 George Bruna with a 21 report. We're at the 21 convention the final event of the decade, and I'm talking with Socrates welcome. Thank you Wow, what a presentation. I Feel like you blazed some new ground It's not common ground. It's stuff that we've been kind of pointing the ship towards. Yeah, it's clear that I'm launching it fully and heartedly. There's there's there's no going back We're sailing new seas in a confident more direct manner and there's no misguiding it. It's very direct. It's very forceful Unabashedly and unenchamedly. Yeah, I never thought in a million years that I would hear somebody from a 21 convention stage Talk about how to change a diaper you and me both man This is not only I did it at Patriarch, but I followed suit again This one not so much emphasizing the diaper story, which was more elaborate in Patriarch convention But this would focus in on the tools of the trade. Yes, you know in essence the tactical baby gear You know that you would utilize and that's actually a Company brand name and I showcase some of their their work. I actually showcase my own bag Which predates this and some of the things that I did to yes Bring my my abilities up to par with what I thought were task at hand and share some of that And I think a lot of the guys that kind of Tactical approach to techniques Was not there but and also a strategic idea of the mindset of what are you doing? How do you get your head in the game and then and then bringing it out a tactical level of how do you achieve this? So yeah, it was kind of all-encompassing. It was it was a lot of fun to do I'll be very interested in watching the presentation myself So it's you get because you get stuck in a moment of flow and you don't know how you do I can remember being there I can remember seeing the audience but remembering exactly what I said how I said it what words really came out of my mouth I it all that would be interesting to see as compared to me rehearsing and parading and doing all that stuff So I'll be interested to see it. I used to write a column for a newspaper and I Wrote about fishing once and I said when you take your kids fishing It's really not about fishing. Yeah, and it reminded me of what you said when you change a child's diaper It's not about the diaper. It's not about poop. It's not about yeah It's about your relationship with that child right a bonding experience correct explain that. Yeah, absolutely Everybody focuses in on the diaper changing, you know and and you know It's not really a non-master thing and my mindset was change that you know on that This is you protecting and providing for your child in a very intimate way Yeah, and you lose that opportunity when you don't and so we we don't respect men who shirk their responsibility In these regards and so if we sit down and change our mindsets to this and look at this as an opportunity to provide for a child and to Instead of being a disposable sex, you know because we know that mothers are essential But to view yourself not as the disposable element of parenting, but as a force multiplier That changes the dynamic dramatically and and we know that that's effective because you know It doesn't take a genius to sit and watch a single mother struggle Okay, and I don't mean it when in a lack of empathy I mean with very very sincere, but yes that if she had a man and a dedicated father in her life How much easier more apt that they would be you know and how much better that child's life would be So I take the approach that this is an opportunity to me for me to do just that in service of my child in service of my own legacy and I I was taught when I was going in the military about combat life saving is you don't treat the one You treat the patient first and part of that is addressing an eye contact is that you have a child who's in duress there They can't speak they can't communicate and they're doing what they can they're upset How do you engage that and the first thing is eye contact touch? You don't hold them off to astray They're not toxic. Yeah, you know and and if you have to I don't care what you're wearing You know I gave the example of a $3,000 suit you pick that child up and you hold them You comfort them you cradle them they desperately need that if you ruin the suit you ruin the suit You can replace it you will not be able to replace that bond if it's missed you miss that permanently And then once you kind of do that you you've got the problem of saying how do I now engage a child who's duress How do I change that and part of that is being very very prepared and I've got an example here And this one's this one's already illuminated I pull this out this quick you break it you shake it up and you show it and you have this chem light It's kind of fascinating. You just sort of wave it around a little bit and you give it to the child I have never seen this failed a child that's now being held comfort It's no it's being addressed and it has fans something fancy to redirect its attention to and what you've essentially done is You change the child's mind by changing its mood now I can start to address the actual task at hand which has changed in the diaper and of course I also talked about the system mutation of how to do that It's not this this you do this you do this But there's little kind of techniques that you can do and if you systematize it Which is nothing more than a former project management men are really really adept at doing this That you then do this with childcare in and change in the diaper And I shared some of those techniques on how to do it part of it was having a well laid-out dad bag That's already prepared for you the other is the steps and processes you do it So for example in my bag right now the diapers are laid out in such a way that I can reach it I know exactly where they're at. I know exactly how many are I can pull it out and without even looking at it I know it's orientated the way I want the front and the back and everything else where the leg holes are And I know that I can actually slip my hand through the leg hole reach to grab the baby's leg And now we have a connection that I can then transfer that baby that diapers directly into that baby's leg Interesting, you know, and then then you just kind of you're still maintaining contact Slip your hand back through the other side and do the same thing with the other leg You're halfway there on a very challenging Situation and if you've ever tried to fight a baby that's kicking and upset and trying to get the thing It will drive you nuts One of the challenges we face and I did not bring this up during their presentation. I've talked about A child abuse before and usually it's when parents are stressed or in duress. They're trying to get something done and Mothers tend to be the largest abusers of their own children It's at times like this when you're fighting a child to change a diaper that the child gets struck Mm-hmm. If you have a system in place and are prepared for you've eliminated that and by doing so You've vastly vastly strengthening your family tree equipping parents For the simplest of behaviors Yes, and these these are not new But I think we have the knowledge and awareness to convey these sort of things in a way in which we've never had before Yeah, you know our forefathers never had the ability to talk about this up Yeah, they may have kind of had some of the stuff laying about I think there's something to be said about Going over to a place, you know where I store my bag and it's just like I get out of Dodge bag you you grab it you go you're good you're set You know it. It's it's pre-packaged. You don't have to reassemble it and part of that is being organized. It's not scattered The funny thing is is that mom tends to be very envious of it moms end up wanting it Moms want to use it and you so you really have to do safeguard and kind of make guard the bag Yeah, and say no no no no no this is daddy's bag. Yeah, mommy wants hers I'll set you up yours, but you manage yours You do not you know because it's you need to make sure that it's yours It's prepared and it's exactly the way you want you want to be fishing around everything Yeah, sure part of it is you don't want to overload it either And so one of the things I was showing the guys is that there's a way in which you can take down But it does not have to be this big some of them are actually larger I prefer the ones on quick trips that are terribly small, and I think I hope I did hope I brought it My favorite It's an emergency blowout kit, and it's exactly what you think it is Well, this is a complete kit for a baby that needs to have a diaper change and inside here You have a changing pad you have five wipes You have a diaper and then you have a disposable bag that you can put all the trash fill seal it up Yeah, and it's good to go I know that I don't have to carry this bag if I'm on a quick trip Yeah, and I kind of get a tanner of that time that this is this is a reason why men need cargo pants You know I know I hate them you can just slip it in the cargo pot and you are go The other is I can toss this to you right I can sit down say okay here take care of the kid here Here you go right the biggest thing for me though is that by having this I know it's available It's tangible and glass it's durable Yeah, it gives me the confidence to be the part so when you when you dress the part You can play the part when you have the tools available. You can do the part. It's kind of masculine looking to it It's it doesn't have flowers and cartoons on it. It's and this is tactical baby gear. I'm not sponsored by him I really should be loved. Yeah, love to really kind of push their stuff as well Yeah, but it's it's designed after a military frame of mind right and I know the Dutch documentary film crew was really kind of like You have military stuff and I actually have military grade first aid kit here You know within my bag and they were really kind of you have the search on it So the issue is if you want military results, why don't you replicate exactly what they're doing? And if I if I'm concerned about the world in which we live in when she have mass killings you have students You have terrorism school shootings, whatever it is. I'm not saying it's going to happen But if it is I don't want to be impotent, right? Okay, and if I have this stuff available, right? I know I can at least do something. I'm not impotent to the situation Yeah, that gives me a hell of a lot more confidence walking around and doing things now I didn't have to tell them because it's probably would be a shock in American things that the tactical baby gear all their day bags All their dad bags actually come with inserts. We can actually insert if you want body armor You know a ballistic plate in it. Yeah, so it actually becomes a ballistic shield for your child It's you're no longer just using your body as a ballistic Yeah, you actually have something else and if you need that or if you're secure about that or those are concerns They have that available. I don't necessarily say hey This is truly the world we live in but we know it's a reality in our world And so if you prepare for the worst, you know, you're gonna be okay when you have other issues And if you know that hey, I have this I also know that in most cases are gonna have you know a Sync in which I can wash the child off. I'll have paper towels. I can sure I can work through these sort of things Know what they are you've got that available, you know And so one of the things I think I shared too with the documentary film crew is that most dad bags will sit down and recommend That you have a change of the baby clothes totally get that. Yeah I actually don't recommend a change of clothes I actually recommend swimwear and the and the reason is is that swimwear you a baby Can re-soil it I can take the baby back into a changing room wash rinse all the fecal matter Whatever it is. Yeah, ring that out dried off of paper towel Yeah, readjust the child and we're back out and I I have not packed another load of clothes Right, it's thinner more wearable breather and it tends to be lighter more durable So yeah, and I'm also for it So, you know, I don't recommend this in Wisconsin for the winter Yeah, right, but you know, it's going to be you know climate and context related But that's one of the things that I do Another one is it's not just necessarily Baby changing, you know, you know, I've got the I talked about the first aid kit I also have a restaurant a restaurant kit, you know that I have a small element of stuff you know in many cases they do the whole thing or a Compartmentalized ziploc box of a coloring book some markers some stickers and everything else that I can pull out and become something We give to the child at the restaurant to give them engaged to keep them that they don't get at the house that they know That this is a special treat special occasion. Here it is We have other stuff at home, but I have this already my bag and it's a hell of a lot easier And here you know, here's something else is that you also get it You know we talked about being an ambassador You have an opportunity when you have a dad bag when you see a struggling family to sit over and just sort of hand Somebody something like this. Yeah, my gift to you You know and just sit down and say yeah father and father, you know And particularly the restaurant one, you know, so I keep a couple of those in there as well Yeah, and it's it's interesting how that sort of takes place My my bag as well as it served me. I wish I had access to their stuff There's so many cool things that they've been able to do and stylized Harvey want to do it and the thing that I also really fascinated about is when you have multiple children How do you do that and that the more you can systematize compartmentalized stuff? You know where there's food for each children have it. You've got all that access though This all represents a shift in the 21 convention Explain that shift We're not singularly focused on one subject there's always been this broad range and I think the what you're witnessing in and become an apparent is that the Practitioners the the individual content creators are aging and we have a natural life arc and you're seeing that being manifested in our talks Yeah, and in many ways the 21 convention and the Manifers going through the same thing. Yeah It's paralleling each other that the content creators Over ten years have aged and developed and you're still seeing them content They just haven't you know hung up it up and gone away And so you're seeing an evolution the natural evolution towards this and I'm really interested in seeing that take place Not only towards fatherhood, you know what I talked about specifically the thresholds between being an adult from being in a couple to then family It's a threshold between those realms that they become really challenging And if you're not prepared to go through those thresholds appropriately, you won't get to the other side whole and healthy You know you'll have failed relationships And so you'll start to see that and what I want to really kind of see Eventually, it's not gonna be far off. I've been thrown talks about this Is that when you start talking beyond your link your life speed is that you're looking projecting down and he has Family books where they've written and documented things that have gone in these family volumes that get passed down through the generation So you can hear their voice you can hear the love and the trials and tribulations and the advice they've given and he has access to That's generational speaking. I think you're gonna start to see that embedded more and more in the 21 convention Whether we're talking about Personal finance to make sure that you are able to go into retirement home and your child's not having to you know Live with the dress of putting daddy in a hospice or whatever the hell it is And that you have that but we're also talking about then legacy building Financially, you know through multi-generation. How how do I prepare the family financially so that my great-grandchildren Have something from me that carries him for and what what will that do to my family tree and their lives, you know And so I think that becomes a really fascinating process Fascinating yeah, yeah, you did kind of cover the whole spectrum from infancy Right up until the end when the child was taking care of you Yeah It's fascinating and that was kind of the dialogue that I was talking about when you're engaging a child when you're picking up I'm holding you need to sit on say hey, you know what's the matter, you know what we've got this Why are you crying? You know, yeah, daddy's got you and part of it is is that you you had your You need to talk these things through not only to see the baby But also yourself because there's gonna be this visual reaction of dealing with a duress child And so I kind of did it naturally of talking about you know kind of goofing about you know, oh you pooped yourself I remember when I pooped myself, you know, you know, and and you know, I'll tell you I'll tell you the truth You know it won't be long and daddy will be pooping himself You know and that we know that's gonna happen right Mm-hmm, and and I will want to make sure that you were there to take care of me the way I took care of you. Yeah, and by the way, that's a relationship And you can't expect a child of yours to do that or be there for you if you weren't there for them And I think it's not only what we say, you know Actions not not not verbs or an action on verb. I forget the FO. Yeah, but you want to make sure that your behaviors are acting You know following what you're saying and we can do that immediately when we have these sort of things at the very beginning And I talked about the first time when my daughter came to me when she was crying She had a troll diaper and it wasn't that she came to me and wanted me that that was important The issue was my partner was right next to me mother was there and she chose dad. Yeah, I'm like, yeah And it wasn't just a competition with me and her and mom took it that way The issue was I knew that she she was behaving acting when she has needs She will come to me. Yeah, and that my behaviors to that point have guided that experience to the point that she is I now know I don't have that problem. She's a teenager right that she will naturally come to dad Now dad's gonna have to continue to be there and do that and demonstrate it But I have full faith that when my child is in duress as when she's older And she has needs or work need to communicate things that pattern of behaviors already established and that was critical Now I had to suit mom later on because mom's crying because you know, she came to dad rather than mom Yeah, but you know, I also had to tell her to it's like babe Nobody changes a diaper better than daddy. You know, I'm your I'm your diaper daddy You know and and you own that, you know, and I don't feel that's masking some minute will be But I I really don't give a shit, you know, it's a honey honey badger of a diaper changing. Yeah daddy Don't give a shit daddy's taking care of business. Nobody's gonna take care of my child better than me I'm definitely not outsourcing that shit. You know, you want that shit done get daddy to do it Yeah, I knew a guy that once said that he and his wife came to a In agreement on something early in their marriage that he was gonna she she would change diapers and he would change the tires And I thought okay, I get I get that. Yeah, that whole division of labor. Yep. Yeah, but I also feel They might have cheated each other out of Some great experiences because of that. Yeah, they did, you know, they forfeited, you know, some some things Yeah, you know, because I think it's necessary that everyone can multitask You know family Well, you also don't have a direct appreciation for the other tasking Yeah, and the other is that the father alienated themselves from the child, right? And and by the way the father became superfluous in the family household. Yeah Yeah, and and that's not good. I remember a wife that went into the hospital for a Historectomy and everybody was afraid for the husband that he would starve because he never cooked a meal very Like, you know, my god, she was in the hospital for a week. What's he gonna do? He can't boil water. Yeah, right Yeah, so I'd like the idea that you're equipped and I think you're equipping men and you kind of established yourself as like the go-to guy That was very bold. You know that right as yeah, yeah, these young men Yeah, you know find a mate and have children and so forth You're gonna be the guy. Well, you know, to be honest, I kind of a history for that You know, I started my first talk at the 21 convention Was primarily a pickup convention. Yeah, and my first speech was a contrarian guide in relationships And I was advocating relationships and the values of relationships. Yeah, so yeah I've you know launched those ships before you know and burned the boats on the shore and you know traveled inward So this is this a neck next appropriate evolution of that nearly 10 years later But yeah, I think that's gonna I think it probably will be more profound than I probably realized. Yeah, there's not There's not a whole lot a lot of guys talking about I know the documentary film crew that was filming it We're just moped by the fact that I said the things I was said that the you know Hound fatically I believe the things and then physically displayed it They could not believe it. They wanted to see the kid pull this stuff out. Yeah, talk about it. What's this? How's this? What do you know all that sort of stuff and it's terribly fascinating and it's terribly guy It's terribly masculine. This is not an effeminate bag You know, this is you know, this is this is something where you go. This is business, you know And we you know, we can't talk about you know tier one You know like you have special operations, but you you don't want what we call a ramp rear echelon motherfucker Yeah to change your doctor you you want a forward edge You know, this is a guy who's going to get and take care of business and clearly tier one means yeah And we can aspire to it not that you have to role play or cosplay to it You can do it with confidence and I showed case an individual that it was exhibiting in that You know that had the the all four tactical virtues of masculinity. He had the strength He had courage he was showing mastery and he had honor and none of that was was Emasculating whatsoever and this is a man carrying a bag, you know a baby on a chest carrier very very maternal like you know And that had a day bag, you know some guys calling purses, you know I talked about yeah, and in fact their bags and you know, I don't have I don't have a problem with that You know, they're they're task oriented and you sit down and say it's clearly mission oriented And so I you know if it if it makes it more fun and enjoyable that I can kind of play and deal with this Yeah, and I have time to advance it. I'm no longer fretting about being a father How do I do this or being afraid right trying you now have a sense of purpose, okay? And you can change your mindset Yeah, and then I kind of gave them three other things what to do beyond changing a diaper, you know spending 20 minutes with your child a day, you know breaking that up maybe you know Brilliant. Yeah doing that, you know the secondary thing is Involving them in your life. They're not that you're not there just to raise a child You're there with not only apprentice to become an adult You are there with your understudy that child is there to replace you This is your legacy that you're developing you should be treating them like that You need to show them these experiences engage them in these experiences and part of it early on is You're you know take the baby and just go shop and even if you you're not buying a damn thing But the kid that you know the buggy and just go up and down the aisle show them the big world Different colors give them something to hold put it away put it back engage them They don't know any difference it gets a baby away from mom for a while mom gets a senty, you know peaceful house You're engaged in the child And it's a way of doing it without being baby time and then with Hits that I you get the point where you load children's TV, you know, right and and at a certain point So you say how can I engage a child and not have it be childish, right? And so I think there's a number of things we can do And the last one was showcasing the value of storytelling and I talked about the value of storytelling and again brought up You know our book you know my red hat, you know, which is essentially doing just that and was an answer that to the questions that we had a year ago that came from this convention is And it's something I've been thinking about for a while is how do you teach men who are grossly under fathered? How to father while they're in the act of father and given him the tool to relate that's pro masculine Pro fatherhood and pro father. This seems like volume one. It seems like your talk today Was volume two and then I was kind of the thing that people that weren't involved in the workshop previously Yeah, the story characters have already been fleshed out. So we know who they are The other two books have already been written So we know that there's a series and other stories like this happens to be an anti-bullying book You know, we deal with a cultural value of my red hat. We did not know at the time Covington was going to happen. You know the Covington kids that was a shock and but it dovetails with that So we have two more volumes kind of set and we kind of know they're going Illustration wise it's digital. So they're the characters can be you know, we can produce Probably a book every three months if we wanted to and and but again, we don't know how it's going to fair We wanted to put something else We're living in today's age and collectively we sat down and said we want to do something You know, and at the end of our lives, we want to sit down and say we lived through this We did something about it and we tried we just didn't sit on our hands and do nothing and at least this is a First go to try a balloon. Here it is. It's for sale on amazon. You can get it And let's let's see how this thing does And and if nothing comes of it, I I tried I you know, we put our foot forward But I was terribly lucky to have a very talented team in house all done in that convention with a author who was terribly gifted with his pros and scripting and then an illustrator who was able to bring Characters truly to life and bring things to fruition in a manner which I don't think any of us would have visualized right and so it vastly exceeds our expectations I don't know about you, but I see a dad boot camp starting I you know, probably without a doubt, you know I'll probably end up doing kind of a coursework because I know that you know like the first talk where I talked about changing the diaper Everybody wanted to know what's in your dad bag. You know, they wanted to know about that And so that's why I incorporated it this time. So I'm I'm and of course I didn't bust out everything I had You know, I use the the chems like, you know, just as an example of a go-to thing and there's a lot more that you can do Uh, and a lot of that didn't make the speech So I'd love to kind of go through and you know, you want to have a kit laid out What's in your dad bag and have that but then to do a series of videos where you showcase? Hey, this is why it's set up. Here's how to do this Mindset too and I think there's this, you know, I talk about you. Um, you know, you need to be dad as fuck You know, yeah, yeah You know just get in there and that that may be the actual series name And so I I would love to see that kind of produced just prior to Patriarch coming up. So, you know, and and the rate at which we're doing these things now It's like running hurdles. It's like my prediction is two months and then very too much in another convention So my prediction is it will be ready by patriarch timing is perfect for it. It really is. It really is so and and I'll I'll be I'll be I want to say I'll be happy to champion it. Um The the reality is I think I would be terribly humbled too because I'll I'll be quite honest. Um I came very very very close scarily close To missing all of us. Um, I was 48 when I had my child. Yeah my first And that's extremely late even for men, you know, for a number of issues and everybody thinks they have time And the reality men have a wall too. They do and and we do and I It it it scares me every day. I think that the daughter I have who I Am in absolute rapture and love with I am just so stupid for that little girl that I may have missed that in that alternative universe I did and I just thank god that I had the partner I did who answered my fears that I was able to work through That I had the 21 convention to kind of work through a lot of my issues You'll see my kind of my progression on some of these talks about that And to move that forward and I just feel obligated to share as much of that as I possibly can And if I become the figurehead for that, I I will be humbled by and I'll be deeply humbled by and it will be my My return gift to this organization and the culture that has helped foster me to be a vastly superior man and father that I am today Being a father, it's a worthy goal and we're happy to talk to Socrates about it George. Thank you again. Thanks What was your experience so far with the 21 convention? Oh, I was dead. I was dead professional all across the board really good energy with a lot of people and uh, I just like it's a very positive Positive direction this uh, George. This is this has been a first-class event. It's fantastic. You guys run a really tight ship I've been to a lot of conventions over the course of my business career and I can tell When things are well run and when things aren't and this is a very well run operation. I was very impressed It's pretty incredible to see where Anthony's brought it Especially from last year which is my first year here and to see the the upgrades he's made it's been incredible I've got my notebook and with every speaker. I've written down about two or three lines Under each of the speakers of just just the key prime stuff that I got. That's good. That's great It's very surreal man. I'm really enjoying it. I'm happy to live in such an era Where it's such a thing like this is possible I have never seen a group of guys like this a group of 200 men were focused Squared away and working on their values just never met a bigger group of wonderful guys It's kind of neat because I've been to a fair amount of conventions in my day But you never see one where the guys like uh here you can just see ed latimore talking to tanner about boxing Yeah, you just sit down and then you tell your boxing experiences. Everybody's kind of pinging off each other Yeah, it has been fantastic And it's been four days of guys all on the same page working in the same direction fascinating meeting some of the people Hearing their stories. Yep. You got people traveling from other parts of the world to come here just to see some of the speakers That's amazing. I think it's impressive. Everybody here is very serious. Yeah, they're taking it. You know close to their heart What a great convention. Thanks, george