And start and add the things that we've been talking about for this list. I think that everybody got a copy of this. What we've done so far, we'll just add some of the things that came up today to this list. This shouldn't take too long, because it's pretty listing them and then the other it'll be more time for the other discussions. Okay, so what were some of the things that we asked for today, Andrew, you've had a couple. I have a couple. So looking to get best rough projection number pre October before we have to put out the initial report. That was one, even if it's a ballpark, but just something to give us more operating information. The conversation I want to circle back to at some point was the open payments that were taken out from 2010. I can't remember when they stopped 2015 maybe yes, I want to look back at that. I think I want to trigger pierce the slides that said 2010 to 2020 and it's just curious about that. I don't want to talk about that in general. Also asking treasure pierce about the, what the total value dollar amount with the from the previous underfunding pre 2008 also factoring in lost opportunity costs for gains in the market. The total value dollar amount would be have loads of demographics questions and I don't know if that's the, I don't know if you want all of those now or what would be best for that. Well, I think that the treasures office had gave us this which there's two new ones out there's one with research and one with research demographic. So, a lot of that is a question might be answered in here so maybe, maybe we'll just put a question mark here for demographics and then, as we, as people go through the individually and look at them, it might answer a lot of our questions. Can we put one, just caveat on that that I also have just some general state of Vermont questions not necessarily got the beasters demographics and the beasers demographics but just general state of Vermont. I think we have that on here someplace, but we'll add it again. And for folks who are following along on the live feed that all of the documents that we are handed here at the table will will be on our landing page for the task force. So all of those resources should be available for for the general public to look at as well. I flagged a couple of other items that we could get info from the Treasurer's Office if it's available. One picks up on Andrew's point about employer contributions. The data I've seen for the state employee system is limited so if we could get a longer record of employer contributions, that would be great. Projections around the mortisation schedule when it was put into effect, just so we know where we should have been and where we are now and kind of evaluate why where that delta came from I think that would be helpful and might also be helpful and looking at the mortisation options going forward and projections around the return. If those are available. When they, when in effect and that's specific to the state side. You mean you mean the retired the incentives that had been offered before and what was the result of them. Correct. Those are the three items I had flagged them up that conversation. Anything else. Something that we haven't talked about yet but it's in regards to the general fund and it's really for JFO. This is going to be hard to project but we need to try to figure it out what kind of general fund actually managed to handle going forward what type of increases as we go on a roughly a 3% increase per year but then always adjusted for market returns and quite fulfilled the dictates of the a deck as previously had been. Well we always put in the a deck but we always need to make up for less than stellar market returns, but this year it's gone parabolic. So, and then we're resetting the 3% going forward with parabolic. So, so what can the general fund reasonably be expected to handle going forward. So, and I might fit nicely under the one here that we had thought that one of the issues that we talked about before was the state revenue streams. What are the revenue streams. What, what are they capable of what do they generate what what can they and thinking that Steve Klein could give a lot of that nicely in there. Anything else. One other piece. The folks who are talking us for talking to us earlier about the state employees I was asking about exit interview information I wasn't sure if that's something we could circle back to. I would just be curious about that on the teacher side or exactly where we would get that information from or if there's even any sort of pub. But I think it kind of goes back to my always brought up watching about the kind of core values piece and bring it down to the individual person level. I would just be curious to see if we can get any of that data. I have no idea if, if the hundred and some local districts keep exit interviews and how we would even begin to have access. Are there heads of departments that could come to speak to us possibly develop generalities. I suspect the Department of Corrections would answer the question of why are people leaving very differently than, for instance, the agency and natural resources. Yeah, yeah, I mean I don't. It's not to discount the value of that information but I think it's probably pretty job specific. Yeah, dress specific, specific working conditions specific which may be valuable but is sort of complicated. But what might be what might be better is to look at, and I don't know if it's been done recently Tommy might know that there was a couple years ago, an employee sir satisfaction survey done I'm not sure what that is called, but that we could maybe just even have that posted and have access to it so that we could look at it I don't know that. I don't really have somebody talked to us about but I don't talk to you remember when that was done. Oh, it's done yearly. Okay, so we could, we could just look get the get a link to the most recent one. Could we. Okay, I think that's a really good idea when you know it's not specific to separation but it gives a sense and give a sense of what pressures are. Okay, I have one other. Put up with my voice so many times today, however, ideas sometimes just pop in. Perhaps it's, you know, working with those younger kids, you have them filter at some point. So one of the things I was wondering about is I know BSBA school board Association did a survey back in may talking about being able to hire people to come into new teaching positions I'm not sure perhaps we could get BSBA to come speak with us about their survey and you know, even though may sounds relatively recent that data shorts a little updated at this point but perhaps getting somebody there to come talk with us would be helpful information as well. I mean, what would we accomplish? I mean some of this. But I'm starting to wonder how useful is the actual information what what are you trying to pull from it. Yeah, I think the usefulness of the information is thinking about how education is already facing lots of threats to it and right but like looking for employees. That's the whole economy right now that's not an education issue that's not a state of Vermont issue that's not an issue. I've got meetings tonight when I get back home. I've got factors you can't find people and they said $7,000 here to like these are job you just can't find people. So that's, that's an economy why that's not. I guess I just kind of need to work it's impossible to find people right now for everyone. That's not going to be the question that's a macro issue. Sure, it does impact the people though that we're looking at our task to look at under x75. And I think part of our mission is to really look at the broader social impact spending decision making and how that could impact careers and people's decisions to take jobs in this state are going to other states. So that's the information from as many sources as possible to give us a fully rounded sense of the picture I think it's always helpful comes back to that value proposition that was put forth by DHR. You know it is a macro issue, but you know whether it's the state as an employer or whether it's a school district, you're out there competing for talent. How do you keep effectively. And, you know, if state or school districts are having tough time finding employees, like everyone is, I don't think we want to make decisions that make that even even harder, we at least want to be conscious of them. So, I think would be useful data. I guess it would be somewhat useful if we could limit what they're the time that they're giving us I mean, just have somebody come in and just say, we can't hire people is one thing but to go into a lot of detail about I'm just a little bit cognizant of our time and how I mean, yeah, I don't, I can be convinced I think we're going to be meeting the data but to hear how hard it is to hire people in any industry right now, I get that that's like a no no. You know, I mean like we get that that's an issue. I mean we get kids to mow lawn and the town I work in, you know, for a panel of $17 an hour from the lawns to some Walmart fans 16 stock shelves like that. I don't think it would take too long to get results of the survey. That's what Andrew was talking about with survey results. I think we're just asking that organization to provide us with to be at their service, we can have them provide this with the results, let's just limit the amount of time that they present those Oh, he's just give it to us. Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. Yeah, I don't think they need to come off to us. And it's better like Jay, just saying like the examination of the current benefit structures and contribution characteristics on the recruitment and retention right with state employees and teachers that all wrapped around that correct. That'd be great. I'm just looking at it. I was interested. I thought it was very interesting that what they said about the, what does that called employee value affected retention, much more than recruitment because, and, and that makes sense because why would anybody, why would anybody take a job following roads in December for $13 an hour when they can get paid $16 an hour to stock shelves.  That's a nice framing of that whole concept of life that's it. Well, I mean, I didn't get to an attitude, we're going to plan a good health care plan. I'm not taking a job. I'm going for the compensation for the actual dollar amount that you get paid.  Like, even where I work, they pay us not to take the benefit of health care plan. And so like, those are other things like that's a general thing though, because what I've seen in surveys and in the news and in the articles that I'm reading is that health care is like the number one thing, the number one driver. I mean, but he's got one partner that has that benefit. The other person frees up and so you got to remember that in that case that percent of your God market is able to have that flexibility. It's very complicated that it depends on the generation you're looking at.  And that's true everywhere. That isn't just true here. I mean, and like we saw five, five years is when people leave. Okay, so are there other things in here. So let's ask the VBSA for to give us a link to their survey, right. And also, or some other place I said, oh, the employee satisfaction survey, whatever that was called. Okay, we'll just we'll put that on the on the link. If there's data that people feel that we need that doesn't exist like the interview questions that Andrew's asking about. It wouldn't be hard for us to do a quick Google form survey to employees and ask questions that we find critical. It's just an option. You mean to for all the people that are leaving. No, I just mean, currently, numbers of either these are the employees. It's just not hard to put it out via whatever evidence we all communicate with. It's just, it's a possibility. It's not something I think we should do, but if we find that we have really pressing questions. Yeah, I know that's something I see what you're saying. Well, I mean just putting out a survey isn't useful because it's not necessarily relevant because it's just a number of people responding to a survey who may not represent the employee workforce. If you're going to do a real survey, you're going to have to bring in a company to do it to identify what your, your mix of people needs to be in order to have accurate data that actually reflects the employee workforce. So it's, it's, it's actually much more complicated than just pushing out a survey if you want data that's actually representative of the workforce, which may be true about some of the. No, it's more than just a return on the survey. It's making sure that you get the right demographics and those demographics equal the workforce demographics. Because if you don't have that, then it's just a bunch of people responding to a survey, and it's statistically irrelevant. Which is why I never respond to surveys. I mean, it was, you know, it depends what your goal is with respect to the survey. I mean, yeah, but if you're trying to get statistically relevant data with respect to the workforce, that then it requires somebody who actually understands how to do that to do it. It's not just a Google form. If you're taking a portion of the population. Yeah, if you want to be representative of the workforce, then you have a representative sample for the workforce, not just to respond to the survey. We have a whole list of things here now that we've asked for information on. And let's look at the ones that we had listed before and see if they're, if we've satisfied those, or if there's more that we need on the ones that we have not yet heard from a personal investment about. We talked about retirement planning we talked about that and I mean I think we're going to talk about, I mean this is my idea but I think we're kind of moved along in a sense that we were looking at designing a plan to scratch, I think it's an interesting concept but the group's not there. It might just get somebody to send us some information though on like what what people should be thinking about when they're. Well, and I think the old added the rule for so someone's trying to $40,000 a year benefit, you know, 4%, you know that's about a million dollars they would have to have a typical type of account to be able to retire at that amount. Yeah, there's those things when I think people look at the pension benefit, you know they will look at the value they built up and would have built up that individually. That's what I was going for there. Retiring at 60,000 a year that's equal amount of $5 million in retirement accounts. To my $50 is going to be much good you're saying. Okay. So, how we compare with neighboring states contributions benefits to do we want more information on that. Yeah, I think I see it. And with the contributions the benefits and the overall package I think the over, because salary is one thing, but and then if you add in the benefits and so there's a, like main main probably has a higher retirement benefit, but they also are not a social security state so they don't get social security. So, they aren't necessarily competent. I think nationally makes sense, not just originally, and I'd like to see the trend over the last decade is just quick research shows that there's been a lot of changes in the last decade, where were people 10 years ago, we haven't really moved in 10 years, or they moved in those 10 years, make their plans work. Yeah, and we do have that in here what measures have other states taken to, to address their issues, but like changing their plan. Right. What, what, what, what have they done to salvage their, their plans. Yeah, I think that's really important information. I heard mentioned Nazra. That's what that's what I would suggest to keep brainered. I think would be really good to providing us that content. And the impact of one time contributions state revenue streams. That's kind of all this. The recommendations are going to do more of that. This morning, looking at the earlier parts of the. Yeah, I was just going to bring that up. In the beginning of that report, they set out sort of the values for. Yeah, they're right there. Yeah, yeah, right. That might as we wait for the actuary to come in. So I think it would help us to kind of set up our goals for our work here. We, yeah, I can. We can, we can look at that it's here in the report, we can look at it and see. What would you suggest in the context of our efforts over the next few meetings to arrive at a common statement of the challenges, you know, statement of the landscape. We are in that we might also consider adopting the similar principles to guide our work going forward. Yeah, if you read them, I'm not sure there's much else to say. I mean, it's probably worth reflecting on individually right coming back to that. But yeah, they I mean, they, they, they seem. I thought they were good place to start. Certainly, if we could take a look at those maybe formulate our own very similar but it's nice to have that as a as a sort of that values based kind of router to keep our work centered on. You know, the numbers are hard themselves but getting the numbers to work in a way that represent our values is even more challenging. Okay, so let's put guide kind of the guiding principles and the statement of the problem in one conversation to some extent. All right. Do we need other is there we have the two things that we're supposed to look at the issues of corrections. Judges to look at those two separately. And that will. I think come later right and how we because those are separate issues. I mean they're not separate issues but they're the judges certainly are separate issues. Well, I mean, if you look at the demographics and the Bsters, it does explain the difference in pension benefits for judges for law enforcement and for other retirees in the system, and they're quite significant differences. Right. But there is an act 75 there specifically says we're supposed to address those two issues separately. I think that's a good point for judges and this is much more. Is a nicer benefit package than for other. Yes. I think I misspoke when I said the SBA, I think it might have been the Vermont principles Association that did a survey not the Vermont School Board Association. My acronyms. Okay. You know Jeff, which it was. Okay, nevermind. I'm just going to repeat that. I'm just going to repeat that. I'm going to repeat that. You think it was a BBA. Okay. BBA. BPA or BPA. BPA. I'm not principles Association. This is what it's like to meeting in school going through all the. Yes. So while we're talking about this kind of list of where we are. Let's look at the agenda for next time. I'm going to make a suggestion, my suggestion is that we, one of the things that we need to look at. Soon is the impact of one time contributions and the state revenue streams. Those questions. Okay. When you, when you say state revenue, is that also. Possible alternative revenue streams that we could look at, or just, well, the stream coming into the state. And this is kind of what. Well, if there are, if there are revenue sources out there that we haven't tapped into so far. Yeah. If you can come up. I don't know. Yeah. But I do, but I think that I think that looking at that, what JFO would do is look at all the potential revenue streams in the state. What they, how stable they are, what they generate, what they could generate, what it means if you increase or decrease. One of the streams. So, because I think that that information will lead to what you were talking about, Dan. But I also think that it will sort of tie into what Peter Fagan was asking about earlier, which is what is the capacity of the general fund, which in many ways is limited by what we expect the growth of the current revenue. I think it's only X number of dollars that can be spent where everyone spent. But when you're talking about one time, you're talking about budget surplus money. Well, I think there's two different things one is the one time funds, and then one is the revenue streams that we have but they're, they're both fiscal issues so I think it'd be interesting to know too, especially before we into the process of starting to figure $1 ago. What's the value of $1 today to the system. It's not $1 reducing that liability has a, you know, this kind of might be 6.42 dollars or whatever. How do we design around that? You know, one time dollars worth more today than this $10 per 10 years for that, just with the compounding effects. We're designing it, understanding what that value of that dollar is. I think that you were quarries comments. Five, six years ago, we received some one-time money in the settlement, and there's a difference between one-time money and unobligated funds at the end of the fiscal year. But the one-time money received in the settlement, we split it up into several things with one of the things that we actually funds into one of the two retirement packages. And one of the two retirement funds, excuse me, and designated it for specific designation to buy down the 2038 contribution. So it's a perfect way of saying what a dollar today will do with 2038 because it was fairly substantial what it would do. As far as one-time money that might be left over unobligated in a conscript, it's actually a statute. Half of it goes to the spendable reserve, the other half goes to a state employee's retirement system. I was reading an article, and I'm not sure if this actually happened or not, but are there grants also out there that we can look into? So we'll apply for it to help the pension system? Well, grants tend to be one-time. Right. And I would have no idea about grants available to help retirement systems. I wish I would be highly skeptical of being, first of all, of there being any available. And secondly, if there were, you've got 50 states that would be competing for them and probably a lot of... I think the reason ARPA money can't be used for pension liabilities is exactly that reason. They didn't want it to be used for grants to pensions. So is the answer no? There are no grants available for pensions? I can't imagine anything. I just, I mean, there are grants for all kinds of things, but I can't imagine. I don't know. I've never heard of any. If anybody... Well, they're made for private sector plans, like there was... There was a bailout for private sector plans, explicitly. Yeah, and it didn't apply to public plans. Yeah. And if you're talking about people like the Ford Foundation giving us money, I suspect that that probably would happen. Agreed. All right. So can we put that on the agenda for the next time? I think we said the one revenue, revenue. Yeah. And that would probably be Steve Klein and Graham, maybe. Just to remind everybody, last time we met, a little while ago, the past... Yes. 75 billion. So obviously, as in terms of one time on each, obviously it's a bit more of a crime. That analysis would be further refined, but this gives folks a relative, you know, a sense of the scale of putting money in for one-page or five pages. That was going back to the context of one of the charges of providing recommendations on how to allocate money. So who is Graham? Oh, he works in the Joint Fiscal Office, the tax department. Okay. He's a tax people. Would it be helpful for the other members? I mean, I get the legislative items, but our general fund's not that big. And that's where these funds come from. So I think when people say, well, you guys probably got to get the 7th. So that's roughly the quick rundown of just the basics of our budget of, like, the $7 billion of state expense. We have like one and a half billion or whatever, 1.6 billion. That's the general fund. Depends on seat up like 30% of that already. And so that's where we get to that. You know, we can't control a lot of, like school boards. There's a lot of our budget we can't control because it's federal dollars and other things. So I just don't know if that makeup is helpful. I think that was one of the things that we talked about with Steve Klein was what, what, what, what, what's coming in now and where's it going and how much is it. What if you say you increase the sales tax 1%, what would that mean in terms of generating new revenues. I think it would be helpful to for us as a task force to look at the dollar figure of this year's ADEC payments relative to all of the other departments that are smaller that have a smaller total budget than, than this year's ADEC payment because I think it's, it is a bit stunning. So if you look at how much it spend money, right, like, I mean, you really take a look at the state level when you include, you know, pre K and K 12 and then benefits like for some like for 40 cents every dollar the state spends goes to education some capacity. You know, I've already down various buckets, but you know you look at, you know, that kind of thing and it's not a bad way but it just, you know, how much of our dollars and controllable dollars specifically are already going to this problem why is this a problem that we're having to address that to make some people go, you got to find a hundred million and a seven billion dollar budget or you got to find a hundred million and a billion dollar budget is, is what you got to find, or whatever the numbers. I think that we need to, we all need a better understanding of the, of the state budget and how, where it comes from where it goes and what it means to any increases or changes, whatever. So that's part of the, like just looking at that's one of the bigger things that you guys, Andrew, I think everything you as well, you talk about, it's like, they have it under I three, the state pension contributions as a percentage of the amount of spending in a comparison of other state's pension contributions. So that's something that we're all sort of a piece of getting to that main central thing of the exam. So, is it something that we can use the act 75. What is, what do we call those, those are bullet points or whatever. Yeah, those are our tasks. Just looking to make sure we're covering all the stuff as we're gathering all the information. Thank you for referring back to our charge. Just thinking about the revenue piece and trying to understand it better. Yeah, I don't know what the word is, but sort of, they take a look at different revenue options upon request during the session. Is there, we have access to those there on their website, there's a book that we get, let us say what's called the fiscal facts. And there's a page in there that like says a 1% increase in sales taxes, like $86 million, or, you know, it shows basically doesn't get into detail for like, it will show like, what a small, you know, what a small adjustment is and what kind of the rate is so you can see that. Thanks. I mean, anybody has time to see that. And you're have access to it here. You go on the JFO website or publications to call fiscal facts is the very first thing I read when I started working here. I'm going to give you a very good overview of the revenue picture of the state, the relative size of different departmental budgets, a lot of history about taxes and revenues over time and how much sort of 1% per minute or 1 cent per minute generates the caveat is we update these over the budget. So the most recent one came out in January, so that was based on the FY 1d, or 21 budget. Not based on the budget that. I think it's a good one. It's really limiting. No, it is. It really is. Should we all zoom on Saturday. Yeah. Okay, so what else do we need to put on for next, how long is this conversation going to take do we think revenue I feel like it'd be a long time to discuss personally. The background information we're talking about from revenue streams. The permanent and temporary revenue stream that we were talking about the permanent and temporary revenue stream. Well, yeah, one time and permanent and what the whole, the whole budgetary process, the where it comes from where it goes who spends it who's. And, and as Corey said what comes out of general fund what we have control over, and what comes to us from the feds that we really don't have control over, which is also part of part of that budget, and, and with where what comes out of the general fund for example, do see is completely general fund. That's, there's no federal money, no Medicaid, no nothing in the industry, it's all general fund itself. It sounds like between that and maybe looking at developing some guidance principles and defining the problem that might take a couple weeks. You have to, you have to throw things at Sarah here because I'm terrible about that.  I know we put breaks in. You just have to raise your hand and yell. And I'll put it, break it. A little bit about how that morning like the structure that my teacher had on now that we've had a lot of information coming at us a very little process time. And I wonder if we might structure it in a way just with two really simple questions of, you know, looking at a sheet and then giving ourselves time to say, What do you notice what he wondered. And doing that individually even. Because I think sometimes, you know, minds that haven't seen something might notice and wonder something that nobody else has thought of and minds that are seeing it at a different time with another time to reflect. Like also, and I'm just kind of curious because just because it would be different and won't be done and it's a process that's used a lot in Vermont schools. So I'm curious how that would work around the revenue and budget information that's given to us how how you would structure that. If you were to show you were whoever were to show the committee portion of the budget say, and then you do it with sticky notes and going around the room and putting them on posters you can do it with the thing called Jamboard online where people make, you know, reflections online and we see each other's work. It's just something I'm putting out there to be a little more interactive and I'm trying to think of it and I'm not a teacher so I know I know it's my world. I was trying to think of how you would have a present a budget presentation and rep revenue presentation, and then is your goal to to to slow down and may and have an intentional pause that allows people to reflect. Or is your goal to. I don't know to make it less intimidating to reflect or ask a question, then if what we did today, you know it was people raise their hands. I'm just trying to understand if the objective is to is to give time or or is it to encourage more reflection. Oh, I think time encourages more reflection. And so having time to look at something and think about it for a moment in our 13 brains might generate a level of creativity that really quickly through it doesn't. I'm just putting it out there. I don't have to think a little bit. Maybe I don't have clear perception of what would be presented to know how to structure answer that question. Well I think there was a lot of value in for these first few meetings in taking the first, you know, 30 minutes or today 45 minutes of the meeting to reflect on what we did last time and so maybe we should do that again next time, but then also think about ways that we can build in within the conversation for the rest of the task force meeting that day, you know, better better ways of reflecting part of part of what's also valuable about reflecting is to be able to reflect with with your colleagues you know so that in some ways those 1015 minute breaks that we take or lunchtime if you went for a walk with, you know, other task force members are also a time to say, you know, this is what I thought what did you think kind of thing so. So yeah I may have to call you to find out if you have suggestions on ways of ways of encouraging more more reflection during the meeting. I think a lot of what's going to be presented around revenue is is information that's coming to us there's. There might be a lot of creativity around thinking about the revenue streams but.  They I learned funding questions I still have things that I think I understand maybe I don't have been looking at it. Is it better to do it that way than to just have that conversation with people. You know I noticed sometimes today that I had multiple questions for treasure appears and sometimes we would get 10 and 15 minutes on the road. I still have a question about that and wanting to go back as hard knowing that she wanted to get through so much but I felt it was important to circle back to it.  So what we can come back to it at some point it's just helpful. I know by the end of the day starting at night and finishing at four. Some of the questions that I had earlier probably left my brain even though I've expressed them. So having it having something which is the. You know, we all know we can get up and throw some parking lot. Just a little teaching. I can leave you on song. Thank you. Not to be. No. There was one other thing that I find that we should look at. Do we have. Do we have time to look at any of the comfort goals with other states in that same session or do you think that. So, there's two things that I mean, the data exists. So it's easy to get the data. I think it's actually attached to the. Well, either the Treasury report of the 2009 report had convertible data obviously the data was from 2009 but NASA has it. The question is do we want a presentation on it. So, you know, that could take some time, but I think what would be more important is presentation and what their, what the trends are with respect to benefit changes. What states have done to tackle this. I was just talking about that. Well, then no one states the same side but similar size to Vermont that have the defined. Right, the data exists for virtually every stage to how they're defined benefit plan is set up. I don't know if we need a presentation on that. It suits well and to be in a data format rather than having someone go through all 50 states and tell you how they're, they're different. You can look, but what might be more interesting is, you know, getting a presentation from Nassra on what states have done to modify their pensions to address similar issues to what we're facing. And how they have that worked out. Exactly. Yeah.  So there are some good lessons to be learned from looking at what other states have done to modify the pension plans. I think I think both are important and I totally agree that having someone go through every state in terms of, you know, where they fit in doesn't make sense but maybe Nassra could touch on where Vermont fits in. I know I found presentation where he did some of that comparative analysis, I thought it was really helpful and putting putting our ourselves in context. And he did that thinking also compare other aspects of the states. I mean like average salaries, non of the employees and I mean I'm just trying to think of whether or not that was part of the presentation in terms of populations and area size. So how much how much infrastructure do you have to maintain with population as opposed to another state that I don't know if that was part of his or if he just did that. I don't remember being in that detail but he did make comments on, you know, sort of grounding into other states. There's actually a lot of diversity, you know, in the states as well. There's New York is in a very different position than all the other states. The gentleman's name is Keith brainer he works with Nassar which is the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. And he provided some context on both these serves and he stirs. In terms of employee contribution rates employer contribution rates, there was information on the level of benefits and so forth. We also have knowledge on where the direction states are going to. So what if we said, I don't know that'll fit in Kate suggested that just the two conversations might be enough for that one day. So if we looked at the revenue in the morning, and then one o'clock looked at forming a statement about what the problem. So that we have a common understanding of what what the issue is and what the problem is and then, and then took a break and then did looked at these guiding principles and how, how we might incorporate those. Does that. I want to ask a question. Say, I was thinking about it. So I don't think it's old but I was thinking. Is there a difference. Yeah. Is that time at the end to set the next agenda. Yeah. I feel like we might be able to fit in an hour with NASA next week. Okay. Okay. The afternoon I mean because just check the statement of the problem and the review of some principles. So it may be creation of principles. If they're that different 2009, if the charges with different times like I think that's what that conversation is that what we review of 2009 might not be the guiding principles for this group. I think it's hard to come up. It feels a little bit like we're spinning wheels and we don't have traction because we don't have that work plan that would come from defining the process that starts with defining a problem and having some overarching guiding principles for us to work on there. I'm getting myself a little confused here now because what 2009 did is principles of as Mike pointed out principles that we want our for our retirement plan. Not, not how we're going to operate with the principles under which, like, time should provide us all foundation for retirement security following a career in public service. They are like, seven different principles here. The principles of how we operate is that I just want to go back to like this whole started, and I don't want to put you on the spot there, but you talked about guiding principles in the same breath as talking about goals. I wonder if maybe you should be the one speaking events. So yeah, I mean, for me, it's at the end of the day what, you know, again, specifically here to make decisions and make tough decisions about our pensions and our benefits so as a group I think it's important for us to understand exactly what do we want our pension to look like what are the principles that we want our pensions to satisfy. As we look at this and use that as our principal sustainability obviously the huge one, how we're going to do that, things like that. So that's that's where I was going, maybe not so much as a whole but at the end of the day. When I have to go back and explain to people I work with this is what's going on and this is the decisions that we've made. And this is the reason why, right, because we decided that these five four things were extremely important to the pension benefits for all of us. And these are the things that kind of guided us in our decision. Okay, when I, when I look at how we, that so there's a difference between the goal posts and where we want to go in that the principles of how we want our, what we want our retirement plan to look like. And then there's the process of that what we use. And when I look at that I, and I may be wrong here but it's very pretty simple in my mind that we're defining, we're defining the common ground. We're getting the, well, we're getting the information the background information so we all have the same information and then the finding the common ground and what the, what the problem is that we're trying to solve where, and then start looking at potential changes, solutions that to address these goal, these guidelines. And that's where, when we start doing that that's where that people like the actuarial and the legal people need to be involved as we come up with potential changes and we get to a point where we hopefully agree on some of those potential changes that will meet these guidelines and adopt them. In my mind it's pretty simple but that way I don't know what anybody else thinks. I'm very focused on act 75 in the guidelines, because it's not like it's simple for me as well. In general, yes, we have our guidance principles on what we want to accomplish for the pension. But with act 75 we have specific goals around everything that we're here for, and I'm very interested in how, as we gather information right from all different sources and talk about this morning, not just JFO, we're bringing in different people and have witnesses and all of that, but it's really about reaching the goals, not even goals, reaching the, what would you say, the, yes, the charge that is in act 75, trying to do the best job we can about protecting the potential benefits of state employees and teachers and doing what we can and making sure we're doing it with the most informed decision because we have all the information. So I guess to me with act 75, like I had that, that's so much of fear that's the thing that I refer to all day, because I'm like okay, everybody's making, you know, whenever Andrew mentioned something like yep that goes right into what we're going to be working on and what we need to bring it to the floor when Sarah, see I was trying to just thank you. But just all of that as we're going through, I'm just like oh yeah that's going to be a part of what we're here for. So, that is my, you know, looking at the charge and keeping that work in that in the forefront. That helps when next week we make the plan on what is our mission what are we excited about what are we going to be doing and making our plan moving forward. So, maybe we could add that to the agenda in the afternoon is just revisiting act 75 and kind of maybe trying to come up with a detailed work plan for all our meetings. Lots of t charts around the room sticky notes as well as that. I think we can just make a simple bullet point of all the charges that are here just and hopefully all the information that we're gathering and decisions that we have to make our are addressing these in the end, and I don't think that I don't see them all as separate, dealing with them separately that instead, as we make decisions we're going to be looking at well how does that affect recruitment retention and how does that impact the workforce that so it's all, but we can make a nice bullet point form on that.  We like, you know, when I went through the law care of the last night, because it keeps swimming in my head, I see like 10 basic charges. So then I see either a 10 page document with like here's what we know so far about each of these things and we're adding to the constantly, and then a box at the bottom where questions can go, or a poster for each one where we're, you know, we're putting in what we know so far and then stickies go up with the questions so we can track of where we are with each of those 10 and what questions people have and what curiosities people have about them. I was struggling to track it all. I've got a lot swimming around, and I feel like we've had so much really juicy stuff. And I don't want to lose the thoughts that I had, whether we collectively have in which discussion. So where to get the supplies to put that together is that something that you might want to be sort of the keeper of in terms of writing the question, or, or, I mean I'm just trying to think of where, where does this resource lie in between I mean we all take a snapshot of it with our cell phone at the end of the meeting and, and sort of ponder it that way or were you thinking that that would go someplace else. We do. And we don't have access on our computers to, you know, to have it as a slideshow, or something like that, you know, where each page is a, is a what could be one poster. I don't know it's just a formulating it's like it's a don't have an answer. Yeah, but I mean, I think, you know, I think that's what you're looking for, or Well, I'm just trying to, I mean this is something that's different than how we have ever organized ourselves in, in meetings that I've been chairing here and so I guess I was just wondering if this was something that you felt comfortable, you know if we can ask staff to get a bunch of sticky notes and and a, and a poster board had, you know, is that something that that you would want to be helping to facilitate. I have people, what do you think as learner I mean people here feel like you would work best with something digital or with some where we're recording our progress digitally or recording our progress in poster form. Are we going to come down to the same time and three like three people digital and the rest like paper paper. Nobody else is interested in this and it's going to say something. I must admit that I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how, how this would work I mean there. Here's one of the things is a five year review of benefit expenditure levels as well as employer contributions and the 10 year five year project your projection of these levels and that's information that I mean I don't know how what we do with that in terms of putting it on a poster or or something and assessing the impacts associated with any modifications to the current amortization schedule. So if we get the information then I'm having a hard time figuring out how we, how we take these fees and so. So, actually, this is, I have friends as the teachers. Hey, Andrew and Molly, they introduced me to actually using Google Doc, you know, but I think it's really about we've gotten a lot of over the last one and a half days. We've had a lot of information, you know, and it's great because this is information we all need to you know all be on the same page. So we send basically for each of those charging savings there you're going okay, what did we have speak about this and we have that handout because I think Andrew was like, which hand out was that he just said I was like okay I have that just saying tracking the information for each of those points like okay we have this information here, and we had a discussion from this witness about this. It's not about, I think, I think that's how I interpreted. It's just keeping track. Have we talked about this. Is this something we have to explore further but it's just each of those, I think you said 10, 10 of those just keeping track of where we are in the process of addressing that issue. Oh, I thought that's what we were doing with this list. That's just based off of 75. That's what we're talking about. If that's incorporating that into that, that'd be awesome. You know, here's what I will do. And I will look at the points that we're supposed to be doing. I mean the tasks that we're supposed to be doing. And I will look at the information that we've gotten so far, and put it underneath there, and then kind of added to this document here. Yes, we, we had that done this we've looked at that. And so that it's in a form that also can go into a report at the end when we do a report on what we heard. And what we said. And then, and then if we want to do beyond that, in terms of what we have left to learn about those things. We can look at it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anything else. So did we decide that we should do have a NASRA thing next time or put that off until the next. I get a little confused about where we have this far. I mean, hey, I need to reach out to NASRA and see if they could come next week. That's pretty soon. Yeah. So maybe at the office. I'll plan for two minutes. So let's look at the revenue in the morning. I'm looking at developing the problem statement in the afternoon, looking at the principles and looking at this. Whatever we're going to do here and, and having, I think, beginning the conversation about public input power. Okay, ideas for that. And I think Sarah had mentioned how we kind of kicked off today with reflection. We can do that. Just one other thing, Jeanette. The task force is, well, most of the actual work cannot start right away. Looking at cross-substitution between the various groups can start right away. And I just want to know if we want to give requests that Segal. Yes. No, I was going to, I was going to review those. I was going to review those at lunch and. I encourage you to eat lunch. I didn't. So has any, and I don't have a iPad with me. I don't know if anybody has reviewed that. You mean the Google poll for the after September. We're still missing two entries and I sent out emails. Who are they? October is hard. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what it's due. So. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'll be flexible. Okay. So who's the other one? It's in me. I guess it's me because I looked at my email. Okay. All right. Yeah, as soon as it's come in, I'll send the report to you. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. And just to let everybody know too, I'm developing a repository of all the documents that. So far. It's going to be a one drive. So you're receiving an invitation. So far. We've got two days. We've got a hundred percent. From now until every from September until. Oh, three. One, two. Oh, four. Oh, four is better. I didn't scroll. All right. So. I didn't think the live stream. Okay. And I have.


What he represents is patriarchy. We're here to do work as men, as patriarchy. There's nothing more natural than being a father. All right, we're kicking it off. It's go time. You came here for a reason. Let that sink in. You're here for a reason.  You're here to take something away.  Now a lot has changed from the last time we had speakers till now. From the last convention to now a lot. My name changed. I'm Zach. No longer hunters. There's a start for myself. But the world has changed. We have corona. We have quarantines. We have isolation. We have people bringing themselves in, trying to stay away from others. They're worried. There's fear. There's an election. There's a lot going on in the world. But one thing has not changed. And one thing will never change. And that's the importance of a father in a child's life.  That a father is needed for the optimal development of a child. That a father is absolutely necessary to every single family to ensure that family goes the distance. To ensure that family experiences what an optimal life lived is. A life of connection. A life without fear. A life of purpose. And a life that maximizes and brings out the best of you. Now your chief patriarch is about to take this stage. He'll introduce this event. He'll have his keynote later. We'll be closing this thing out. From this moment on, it's go time, my fellow patriarchs. The man taking the stage has four children right now. One on the way. His beautiful bride is down here. So you'll see her walking around. They'll be doing the Q and A later. He's a family man. He is a man. And notice I said family man, not family guy. We're not talking Peter Griffin. That's not what we do anymore. There's no more Homer Simpsons. I don't want individuals who are going to come up here and represent families like that. That's not who we are. That's not who Tanner is. So understand when this man comes up here, this is a life he has lived. This is not lessons that he watched on YouTube. These are lessons learned throughout his life in raising his family. Without further ado, I present Tanner Guzzi, your chief patriarch. Morning, guys. I'm, as always, I'm very excited to be here. I'm excited to get to talk to you today.  I've been involved with 21 Convention since 2016. And as much as I've loved coming to a lot of these different events, in a lot of ways for many years, I felt like an outsider because a lot of it is very related to pickup or spinning plates or all these other things. And it's been a very niche and targeted focus on just the sexual dynamics of what it means to be a man in masculinity. And that matters. Our sex lives matter. The sexual dimorphism and the difference between men and women and how we are attracted to each other and how we relate to each other, that absolutely matters. And at the same time, anybody who tells you that that's the summation of what it means to be a man is really just a horny little teenager that still hasn't gotten it out of a system yet. There's so much more to being a man than just what your notch count is, or whether or not women approve of you. And so for Anthony to take the chance to expand upon this and do it last year, to have Zach be the Chief Patriarch and for him to absolutely knock it out of the park last year, set quite the precedent. And I'll tell you, out of all the events that I've been involved with, with 21 over the years, Patriarch last year was my absolute favorite. I love being able to interact with the men that have come to that event that there's an alignment of what our bigger and our greater purpose is. And so I'm excited for you guys to get to experience that, whether you're experiencing that for the first time or you get to experience that again. Because rather than just being a very niche and targeted focus on masculinity, you get to spend the next four days diving deep in how to really exemplify and develop and become the full measure of what it means to be a man, how to build a legacy, how to establish that, how to relate to more than just one woman or multiple women, but how to relate to other men, how to relate to your children, how to relate to the rest of the world around you. Now it's funny that we live in a time where patriarchy is a scary word, it's a dirty word. And for a lot of people, I know for most of you guys, you probably haven't even said much about this is the event that I'm attending or I'm speaking at. I know even for me with a lot of my normie friends, it's a men's conference. That's about helping men be better men because if you say the word patriarchy, it's terrifying. And in a lot of ways, for a lot of you guys, it may even feel a little bit like a lark, like you're just pretending because the state doesn't recognize any sort of authority anymore. Your church probably doesn't really recognize any sort of authority that you have as a man anymore. And so it does, it feels in a lot of ways like you're pretending, but you're not. Because your ability to lead your family has nothing to do with the government. It has nothing to do with your parents or your spouse's parents or your neighborhood or your church or anything about your community. It has everything to do with the micro culture that you establish within your family. This does not have to be a lark. This does not have to be playing pretend. You can be the head of your family. You can have a fantastic relationship with your spouse, lead your children and be able to create the environment that will lead to the most fulfillment and happiness that your family will be able to experience. And you don't need anybody else's permission to do that. You can create that yourself. That's why I love that you're here because you guys are here and you want to be different. You want to be different than what you are. You want to be better than what you currently are. And you also want to be different from the rest of the world. How many men do you know in your lives that look at what we're doing here and they get uncomfortable about it and they try to joke it off and it's, oh, that's weird. Like, I just want to be a guy or, you know, I just, my wife and I were equals. She does half the chores and I do half the chores and it's because we're afraid of the responsibility. We're afraid of the obligations. We're afraid of the privileges. We're afraid of everything that comes with having to actually step up to the plate and be a man in the full measure of it. But you guys aren't. You men are not. You're here and you're willing to take that on. Now, a lot of people in different parts of the internet will think about what we're doing as some sort of like trad con, save the West and again, LARPing a previous time in a previous era and it's not that. This is not about saving the West. You are not here in these seats. You're not about to listen to all these speakers. You're not about to network and make the connections that you are under some grandiose idea that you're going to save Western civilization.  Weak people are the people who hate their lives so much and also feel so powerless about them that what they do is they try to change everything else about the world around them. You know why? Because then when they fail at it, they don't have to worry about it because it's so much bigger than they are and it doesn't matter. But strong people and particularly strong men start on the inside, start with the smallest locus of control they have themselves and then from there they expand out into their families, their marriage, their children. From there they expand into their neighborhood, their church community, their extended families, their friends that they still continue to associate with in their families. From there it can build out to your community and maybe at some point all of us will be able to save Western civilization but you're not going to do it by yourself and you're not supposed to want to do it and if you don't do it, if we don't collectively do it it doesn't matter because you can create an environment in which you thrive, your family thrives and your community thrives. Not just survives but thrives. That is what's within your locus of control. That is something that you can absolutely do and that is something that you're supposed to do. From there hopefully it builds into something bigger but if it doesn't, it doesn't matter. Accept responsibility for what you have control for and again, I'm preaching to the choir on that. You might understand that, that's why you're here and I love that that's the caliber of man that's here in this audience and that I get to speak with and hang out with for the next four days.  What I want you to do is to think about those within five different arenas because this is what's going to help you to be able to understand what your field is as far as how you can tend your field and what these different crops are. We're going to use crops in this metaphor a lot as we go through this this morning. So the first one is how you're going to be able to develop physically.  So the first one is going to be how you develop physically. The second one is how you're going to be able to develop intellectually. How you can change the way that you think. How you can change the way that you learn and establish patterns and grow and develop from a mental perspective. The third one is how you're going to be able to develop spiritually, which is your morals. Whether you believe in God or any God or anything else or not, you should have a moral compass and that should be tied to something much bigger than just what I want right now. So you should be paying attention to how the other men who are up here are going to help you develop spiritually, morally in that regard. I want you to pay attention to how you're going to develop socially. How you will be able to relate to the women in your lives. How you'll be able to relate to the children that you have or that you will have or even your grandchildren. And I want you to very much pay attention to how you can relate to the other men in your lives because that's the secret in all of this. When we learn how to relate well with other men, so many of those other relationships fall into place. So I want you to pay attention to that. And the last one to pay attention to number five is how you're going to be able to develop and grow financially because you will have opportunities to hear that as well. Now some of these things may come directly from speeches and presentations that you get from people. Some of these may be things that just come from conversations that you have with each other with other speakers or things like that. But those are the five arenas that I want you to be able to focus on. Now as you listen to this and as you pay attention to this, you're going to get a lot of information. Most of it is going to be very, very good. Some of it's going to be pretty good. And honestly, some of it may not be good at all. Or some of it may not just be applicable to you at all. So how do you tell the difference? How do you know what's going to work for you and what isn't? You have to take what we're giving you. What we as the speakers are giving you. What you're giving each other is you have these conversations. And I want you to think of them as little seeds. And these seeds, you know what kind of fruit they can bear. Just like if you go to the store and you buy a seed, you know if it's going to be a tomato or an apple or something else like that. And what do you do with the seed? You plant it and you have to put in all the work and the cultivation and the time and everything else to trust if it's a good seed and it's actually going to bear any fruit for you. Because what you're going to get today is not going to change your lives if you don't do anything about it. Zach already addressed that. You're not here to listen. You're not here to consume our experiences. You're here to take those seeds that we're giving you and to plant them yourselves. And then you have to work really, really hard. And you have to have an irrational belief that the seed that you've planted then you're starting to put the work and the energy and the effort into is actually one, going to bear fruit and two, it's going to be good fruit. It's going to be something that is worth your while. I've been involved with the men's community, the manosphere, the red pill, whatever other name we want to use with it. That changes every year, right? But I've been involved with this since 2009. And there are still times when I'm interacting with my wife who's here that I catch myself recognizing, oh, that's something I used to have to, like, force myself to do and in a way kind of pretend to do. But now over the years it's finally become natural and normal. And it's not just an external thing but it's become internalized. And you men are capable of doing that. Right now, you guys are at a stage where you're better than most. Most men in the world are at a stage in their self development, in their familial development where they are unconsciously incompetent. They don't even know that they don't know what they're doing. They don't even know that they should want to know what they're doing. A lot of us here, and I am certainly this way in a lot of arenas, are consciously incompetent. We've had the scales fall from our eyes. We've had, we've taken the red pill. We've recognized this is not what I thought it was.  I really need to improve. And that's a terrible stage to be in because it can be overwhelming. It can be daunting. And for you men, the stakes are high because to recognize that you're in that position doesn't mean you can just next that girl and move on to something else. You've got skin in the game. You've got obligations and commitments and responsibilities that are very different. And so to be in this position where you realize I'm not as good at this as I think I, as I thought I was or as I should be is daunting and intimidating. And thankfully that's also what gives us the opportunity to thrive because we can either shirk that responsibility or we can step up to it. So we make the transition from unconsciously incompetent to consciously incompetent and then comes the worst stage of all, the stage where you try to get to consciously competent. And that's where the work comes in. This is where the embarrassment comes in. This is where the overcorrection comes in. This is where all these mistakes and all these problems come in. And this is where that seed requires the most amount of effort and energy and it hasn't even sprouted above the ground yet. So you can feel like you're completely wasting your time. But I promise you that if you work through that conscious incompetence to the consciously competent stage and whatever it is that you need to improve on on yourself so that you can improve your family, that seed will sprout. You will start to get something that starts to come up. But you don't get to rest on your laurels there because that still isn't bearing fruit. That little sprout is just the energy boost that you need to be able to recognize that, yes, this is happening. This is growing. And when you experience that, a lot of you have already experienced that. It's, it's like lightning to recognize that these things that you thought were permanent and integral to who you are can change and you can be better. And you can make it so that your family life is better. You can make it so that your work life is better. You can make your community better to realize that you actually have the capacity to do that and it's not some theoretical theorem or something that you've read on Reddit or a blog or on Twitter or something else but you actually have visible proof that that little sprout is there and it happens. It's lightning and it's addictive and you will want to continue to chase that and the amazing benefit of it is that you can continue to put in that effort and it can continue to grow and develop. So from there you get to a point where you become unconsciously competent. It's easy, it's effortless and it started to sprout and it's really started to grow. What I want you to do is to not get comfortable and not rest there because competence isn't good enough. What we're after is mastery. So we go from unconsciously competent and rather than just coasting which is what a lot of men do unfortunately. We go through what used to be the American dream and we check off all the boxes that society gives us.  You coast until you retire. Your ambition stops. Your effort stops, your growth stops. That's when you just stay and maintain and you stagnate on that unconscious competence. But what we're after, what patriarchs do is they get to the level of mastery. You can get to a point where you get to conscious mastery where you have to really work hard to get there and then eventually you get to the point where you get to unconscious mastery where this all becomes second nature. It all becomes intuitive. And then you're not just preaching but you're living it. Your children see you embody it.  They want to marry men like you are.  She can't help but brag about you. And she cringes when she goes out with her girlfriends and hears them complain about their husbands because she doesn't have any idea what it's like to be married to a man like that. That is what you want to establish because not only does it make you better but it makes her better and it makes your children better and it helps everybody else to improve. That is the goal. That is what we're after. Okay, so how do we do it? We've gone through the what. We've gone through this other. How do we do it and why do we do it? Especially because what we're after right now is completely counter-cultural. It's counter to the victim narrative. It's counter to the idea of equality and that this is some God that we're all supposed to worship. But the reality is that what you're trying to do, what you're trying to do within your own lives and with your own families leads to the most happiness on an individual level, on a familial level and really ultimately on a community and on a social level because what it does is allows you and your spouse to be able to develop your natural strengths and weaknesses and to get to the point where you can rely on each other because what we're after is not some old post-World War II 1950s version of patriarchy because that was rife with its own problems. These were great men and they were also broken men because of the horrors that they went through with the war and what their parents went, what their fathers went through with the First World War. That is just as broken in its own way as what this post-feminist and post-modern and everything else that we're dealing with is broken in its own way. We're not trying to go back to the past because you can't. This is not about the preservation of some ashes and worshiping at those ashes of a world that none of us have experienced or if we did, we grew up in it but it's been dead and gone for years. That's not what we're after. What we're after is taking the principles that are solid and integral to what can create a happy family life and that is hard, real and very politically uncomfortable truths like the fact that men and women are different, right? And that we're supposed to be different and we lean into those differences and we embrace them.  You teach your sons to want to grow up to be men. You teach your daughters to want to grow up to be women. We're going to talk about this a little bit more when I give you guys my keynote but one of my favorite things is I've heard my wife do this and this is completely unprovoked by me but she sees how I interact with my son and the ways that we're trying to teach him to especially that I'm trying to teach him to grow up and to be more masculine and embrace his role as a man and she's very consciously thought, okay, well what do I do for our girls? We've got three daughters and a fourth on the way. That's a whole lot more than this one son that we have and so I hear her when she's teaching our daughters and she says our role is to bring beauty to the world. It's beautiful, I love it, right? And so she talks to my daughters about is that kind of talk beautiful or is it ugly? The way that you treat your friends is that beautiful or is it ugly? The way that we have our home, the way that we clean our room, there's this core principle that she's now instilling into our children and that beauty may manifest in a dozen different ways. My daughters are all very physically different as far as how they look. One has red hair, one's got curly hair. They're very different in those regards. They've got different tastes. They've got, their language is different. There's beauty in a bunch of different directions but that doesn't mean that beauty is completely subjective and that anything can be beautiful or that the whole idea of beauty or anything else is completely barbaric or supremacist or whatever else that the postmodern world tries to tell us.  It may be different. It will be and it should be different in every single one of your lives because you live in different parts of the world. You have different beliefs. Your personalities and your strengths are different. Your spouse's personalities and her strengths are different. But that doesn't mean that the principles of the fact that men are energized and we do best when we are given the responsibility of leading and going out into the world and conquering in whatever way that we can or that women are best when they are given the opportunity to feel safe and to nurture and to support and to build in that regard. That may manifest in a dozen different ways but those kind of principles are real and just as we benefit from that the most important thing that comes from that Socrates put this way a couple conferences ago. He talked about the greatest privilege that you can give your children is two-parent privilege and it doesn't just mean that you have two parents or co-parents or something else. It means that you have a masculine father and a feminine mother and they lean into those dichotomies and to those different ways of interacting with and viewing the world and your boys get comfortable with the feminine and your girls get comfortable with the masculine and your boys are comfortable with the masculine and your girls are comfortable with the feminine rather than this hodgepodge weird mix of whatever else that it may be that the world is trying to throw at us. Focus on those principles. Take those principles. Think about them within those five arenas that we've talked about and benefit from that as you do that this weekend.  It's listening to somebody stand up here on stage and talk. It's valuable but it's the least valuable thing. It's the easiest thing and it's what you think you paid for but it's the least valuable thing. If you want to totally wrench every last drop of value out of this conference you need to interact with us and interact with each other in between the speeches and the presentations. You need to go to lunch with each other. You need to go to dinner with each other.  Now thankfully you don't have to tap into that alone. You can create networks with the men who are here. You can create a sense of camaraderie and brotherhood and support systems with the men that are here. You can do things like join Zach's Returnity of Excellence to be able to interact. He's got 15 men from this fraternity that are here that interact with each other and do it in a way by the way I need an affiliate relationship. Thank you. But do this in a way where this is an online and an in real life friendship and I know that these men because I've interacted with them rely on each other. I've had a multitude of these men become some of my coaching clients because of the relationship that they have with each other. You can do that. You can do that officially through something like what Zach is doing. You can do that organically by just coming out and talking to each other but you can do that. Now, one caveat that I will give you and this is applicable for talking to each other but it's certainly applicable for talking to the other speakers and the presenters that are here. If you want to do this the best way and you want to really develop those relationships don't talk to each other and ask for things. Talk to each other and offer things to each other. Focus on your strengths and what you can do to better the other men around you. Focus on your strengths and what you can do to better the lives of the speakers and the presenters. And then you will all be open to each other and we will be much more open to you so that we can all benefit each other. We can mutually grow and we can build up from there. I promise you if you do that if you make good connections here if you take the seeds that we're giving you you plant them you put in the work and you continue to put in the work until they actually bear fruit not just grow that little bush or that little tree but they actually bear fruit that when you finally get to taste that fruit you'll find that it is good and you will be grateful that you planted it and you will want to share it with everybody else around you. I'm excited for you guys to get to do that this weekend. I can't wait to get interact with you. So welcome to 21Con Patriarch Edition. What he represents is patriarchy. We're here to do work as men as patriarchy. There's nothing more natural than being a father.