of men, one conference of women, women, how would that compare to previous years when you've spoken? Um, the previous times it was just the 21. So this time you'll have the summit where there's all three going on at the same time and there's a lot going on. There's just so many. So for me, it's kind of frustrating because do I listen to, you know, Jack Donovan? Do I listen to Tanner Guzzi? Do I listen? And it's just been really tough kind of where do I go to listen? Because there's so many good speakers and so much good content to be able to listen to. That's the only frustrating part about it. There's just so much. I have to choose, you know, where do I go to listen to whatever. But it's just been really an honor to be able to speak like this year to the men, to the fathers. And then I'm going to be speaking on Sunday to the women in the 22 convention. And I feel like that's a really an honor for me because I do a lot of speaking to women regularly. I'll speak at different women's groups and I'll be teaching them on Sunday a different category of just the seasons of marriage and how women especially are kind of they kind of have been pulled into this consumerism of consumers of a type of marriage or a type of expectation about what marriage is going to provide them. And so that's going to be a really profound speech as well. Wow. Can you give us like a sneak preview of some of the things that you'll say? I'm really curious. There's a lot of men who are here who are married. There are a lot of men who want to get married. There are a lot of men who do dread marriage and I think because it's kind of like a black box you know as we talked about earlier in Hollywood movies marriage is the end of the movie. Like yeah we made it to the marriage like that's the beginning or Disney that happily ever after. That's right. Exactly. There comes Prince Charming and then happily ever after. You don't hear anything afterwards. Because they're happily ever after right? That's the yada yada yada of romance. That's the consumerism. This is what it is and we'll get you to there and we'll sell you all this stuff like the diamond engagement ring and all this good stuff you know and get you to that point of the wedding but nobody talks about what happens afterwards. And what happens when the honeymoon is over and that is an absolute essential part of every relationship where there's a point you have the honeymoon and enjoy it. It's amazing. It's built on chemistry on oxytocin and dopamine and all this really good stuff it feels amazing but every relationship goes to a place where the honeymoon's over once you have kids or sometimes you can't have kids you have miscarriages or you do the IVF and different things like that that's equally as devastating as having kids but when you have kids it's like you don't get sleep everybody's working out of a deficit all of a sudden you're not making me happy or we don't feel the chemistry anymore and so that moment of a relationship you have to think of it as the honeymoon's over there's chaos but nothing's wrong with the relationship because the relationship is designed to grow you up and one of my quotes is from David Schnarsh he says marriage is a people growing machine. Amazing. It grows you up that's what it's designed to do and we've not been told this we've been told it's chemistry and so when the chemistry diminishes we think the relationship is horrible and it's over and it's bad it's the classic I love you but I'm not in love with you right and that is one of the worst statements ever because the in love is I don't feel the chemistry anymore right well that's not the time to break from your relationship and that's when most people do and they get a divorce and so it's at that point we can make a really good decision to go I'm in to grow up so the three things I'm gonna talk about you can lawyer up you can suck it up or you can grow up that's awesome yeah and you have those options and a lot of people lawyer up they get a divorce and they're out or you can suck it up and that is just die live for the kids but usually those relationships suck it up they'll finally get a divorce at empty nest right they'll live for the kids as soon as the kids are gone I'm out but they'll suck it up for that long or you can grow up you know what is this teaching me how do I how can I grow to become who I am to be able to become a more healthy human being and that's a really significant thing when people choose to do that and that's my encouragement really take this season of the marriage it's not easy it is easily the most difficult season of a marriage when the honeymoon's over and you have kids but be able to take it as what do I need to learn how do I need to grow and move from there so in a sense that's my talk to the 22 convention this year as well that's great I mean I think there's so much to be gained from from that form of I guess you might say noble struggle in a way it's a struggle against yourself not necessarily your partner it's a struggle and my encouragement is to collaborate where let's struggle let's do this as a team because it's so easy and when that happens where there's this level of animosity where the other person becomes my enemy because they're not providing happiness and I'm over here I'm over here sucking air trying to survive and while you're both sucking air trying to survive nobody's getting sleep in that type of thing but you blame and you cast that onto the other person where they're not providing my happiness and so therefore they become my enemy and that is such a devastating place in a relationship so you have to get to a spot where I have to believe the best in them that they're in this too and how do we actually reclaim that teamwork and collaboration that's the way you can actually get through this thing and what you've got me thinking about is you know the talk that you gave putting the talk that you're doing at 22 together with the patriarch patriarch's talk is that you know it would be easy to fall into like a power over kind of dynamic you know where it's like even if you come into a situation like that with a power together or power of or for power for dynamic that would be really easy you know once the screws get put to the relationship kids sleep and all that stuff the struggles of everyday life you know job loss death in the family all the way yeah you fall into the power over dynamic between the two people you know absolutely yeah there's so many other things that might be besides kids like job loss or death in the family or health issues so many things happen it's just more common that it comes with the when the kids are born but nobody tells us this stuff nobody tells us any of it because like you said it's you know you get married happily ever after right and it's like I want to be a type of person that tells you the truth this is what relationship is all about it's going to grow you up it's going to make you stronger and it's going to make your relationship stronger and you can build on a different platform that creates such a more powerful and healthy relationship and the fun thing is that I can report this is what I've been able to do in my own life and that's what's really fun about this just being able to when I encourage people it's not something that I look at and go hey you need to do this it's like I've done it and it works and it's freaking amazing and it's actually kind of fun well joy in doing that right for yourself and others you know you're a marriage and family therapist you see this all the time every day all the time yeah it's a really big deal and so what do you get out of coming to 21? that's a great question thank you I think so too yeah right so I really enjoy the camaraderie I enjoy the energy I enjoy the passion because when I said my purpose is empowering men it feels like that's the purpose of the 21 convention we want to be able to do something where men have a place to where there's a conversation that actually is empowering it's you can be a man you can be strong you can be substantive you can follow your dreams you can listen to your heart you can trust your heart and so many things so many messages we get from the world you know the whole toxic masculinity and all this stuff where you can't trust yourself you can't be yourself and I'm talking not just trust yourself or be yourself be the best version of yourself and be the strongest self that you can be and that's what I really love about it is just there's so many voices saying come on let's do this let's get strong together whether it's physically, spiritually or relationally it's just let's do strength together I really really enjoy the networking the friendships that I build the conversations that we have it's just a lot of fun yeah I agree with you completely it's counterintuitive that men coming together could have fun and smile you know and enjoy and laugh and be together and learn about these things it's a wonderful experience you mentioned that you're a marriage and family therapist in Colorado right? in Colorado that's right and so one of the things people can get a hold of me or look at my website which is solidman.com you also have a number of books that you've published as well in the community talk more but I'm curious about that myself so right now I have four books and there's one more coming so I have a series of five so the four books are basically the material that I have used in my men's groups to help men become stronger and to work through a number of different issues and so those four books are available on Amazon and talk a bit about your solidman men's groups I know a lot of men are looking for community today right right so my men's groups I have the guys going through the different curriculum that I have working from there's 17 lessons that the guys work through nice and so and it's really important the whole idea of actually doing a men's group I think there's a number of different well there's reasons why because most men are isolated most men are only connected with women and they're not very connected with men so coming together with a group of men where you actually are able to explore what's going on inside of you and begin to make that really significant shift from being externally referenced to internally referenced and that's a really big part of my groups and to where a man can actually process that material with other men and you hear other men going through their struggles and having their victories it's a really really powerful thing that men be involved with other men so I have a few groups that I have I have some locally and I have an online group as well and so some different things that are available solidman.com Thank you for all your contributions to men here I know my brothers many of whom are here really enjoyed your talk at Patriarchs as well Thank you for everything that you do It's been great talking with you Ken This is Will Spencer from the Renaissance of Men in the New 21 Report Ken Curry Thank you