 George Bruno with a 21 report. We're at the 21 convention the final event of the decade, and I'm talking with Pat Stedman. Welcome. It's good to be here George. Yeah. What a nice talk that was. Thank you. Appreciate it. It was your first time speaking here, wasn't it? It was. It was. First time Certainly like that. Yeah. Ever. That's great. The visuals were fantastic. Absolutely great. I'm gonna I wrote down some key statements and we'll chat about those things. Trauma chaos is kind of like the entrance ticket to this world, so to speak. Comment on that. Why don't people come to this this world of awareness, this type of awareness on the road? Why does it take heartache, heartbreak, confusion, darkness? That's a deep question. I like it. Well, I think that we're here to experience these things. We can only really learn from experience. It's why somebody who's very, you know, book smart. It's not wise. Yeah, right. You have to go through things and you have to feel what happens in order to grow as an individual. So I think the feeling is a large part of it. I don't know the reason why we do it, but it certainly seems to have a positive role. My big thing with it is just having awareness. Yeah. And that's the problem is that people will experience the same problem over and over again because they're not aware. They lack that self-awareness. Yeah. And so for me, it's like if I ever I feel something or it's or something's negative, I'm always like, what can I learn from this? Yeah. Right. So that hopefully I don't have to experience it again. I had read somewhere. I think it was C.S. Lewis that said pain is God's megaphone to get our attention. Mm-hmm. And yeah. We are more focused when we go through some kind of trauma. We're looking for answers and we're ready for the teacher to appear. That's a huge one right there. Yeah. Because you can you can know something, you can learn something, but if you're not at the right point in your life to have that lesson and put it on to you, you're not going to receive it. It'll just go wherever your head. Yeah. Yeah. You said I'm not into all this pill stuff. Yeah. I love that. That's how I feel. Mm-hmm. That's how I feel. I don't I don't label people by pills. That's something that I thought was odd when I entered into the the manosphere. And I know there are just terms to describe scenarios and where people are at but they can also be the pills can also be weaponized. Mm-hmm. And new insults that we never heard can be thrown at us that were like what the heck does that mean? Explain the whole pill thing. Well, I think frankly, I mean at first it was maybe a very apt way to describe people who were waking up from maybe mainstream lies, which is not just exclusive obviously to women. But I think that at a certain point you had people who I would describe as intellectually lazy use it to reinforce a dogma, right? So understanding the use of labels, right? You see this a lot. The media will do it, right? They'll label someone this, label someone that and for people who don't think critically, which is most people, to be honest, the label has a connotation of something. And so it's like a it's like a mental shortcut. Say, okay, you're this. It's like well in what context, right? Like no one wants to dig deeper. And so labels are just lazy ways to go about doing things. Mm-hmm. And of course they're used as insults, right? It's a way to keep people's minds trapped. Mm-hmm. And so I don't like to look in labels. I mean obviously sometimes you need to use words, right? You have to communicate. But I'm always looking for the context of something when it works because this life is filled with paradoxes. Like I made that framework today, right? And I think it's great. I love it. But I mean does it encapsulate everything? Like it can't. Right. You know? And I tried. I believe I tried, but like there's always something else that you have to put in. Eventually you have to say this is a model. It's helpful to understand reality, but it's not reality. Mm-hmm. I used to know a psychiatrist that said his patients were always eager to find a diagnosis. So what am I? Yeah, am I? Am I manic depressed? Am I schizophrenic? Am I this or am I that? And he was very hesitant. He says we're not gonna put a diagnosis on you because they would end up living up to that diagnosis. But unlike doctors that do and psychiatrists that do give a diagnosis, I find that people in the red pill world, the manosphere, the theorists, the keyboard, jockeys, whatever you want to call them, they'll give a diagnosis of a guy and then they use it to beat him over the head. They weaponize it. I can't imagine a psychiatrist getting mad at a patient that he just gave a diagnosis to and then saying, oh, you're a manic depressive. Like use it in a derogatory manner. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I'm seeing that happening in the manosphere. And why does it happen? Why do people weaponize these things? It's interesting. I was was reading Carl Jung's book on dreams recently and doing you know dream analysis and whatnot, but in that he was talking about when doing an analysis of a patient, you have to really when they're talking about their dream, right? You need to avoid as the I guess psychologist or whatever, jumping to say what's going on in the dream. It's much better to say I don't know and to allow it to be this dialogue that the person can start to develop it. I have fallen into a trap that can be extrapolated to all sorts of things, not just with dreams, with psychology. I've fallen into that trap a little bit as a coach, it's something that I've worked on because if you think you know something, then you might be jumping to conclusions because you think you know what you're very in your head. But there's a thing behind that which is ego and I like to say in the case of me, like I jump to that because I'm thinking it's able to help the person, even though that person has to come to some sort of realization on their own before that's super useful. Some people though, their egos are so fragile, it's a way of controlling the other person. And it's also a way of lowering the other person so that they feel more superior, right? I know this all, I know all about you. I have you figured out, right? I don't think it's a good approach to make. I mean, I understand to a certain extent if you you can figure out enough about someone, like there's some people in the manosphere who I figured out enough of, I don't have to go much deeper. When you know enough bad stuff, it's kind of like I can put you to the side. But I think always having a sense of curiosity is very, very important if you're trying to help people. No one is the arbiter of your truth that jumped out at me. There's a lot of people there who claim to have the truth for someone else's life. And people, people are so willing to forfeit power to someone else in this world. Young men who've been through some trauma are so willing to allow someone else to define them and say what they are and where they're going. Explain that. No one is the arbiter of your truth. Well, I didn't talk about energy. It's kind of an esoteric topic. But people have different vibrations, right? And there's some people, it's a problem I've had with associating with some individuals. They're just very, very focused on power and control. Now, if you're focused on power and control, it's because you lack internal power and control. You need to get it out outside and then you feel better about yourself. But as you raise your own kind of vibration, I guess you could say, you start to move more towards a love paradigm where it's like, cool, this is working for you, that's great. I don't care. Not only do I not care, I'm happy for you. There's an abundance aspect to it and you don't feel this need. I don't care about being someone's guru. I just like to figure things out. And if it helps people and they want to learn from me, great. That's perfect. One of the things that I really pride myself on with my business is that I really try, and I have like a 95% success rate with it, of getting clients done with working with me after six months. The old way I was doing it was like three months and then maybe a renewal. But I was like, I want you out. You don't need me anymore. I have some clients, they enjoy the talks. I'm like, you don't need to renew. You're good. Go out there, take what you learned. Maybe another mentor will cross your pass at some point. And as a result, I mean, I think people respect it because you're showing, you're honoring their experience. So it also helps, frankly, with business because you actually are operating with someone's best interests at heart and they feel that. So word spreads, I guess. The three pillars. Give me the three pillars. Preselection, persona and personality. Explain preselection. Preselection is marketing, basically. And if you're looking at it from a frame perspective, it's the passive frame. And there's all stuff that works in the background. So it's things on your aesthetics, right? Like how you look, how much muscle you have, your fitness, your style. And then on the other side, your status, which would be your fame, your wealth, and your popularity, right? And very, very powerful. I mean, it's just it's guys who have their preselection set up can, I think, be more authentic. They don't have to, they don't have to do as much to attract women. But you still have to have the core, right? Otherwise it's a problem. Reminds me of something I said this past week on Twitter. I said, attract, don't pursue. And you have options. You have options when you're just attracting people. Well, another thing with it, yeah. So preselection, because it's your marketing, it's your lead generator. If you're not doing great with women, it's really good to have preselection, which is why I won't even work with clients if they're not in a good fitness level. I mean, they don't have to be like really in shape, but they can't be out of shape. Because if they're out of shape, I'm like, spend your money on a personal trainer. Because if we're going to be doing reps, so to speak, and having you talking to women, like let's make it easier so that there's more women coming in. You can learn more when you have more leads. And don't work out just to get women. Of course. Of course, of course. I mean, I didn't talk about it because, you know, again, you can't encapsulate everything in the homework. But as other guys have mentioned during this weekend, I mean, the most important thing with lifting and gaining shape is your own self-image and your own mental toughness by doing it. So I mean, everything is really downstream. Like women are just downstream of everything in here. Yeah. Yeah. The second pillar. Persona. Sales and your, or your active framing. Right. So that's your ability to, you know, be good, good conversationalists, knowing game, being able to basically navigate social and sexual environments. And it's important. I mean, I think a lot of guys dismiss it, but I think I really came to the conclusion that persona is quite important when it comes to attraction because otherwise you, you can have like a really like authentic and confident sense of self, but you can really be very abrasive to people. Right. You can just lose a lot of leads if you, if you don't care about that pillar. And some people don't care in fair enough. Right. But I don't see it as, I don't want to be like a lonely curmudgeon who has like a few people who love me, right? Because they understand who I really am. Like I don't need to be liked. I'm happy to make enemies as we know. Right. But I don't like to just be abrasive to people for the sake of being abrasive. Right. Right. And I don't think I benefit from it. I have found that when you're attractive to everybody, men and women, that's a great thing. Yeah. Just to be magnetic with people and women fit under the category of people. And if you're just doing stuff to get women and be attractive to women, you're really doing yourself a disservice. 100%. I mean, I like the best thing you can do is just get along with the widest range of people. Your frame is wrong if you're doing it just to get along with women. Yeah. You know, I mean, 80% of it really like when it comes to persona is just general. Yeah. And then you have a 20% that's distinct to women who you're trying to attract. Yeah. And you throw that in there. But I mean, guys who don't know how to talk to people, I'm like, okay, let's get your social skills together. And then we'll talk about game. Right. You know, right. That's a good one. I know. And then the last pillar is personality. And that's your product and your core frame. It's the foundation of who you are. Mm-hmm. You said a phrase, and I love this, misery peddlers. Let's talk about misery peddlers. What in the world is going on with these people that are just marketing the dark side of life? Well, they're not very happy individuals, obviously. And so for them, it's a, you know, misery loves company. I think that's a lot of it. There's a projection. So if your life isn't good, you have two options, right? You can either change your assumptions, because your assumptions are what's always damaging you. It's like, I can't get out of the situation. It's like, wrong. Your assumptions are telling you that. So go deeper because in the framework you've set up, you have no way out. So you have to get out of the framework. It's always about deconstructing and then reconstructing something that works. Yeah. And so a guy who's very unhappy with himself is either going to be stuck in there or he's going to figure his way out. And if he is stuck in there, he won't because maybe the truth behind that false assumption is so damaging to his own identity that he can't begin to accept it. And so in that case, all he can do is project out his reality on other people and try to pull them into it, pull them down the drain with him. Yeah. And so that's why they do it. I mean, not good, obviously. Not good for the guys who would benefit a lot more from having their assumptions challenged, because not everybody, maybe that guy's lost, but a lot of the other guys maybe aren't. And they shouldn't think that they're doomed. Right. I like that. I like that. During the patriarchal convention, I talked about I changed the focus of all my interviews to hope, positivity, optimism. And I wanted people to focus on that rather than the dark side of everything. And there were some people that actually were angry at me for wanting to talk about hope. Optimism, positivity, they literally rubbed them the wrong way. Because it doesn't support their misery loves company agenda. Yeah. A lot of men come here. And a lot of men will watch this video in years to come. And they're looking for hope. And in my training, many, many years ago in grad school, as a clinical counselor, one of the best pieces of advice I ever got from a professor was he said, gather data and give hope, gather data and give hope. That's the goal. And I've carried that on into the future. And that's what I do with everything that I do. There's a man watching this right now. And he's out there. And he's watching this. And he feels like he has no options. He might be depressed. He might be on his last bit of hope, give him some hope, talk directly to him and tell him what he needs to do. You need to move forward. You can find out what took you to this place. Because there were decisions that you made. Taking ownership, I think, is so powerful. Because we want to fall when we're in a bad place into this victim frame. And we're encouraged to by society. Something bad happens to you. Maybe you lose your marriage. You don't have a lot of friends, right? You're alone. What can you do? Well, think about, okay, I did this to myself. Maybe not entirely, right? Maybe she did something to you too. She left, right? There's problems. There's other things that people do to us that hurt. But the more we take ownership, the more we find out where we are broken inside. And when we start to deal with that stuff, and it's a long process, it's powerful. It's powerful. And it's how you start to build your confidence up. It's these little, little things over the way. It's crazy, because I look back to, I mentioned it during my speech, but when I was 20 years old, I mean, I had like, I didn't, I was like a complete loser in college, like a complete loser. I had a few nerdy friends, like I was, I was in a really rough spot. And then my girlfriend broke up with me. And then I didn't mention this in the speech, but she was going to the school. And she was a hot girl. So then she was getting into the top sorority. And I'm like this guy, and I have like no friends. And like my ex-girlfriend's like going to like the top sorority, right? I mean, I was having like panic attacks. I'm like, she's going to see me out. I'm going to be like a total loser. Like my identity was just got to keep going. And so I just kept talking to people. And I, and what happens is if you push at it, if you keep going, things will start to happen. Right? Like I, I met, I met a guy who was actually like, I'm not going to go through it, but it was like friend of a girl, friend's girlfriend or whatever. But it was like, we, like I ran to him three times in a row in two weeks. And on the third time, I was like, look, man, like, we seem to see each other a lot. Like let's hang out. And that was the start of me. And I got pulled into a whole other social circle. And it just started snowball. And that's the way it is. It's like the beginning is the hardest, but I actually even like now I look back. I'm like, I have almost like a nostalgia. Because there was just so much, it was like the journey, there was, there was so much more to go on the journey. It's like when you read a book, it's like the beginning is always the best part. It's not the ending. But you maybe don't realize that until you get to the ending. So keep going. It will get better. I promise you, if you just keep going, it'll get better. I like that. Again, hope, positivity, and optimism, a conversation with Pat Steadman. Thank you. Thank you, George. 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 I just like it because it's very positive, positive direction. This, George, 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 to see 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 the key prime stuff that I got. That's good. That's good. It's very surreal, man. I'm really enjoying it. I'm happy to live in such an era where such a thing like this is possible. I have never seen a group of guys like this, a group of 200 men who are focused, squared away, 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 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. It's nice. 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. The thing is, impress me, everybody here is very serious. They're taking it close to their heart. What a great convention. Thanks, George.