Hello and welcome. So this session is entitled Establishing a Community of Care Lessons Learned from Our Pivot to Digital and your presenters today are Brenna Clark-Gray and Brian Lam. Over to you. Thank you. Brian and I are joining you today from the Kamloops campus of Thompson Rivers University, which is located on the Kamloops Taste Swetmuk territory within the unceded traditional lands of Swetmukulu, where learning has taken place since time immemorial and particularly open learning practices have taken place since time immemorial. So yeah, Brian is going to start by giving you some context for our pandemic experience. So take it away, Brian. So we couldn't help. I mean, this last year, I mean, actually, I remember very well exactly the context that was happening during OER 20, which was pure madness. And actually, I had to pre-record my session with Anne-Marie Scott.  So this is very much framed essentially is what our kind of what our practice kind of muddled through in that whole thing. So as we knew that something big was coming to our campus, and it was looking like some sort of face to face shutdown was going to happen, we knew that our university, which although we do have a large open learning division, which is how probably a lot of the OER community knows us, we also have a very significant sized campus operation with about 600 face to face instructors. And to be frank, most of those people had very, very minimal engagement with digital learning and were mostly I would classify as either not involved with it or very, very tangentially involved with it. And I think another thing to just keep in mind, and this is to be honest, I feel like our programming and our kind of discourse within our context at our university, I think it's safe to say when Brenna joined, you know, I think I was pretty frank with her, I said, you know, we really need to start start fresh here. And we actually ended up canceling our entire fall 2019 programming because it just wasn't connecting. We weren't getting turnout, people weren't responding to what we were doing. And so early 2020, we kind of started to build up this two to three year plan where we would slowly start to engage people and get these conversations happening and try to get us to a place where I mean, spoiler alert, where I think where we are now, I mean, I think what's happened over the past years, it's really kind of supercharged what we saw as a two or three year process because we had no choice. We really had to move into it. We knew that if we did not become incredibly responsive, we were going to be completely overwhelmed and overrun. Our campus support side is two or three people at that time. I guess that two or three depends on whether you count me. And we were going to be having five or six hundred instructors who are suddenly going to have to move wholly online in the middle of a semester, most of whom, many of whom, like, do you remember that one workshop we did, Brenna, where people were literally walking with boxed laptops and we were like taking them out of the like setting up their email and stuff. I mean, that's where we are. I don't want to go too much into detail. People who know, I mean, we did have a decent open source toolkit. We do have the pieces in place and we did have to do upgrades and things like that. But we also kind of knew that we had a lot of work to do to be able to extend that. And I think we'll talk a little bit more about this later in the session if I don't talk too much right now. But I think something we were realizing and we were seeing even in the very early times of the pandemic is kind of a touchstone for us with the Naomi Klein book, The Shock Doctrine and that concept of disaster capitalism. And we really could see the vultures were circling, you know, waiting for signs of weakness and ready to come in.  And we were seeing that coming from the kind of requests that were coming to us early on. And as I'm going to do just a quick shout out and we will probably refer to this again later. Brenna has done these wonderful two sets now of these digital detoxes. And I linked to her essay and I'll post this in the discord later. But she did a wonderful essay on kind of the idea of making bad choices. And we were seeing that happen a lot too to the point where even like, yeah, like our privacy law was being, you know, suspended essentially when it came to ed tech. So I don't know, I'll hand over to you Brenna at this point. Yeah, it's so we started off really just with hands on support. As Brian said, we were doing these in person workshops at first or just sort of drop in, we took over a computer lab in one of the buildings and tried to have through the beginning stages these socially distanced help sessions, which were not socially distanced or horribly stressful. And I was so happy when we abandoned them. But they were necessary because yeah, as Brian said, people were coming to us with computers still in boxes. We definitely had faculty who didn't have internet access at home and who were struggling to figure out how they were going to manage that and make that work. So we when we turned to fully online, we started offering four hours a day of daily drop in support. We have continued this process but scaled it back to three days a week. And it was a huge investment of time for the whole team and exhausting. And as someone in my podcast last week, faculty member who was involved in those early stages referred to those sessions as being like therapy sessions. And they often felt like it because we were often the only face of the university that faculty were interacting with in any meaningful way. And so it became a place to really like pour out one's anxieties. So I'm going to talk more about emotional labor in my session tomorrow. But that was definitely a huge component of it. But the sizable investment did give us this opportunity to establish needs and understand just how freaked out everyone was. We were under no illusions when it came to that. So we knew that we needed not just general preparedness and basic digital pedagogy skills, but like really concrete stuff like when do you do synchronous versus asynchronous and which tools in the toolkit are for which task, right? Basic audio and video production skills. And one concern that kept coming up because we do live in this austerity climate for post secondary was faculty, particularly those on contracts were really concerned about how they were going to log and report the work they were doing. And so the task was to kind of imagine a suite of programming over six weeks in May and June to prepare faculty for the September semester that could do all of that, which was terrifying, but also really exciting. And I think for our team, which is we had been so reactive, right, just answering support tickets and helping with immediate on the ground concerns, that transition to actually building a suite of programming was really invigorating. And we tried to underpin everything with an ethic of care thinking. And obviously, this is not new, particularly not to this community. Much of the discourse for teaching and learning professionals, particularly on Twitter was about care, right? How do we manifest care in our classrooms? And so for us, it meant spending a lot of time in sessions prioritizing not faculty wants, but student needs. So we would hear a lot from faculty about, you know, how are we going to stop them from cheating? How are we going to do this? How are we going to do that? And we would try to reframe that conversation to talk about, you know, why students cheat under pressure and what we can do at the assignment design stage to deal with that rather than investing in a tech solution. It was also an important space for actually modeling what online learning and online community in particular could be. And I would say that's the number one piece of feedback we got when we surveyed instructors at the end of the series was that coming to the workshops and joining in the community made them realize that it was possible to feel connected to people in a fully online space. And that was maybe over and above the technical skills, the most valuable thing. There's other issues and we've listed them there, but really, you know, thinking through trauma informed pedagogy, recognizing how just anxious and freaked out faculty were and trying to have a conversation about what that must look like for students at the same time. We spent a lot of time talking about low impact teaching because of our particular demographics. We have lots of students learning in remote communities or on reserves. And so we weren't sure what September would look like for those students and what access they would have to things like, you know, really large video files, for example. And then most importantly, these spaces became really reflective. So we spent a lot of time in each session asking, first of all, checking in with faculty, seeing how they were doing, taking the temperature, just talking about dumb stuff like cats who were always on screen and various things like that. But also inviting reflection and trying to get to the bottom of where that anxiety was coming from alongside the digital pedagogy skills. Um, I love Marshmallow Man so much. So Nicole Singular, who's our graphic designer in open learning, she helped us with the branding and imagery for the events. And summer camp was really a series of workshops. Marshmallow Man really captures the spirit. One of the things we were really careful to attend to, surprisingly, considering how stress we all were worthy aesthetics. So we wanted something fun, welcoming. We used lots of pinks and purples and yellows and blues colors that and pastels colors that really invited a sense of calm, but also fun. So we had 21 one hour workshops. And one of the things was that they were supposed to be light prep for us. They didn't always end up that way they're supposed to be. But they were intentionally zero prep for the instructors. So anybody coming to the session could just drop in. They didn't have to have anything prepared. They didn't have to sort of carve out any more than that one hour from their schedules. We did them during lunch over six weeks. And so basically three a week ish for six weeks. And it really did develop into a very fun community. It was my best hour of the week during probably the most stressful professional time of my life.  And we really mean we use badges in very silly way, Brian, if you want to scroll down to show one of our badges. So this idea that faculty were very stressed out about how to log the work they were doing, we resonated with us. And so we developed this little badging system. You got a badge for attending each workshop. And they all had silly names like this. They were all sort of pop culture riffs. So this one's gimme gimme gimme a badge after midnight. I'm going to break into song if you keep this. And this was actually for our badging session. I would say for Brian, the most surprising thing was how much people loved the badges and how motivational the badges were. I'd always been a badge skeptic. And I have to admit the experience of last summer proved me wrong. They can definitely be deployed as a motivational tool, at least for a certain type of person. No question about it. Yeah, one of the people on our team, her dad, was taking the workshops for his teaching. And he was obsessed with getting his badges. And he would be upset if something intervened and he didn't get to the workshop to get his badge. Oh, we'd always get a flurry of questions if there was any delay in getting them posted, or whatever reason, someone didn't get one. That was probably our most common feedback was where's my badge or how do I get my badge. That's true. So as Brian said off the top, we have faculty compliment of about 600. 331 attended at least one workshop, most more than one. We had a certificate of digital competency, about half of those, little less than half of those earned that. And then what I don't think I have here is that Oh, yeah, I do. The video archives have been watched hundreds of times and we are in the process of building an open resource of those workshops. Yeah, and that's at teaching.truebox.ca, by the way. Yeah, yeah, the archives. Yeah. Okay, I'm going to jump ahead to the pandemic impacts because we are running it. Oh, okay. No, and I wanted to make you talk about your podcast, but you got this, Brenna Clark, great. Search it. So we were really concerned, obviously, about the impact of these kinds of surveillance technologies and nobody on this call will be surprised by that. Also, though, we saw a real increase in control and compliance mechanisms, so punitive testing structures, instructors wanting to force cameras on. And so summer camp gave us a place not just to build skills but to talk about care and to really talk about why we were making decisions, like not bringing in an e-proctoring service on a widespread basis on campus, talking about low bandwidth needs of students, talking about Zoom fatigue, talking about equity and accommodations, and making that a thread that ran through every single workshop. So you might be showing up to learn how to edit a video in Kaltura or learn how to use Loom. But once you're there, we're also talking about all of these other equity and care practices as well. And it's hard to assess impact, right? But a couple months ago, we had the experience of a move to bring in a quote-unquote inclusive access textbook service to our campus and faculty mobilized against it in a way that really surprised me. And a lot of the conversation that was happening on campus really did seem to echo some of the discourse of care that was such a central part of the summer camp experience. That's the part that the administrator does not comment on. So just to kind of wrap things up, I mean, I think a lot of this is probably familiar to Learning Text all over this event. I suspect all of us have had a version of this story as well. So I want to thank everyone for letting us share our bit. And maybe I'll try to keep an eye on the comments here because people might want to have their own kind of things. But when I try to look back over the past year, some of the things I've learned since Brenda put me in a musical mood, I think now the Roger Miller song, you can't roller skate in a buffalo herd.  And I think it's that's idea, like you can plan for stuff. But if anything you've learned from the last year is that plans are a nice thing to have. And yes, it's nice to think things through before you move forward. You always got to be ready to adjust. I think it's safe to say the pandemic lay bare a lot of inequities. I mean, I think the hardest part for me and and and Brian is going to talk more about emotional labor at her session tomorrow. And I've heard her and read her on this and she's amazing on it. But you know, I think that's been the hardest part of the year for all of us were some of the emails we were getting when that when things were breaking down. And I think those things were always there. It's just it became impossible to ignore them because now there was this digital record of it. And frankly, because we were the first line, we were getting that. And some of these emails were really heartbreaking. And then some of the follow up conversations really difficult. I referenced disaster capitalism before, I think we just need to talk a little bit about I mean, at our university, we had significant layoffs.  And I think the textbook thing that Brenna referred to a dimension of that, frankly, was, you know, we're not, especially speaking for myself, who basically serves at pleasure at my institution wasn't feeling especially secure in my job. So I have to literally make that calculation. Am I prepared to get fired over this? And I don't I think it's not. I don't think that's over overstated to say that. And I do have a link to the gatesurveillance.net, which was a teaching that Brenna organized with a lot of wonderful people that are actually participating in this conference also in. But, you know, we have a colleague in link letter at UBC who has had to spend $100,000 to defend himself legally because he spoke out against an invasive technology. So this is the backdrop we're working against. So I think it's really great that Brenna made the point, you know, we it's amazing actually, though, when we were building this session or reflecting is like, holy cow, you know what, like, we now have hundreds of instructors, whereas before we had literary people coming with a box, with their laptop in it, we can now say there's hundreds of instructors right now that actually kind of know their way around Moodle and how to convene a big blue button session and are starting to think about using WordPress in interesting ways with their students for portfolios or whatever. But I think more importantly, yeah, I think the discourse really has moved. I think I think the sessions and I got to give Brenna the credit for it. I when she actually proposed the summer camp sessions, we were so busy at that time, I was kind of like, is this wise for your health, much less the rest of the team? I mean, otherwise I always did sessions too, but Brenna really carried the majority of it. And but it really did move the needle and I think it made, actually, I don't know if it made our jobs easier, but it certainly made it less innervating and less frustrating. So yeah, and I guess I'm going to try to take a look at the chat. I mean, or invite Brenna to jump in. I mean, it's, you know, I think people are talking about this return to campus, return to normal, but what do we build? You know, I don't want to flesh this year down the toilet. First of all, those things were laid bare, are still there. And I don't want to just forget what happened. No, Luke's got a great question. It is something that we dealt with a lot, which was how do you deal with the prevailing uncertainty when faculty are looking to reprint structural guidance and information you made out of How are we setting exam policy exactly? Yeah, exactly. That happened all the time, right? Instructors would come to us with a question and I'd be like, I mean, here's what I would do, but this is an institutional policy. And I think it was a situation that was moving so quickly and structures like universities are not built to build policy quickly. And so, you know, one of the things that was really valuable about the summer camp experience was building trust between instructors and our team, so that we could have really frank conversations like actually, we don't have a policy on this right now. And here's who you should follow up with. And in the meantime, this is what I would do. And it felt safe to have those conversations because of the relationships that we had built through that early period. And I have to say, it's good to be part of an institute. I mean, we're housed within the Open Learning Division at TRU. Our team had a certain amount of cohesion in terms of what we kind of believe and where we're at. So, you know, when we were having to improvise, I think I certainly trusted your guidance and I trusted other people on the team, you know, when people came to us and said, you know, why aren't you using this surveillance tack or why don't we just plug the Pearson, you know, course module in here. We were kind of all on the same page about how we tended to respond to those things. That meant everything to me. And of course, we had probably legally actionable back channel discussions constantly, where we were pretty frank and candid with each other. And that meant everything to you because there was an element of badness for most of 2020, honestly. And I'm sure many people, whoever's taking part in this can relate. Great. We don't have an awful lot of time that we're just about a minute. There was a lovely question from Francis there earlier. I don't know if you guys can catch it in the chat, but it was around could faculty relation, relaxation, change their practice to student practices in a pandemic crisis. And then I'm afraid we're going to have to kind of finish just after that. The short answer is a few did. Yeah. And that was great. Yeah, we had this one session called managing your marking load, which was a tricky way to get people in the door to talk about like, how do you manage this giant marking load? And then to say a sign fewer things. So we had a lot of conversations about care that were framed around these larger sort of faculty panic issues. And that really did seem to help people recognize the relationship between the kind of control that some part of them wish to exert in the classroom and the knock on effect for them, particularly in pandemic conditions. Okay. I think this really resonates with an awful lot of people here. The chat is absolutely on fire. So maybe we could just take it over to discord and carry on the conversation there. Awesome. I just want to say thank you so much. Love you all. Love you all. Thank you for helping us. Thank you.


Howdy folks Anthony dream Johnson air founder of 21 studios the 21 convention and co-founder of the red man group today on 21 live here with me one-on-one interview. I have Ryan black with me He is a co-founder with Sasha day game of the infinite man summit. He's an alumni speaker of the 21 convention from 2016 in Miami, Florida He has London's one of London's top day gamers He's a lover of black women everywhere and he has a fellow's son of the man is fear He found it in 2006 through the pickup artist seduction community Without further ado Ryan welcome to the show. Thank you very much Although I'm slightly insulted that I'm only one of the best day gamers in London I'm not the best but I mean you got a lot of competition man. It's a day game capital of the world last I checked So I mean what would daddy Sasha say I mean should I say that you you're better than Sasha I could say that if you want but I don't know what he's not in the UK. That's why I get away with it I thought he was back. I thought he was back in London, then I'm number two. Otherwise. I'm number one Okay, maybe you guys ain't have battle royale little little one-on-one WWE action man go to town I Was on one of these four there was this forum in the UK here in London Here actually and they closed it down a few years ago Forever and stashes Sasha kind of got big on it. So did Adam Lyons actually London selections LSS Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I've been on there. They hate me.  I see you're sure by the way. I have one of those upstairs actually. Oh cool Yeah, I have all kinds of stuff swag that Sasha has thrown out me over the years So I think I even have some condoms somewhere. Yeah, we're gonna ask you still have one of the condoms Yeah, I think so I have a whole idea The funniest thing was a bunch of those like the first run of those came and they literally closed the packet with like a stapler Not not so smart So let's do a history lesson for the fans that don't force for first of all to one of the reasons I'm interviewing you beyond just you being an alumni speaker and co-founder of the infinite summit is you're an upcoming speaker at our First-ever convention in Poland for a 21 convention and that's gonna be our fourth European event So talk to us about what you spoke about last time at the convention. I don't know if we put your full speech out yet I know we put out a bunch of previews Maybe the full one if not, we'll get it out soon.  I'm like, all right. You may you left a good impression. Oh, that's that's I'm really So that's super humbling which is the wrong way to use that word So I believe my main the main thrust of what I was saying when I did the first the first talk was this idea that We Kind of as as met as men a lot of the time we grow up in us in a society that gives us a certain kind of Matrix of beliefs that we just kind of unconsciously adopt Yeah, and this is very you know very much why our stuff kind of jibes, right? That's very much what the red pill is about is about challenging those societal beliefs that the the Disney kind of view of Relationships and and all the rest of it. Yeah, and I was suggesting that What happens is and what a lot of the pick up the especially the early pickup stuff I think a lot of people have moved away from it. Although. I'm pretty sure mystery is kind of still there He came back now. He has he has a Instagram and kind of seen it like a little company I think it's called a ask mystery or something like that. I was a state looking at yesterday Yeah, yeah, he's I believe he lives in London, but I've never I've never Never hung out with him. Yeah, we should do it. We should do a podcast We should get him at the convention. Hey, I'm gonna hit him up for Poland.  Um, yeah, they used to know so um Yeah, so so he like a lot of that early stuff what happened was is it was kind of this It was it was almost like the the medicine was the like the cure was worse than the disease or whatever that expression is Because what happened was is that there were these bunch of guys and they were like, okay We're gonna we're gonna challenge all these beliefs, right? We're gonna challenge like that this this Disney version of relationship this idea that if you do lots of nice things then You know women will women will will like you more and then they'll sleep with you Which as we know right is that the nice guy thing that just does not work It's like the exact opposite of what works exactly. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.   They're about to leave dating coaching entirely I think I don't know if you saw that but there's leading all of it Yeah, I saw someone's I don't really you know particularly Follow their stuff, but yeah Mentioned that they were they were doing that and I saw I saw I just got retarded for an ad where where Julian was selling like a basically Course that looked like just general general parts of development But the point I want to make about that that early stuff was it just replaced one set of limiting beliefs with another set So it went from instead of it was like, oh, yeah, reject this this notion of Nice guy and replace it with this notion of like DH being a negging Which is still it's still the same It's just two sides of the same coin because it's two sides of basically going what matters is what other people think about me Yeah Ego, so so it's just going, you know, like raise your value right go into the nightclub And like if you're just standing there and you're looking around for chicks your values lowering So so the average guy I'm not saying that there isn't something to what it's what's being said there That's an average guy who's struggling with this stuff. All it did was layer Another set of anxiety on top of the anxiety they already had because that was like, oh, what's my value?   Yeah, I got kind of retarded what you know How what do what you know What do I say to start this conversation and then just having these basically feeling like you had to have these scripts? Like some kind of like some kind of robot or some kind of like a flowchart of like oh So I'm gonna say this and then she's gonna say one of these three things Yeah, and then I'm gonna say one of these things and then she's gonna say this and it's like guys trying to Cuz and and fundamentally what what it's doing is we we know that you know That's not gonna work, but guys are looking for that because of a feeling of What they want is certainty Well, they're also socially retarded so they hadn't they had no certainty and talking to women So that that was I mean it's as crude and you know as those tools were I think it was like that was better than nothing Like they literally otherwise were just like hey, I play world of Warcraft like What do you want to have sex me? No I would I would Honestly, I would suggest a guy go up and open that way. Oh, yeah versus no, of course That's exactly that's what that's what I'll say to woman.  Like what's wrong with you? Like oh, you're cute don't worry about it like shit like that Yeah, it's amazing how far the community has come and since those early days, you know, I mean even for us That's the early days, but there's it went even before that obviously Yeah, and so so and and and you mentioned actually something as well, which is that Part of the thing that really appealed to me when I when I first read the game Which is quite soon after came out Was the evolutionary psychology stuff? Yeah, and this was a bit this is a big thing because I was really into like one of my One of my mentors at university is a professor that is who's great He He taught he taught this great course called biocultural psychology Which is looking at the interaction between evolutionary psychology like our genes and what makes us do certain things Or at least have certain behavioral biases and then the interaction between that and culture Actually, what's it? What's interesting that we don't realize is that? The cult the the culture of the society can affect the genetics of the later generations because culture acts as a selection pressure in the same way that environment does if there's a set if there's a certain But a bias of certain cultural norms that are enforced for a long enough period of time Then it makes sense for the later generations to basically have that Cultural normal that behavior hard-coded into them because then they'll be able to get to get it quickly and move in that Move in that society faster. We're the ones that have a trait that goes against those cultural norms We'll essentially be cast out of the tribe and won't pass on the genetic material. Yeah Let me let me stack on top of that, too. What comes to mind immediately I don't know if you've heard the term the concept of epigenetics. Yes, it's basically yeah It seems to be that seems to be occurring at the same time as what you're saying That's happening a culture that's you know, I mean look at the you know in the United States We have like, you know, obviously and part of our culture is politics part of it is a government I don't know the Constitution 50 states all these things, right? But on top of that we have things like the FDA and the food pyramid which then influences like, you know Food and schools which influences your gene expression over time as you mature into an adult if you're childhood This then results in you know epigenetics mean path epigenetics Basically is your your genes being modified by your behaviors over time and then pass down your children Yeah, it reminds me a lot of what you're saying It's a huge really interesting study and a lot of a lot of people sort of resisted it because they thought they assume They assume that it was Lamarcyanism, which is obviously Not true, but The sort of the Lamarcyan world view from right from around that same time from just before Darwin was the contention that the behaviors that in animals Inact then change that then change their genes and so he gave the example is that the reason that that Giraffes have really long necks like me You're kind of orange The the reason that he argued the reason that giraffes have long necks is because they spent their lives Straining and straining to get the you know the tallest branches or whatever and that's straining their necks and trying to elongate it Over time they then pass on that elongation to the next generation and that would continue and that's obviously not Necessarily the case but actually we're discovering now a lot of this stuff that we do Actually does have an effect on whether certain genes are switched on or off to the process of methylation Right, whether that happens or not and whether certain genes are switched on. Are you telling me the choices have consequences? So it sounds like is this yeah, okay, that makes a lot of sense Damn hey, let's talk about let's shift gears a little bit So you're gonna be speaking in Poland in just a few weeks the events coming up July 18 to 21 Warsaw, Poland I haven't seen in a couple years since you know the Miami convention we had back in 2016 What are you planning to speak about at that conference? Yeah, thanks, but thanks for putting me on the spot yet again so I Haven't fully decided but but it actually one of the things that I want to bring in is is is some of the stuff on on Evolutionary psychology because I I have a I think a slightly different I think my talk is gonna be is gonna be framed around the idea of being alpha, okay Because I think there's a lot of misconceptions surrounding it. Yeah, and I feel that even in even in sort of Popular culture well especially in popular culture, but even someone who I think is fairly well respected that you'll probably appreciate someone like Jordan Peterson Yeah, I think he gets What alpha is and what the the evolutionary psychology around? Things like dominance hierarchies for example, I think he gets it wrong And I'm not saying that Out of some kind of theory or whatever or things like that I'm saying it from having as I mentioned like actually studied this quite quite in-depth so I think that a lot of the stuff that around being alpha that comes from like the pickup community is Sort of dovetails with with Peterson is this idea of a dominance hierarchy of basically asserting like asserting like physical dominance over people and Sort of winning this winning this battle winning this frame war and all this stuff. Yeah, I don't buy into that because for two reasons number one the human society is not Exactly identical to for example chimp society In in chimp society and our nearest ancestors. They do literally have alphas that fight for fight for Dominance and stuff like that We are social creatures. We're descended from them. However, we have a very unique Thing in that we have things like cultures and languages which Which chimps don't have and what my idea of the alpha is and this is backed up by actual Anthropological research and stuff like that.  Yeah, you heathen you Is That the alphas of the tribe in for most of human history were those Individual males who were so skilled Usually at something like hunting that they were able to provide not just for themselves and not just for their immediate family But for their entire tribe To me that is the true nature of What being alpha is and it's the it's alpha coming from a place of abundance Yeah, the place of I've given all this to all of you and so why would I ever be attacked that open stance of? You know here here, you know, here's I couldn't possibly eat all of this here. You go guys from not playing It's a combination of like earned respect and and power and merit has got them there or some combination of that yeah merit Merits and exactly as you put it at this this this This feeling of earned respect right and what it's called in the in the literature is freely conferred deference Yeah, exactly not a dominance hierarchy of I'm gonna beat you until you submit to me And I'm the alpha now.   So, you know yeah, I know I know women are not designed to be leaders like that Yeah, you know, it's interesting to I find a lot and I'm curious to see if you agree But I find a lot in the manosphere whether it's a pickup community or anywhere else There's a lot of conflation confusion between alpha beta and masculinity and men tend to just take anything that is masculine is alpha and then anything that's like less Masculine they view it as or feminine they go that's beta and I think these two things operate independently They have interaction obviously obviously, but I think they they're the different spectrums They're not the same spectrum and I think most guys out of like a knee-jerk reaction or laziness of thought or whatever They want to put both of these things in the same level in the same spectrum when they're really different They do there are students like different spectrums of alpha beta and then like masculinity, but they're not the same thing Like you can be a highly masculine beta and that would be for example like some blue pill dude in the military There's like a complete badass retired, you know did some really hardcore shit in real life But then his wife or a girlfriend has his balls and it's for interpersed. Yeah, it's like how does he how does that happen? Well, that's because alpha and beta are not the same thing as being masculine.  I absolutely agree. Um, the inverse of that right is someone like Russell Brand Yeah, very effeminate acting and dressing Right.   It feels like some of these guys have some Internal kind of self-worth.  I think it said they can't wrap their head around the fact that he's providing them The the emotions and the experience and the desire that they that dude that other dude doesn't even though he's like a feminine He sounds you know whatever the Russell Brands a good example.  I have no doubt I know another friend like that now. He's just like that too and he absolutely kills it He's he's fucked way more women than I have and you know, I've done pretty good So let's move on a little bit So I called you know, I called you like a son of the man is for I think when I started this I did that for a reason because like me you found the man is fear through the seduction community exactly how I did I think are pretty similar about the same time at an early point in your life. You were probably I was 17 You were probably what basically told me like 21 20 21 when you found the pickup community. Yeah, like 22 Yeah, exactly. So you've had it a part of your life Like I know for myself I can speak that since I found the seduction community in the met and therefore the man is fear As one of the main like, you know components of it tribes. It's been part of my life virtually every day for the past Over 13 years now, and I'm pretty sure for you. It's been very similar So you've grown you've basically grown up with it throughout your 20s and 30s I grew up with it since my late teens and then my all of my 20s and now into my 30s So I thought it was kind of interesting to introduce you that way because I'm starting to realize that there's a whole generation of dudes Like me and you that found the man is fear that found pickup or whatever when they were young and that's influenced your life That's changed the course of your life and a variety of ways not just with women directly out picking up girls black girls right in particular No, hey, no blame. I think I've been some hot-ass black girls myself man.  I'm all about it dude But I'm realizing though that there's a lot of millennials I don't know exactly how many that found the pickup community and stuck with it Maybe in a career profession like you and I have but even independently that they've been watching it They've been learning they've been applying they've had, you know mixed results Some of them, you know started families with it and everything's all hunky-dory Others have been through toxic relationships others have been out to slam it They just been they've actually figured out how to pick up women and they decided to live that kind of like bachelor life So it's just it's just really dawning on me the guys like me and you that are in her 30s Now we found it when we were very young and it's been a huge influence on our life And never mind you've been you found a whole conference with an infant a man summit.  That's much better. Yeah.  I Watched the first Lord of the Rings and I was so embarrassing. I literally was like This is cringe-worthy and I never watched another one again. Oh, wow I love the whole extended the old extended issue. Yeah, and I've seen one I saw one Harry Potter film just because a girl I was with wanted to go see it and yeah Yeah, women are never read books or done anything.     God. I've been to London so many times I've been what I've only been like twice, but I've spent like Over two months there. I think yeah, it's all in my life Yeah, I miss it man.   I might get in I might be fine.  Yeah, it's not it's not that bad It's not that bad Central London is still is still pretty still pretty nice.  What's that?  Oh, yeah Yeah, that does that's a dark humor dark humor, but it was like Yeah, it is it's it's it's not it's not going so great. And especially now we have to be con as the mayor And he doesn't want to he wants to spend but dude, you're about to get worse. Johnson is your prime minister I'm so happy for you. I'm so excited make britain great again. That guy looks awesome I mean, yeah, I mean I out of all the out of all the people out of all the people who are kind of Potentially could be it.  I know Boris ain't perfect, but I'm happy for you man I mean the the the good thing is what? The good thing is he has it seems like he's he's sort of said and emphasized that he would do He would definitely, uh, you know do Brexit even if it means a you know a no deal Yeah, yeah, the right thing to do so we'll talk to me about this You've been in London a long time. I mean I wanted you've been there for how many years now I mean you were there when I was there right when Erna, were you 2011? I was born in the u.s. But I grew up here. I'm part from apart from university in Philly And then working for a year or so in in new york off the university. I've basically lived in my whole life How has the political landscape been changing? Well, how is the changing political landscape in london? Over the past say 10 years or whatever How's that affected the ability to be a coach? And then actually do day game yourself and I know it's huge in london going out in the middle of the day and approaching women On the streets and stuff. How has that been changing over the years? This is this is a a really this is actually a really good point because In answering that question, I'll talk. I want to talk about like a broad like a broader thing that I see happening Which I wanted to bring up so in my in my experience um Going around and doing like doing day game properly like correctly doing it the doing it in a in the right way where it's coming from a place of self-expression and self-acceptance and Fun and playfulness and humor and all and all that good stuff that we teach I I I still both myself and all and you know my students get exactly the same reactions from women now as they were getting You know 10 years ago. There is absolutely no no difference because what you have to remember is there's been no stabbings on the boot camp You're telling me absolutely Not even an asset attack not even an asset attack has even happened on the boot camp. Um and The reason of course the reason uh That might sound like surprising given the kind of political climate that we're in But what you have to realize right is number one the people who are pushing the kind of uh very feminist agenda of um You know just got right uh a a non consensual like Compliment to a woman is violence and rape Right that extreme thing right? They're very that they're tiny fringe of the far left Number one and number two.  That's what you're saying on the outside It's the women the women who are there's Like the most women like the all those hot chicks that did it for a while How hold up the things that I don't need feminism Yeah, all those go all those are attractive girls if you're a girl with high self-esteem Who is attractive and like sure of yourself and can take a compliment Then why are you going to buy into this ridiculous narrative of like?  What would happen if I walk up the women in london for day game with this hat on and just said make women Great, they should have sasha do that I'll ship them a free hat He'll do it. Yeah, I can't wear I can't wear house But I would be more than happy to wear a shirt that says that and and do day I don't think I don't think they might I was actually going to say before Like when we were talking before that um My buddy's having a party and it's basically fourth of july weekend. So i'm going to go to this party and wear my where my trump Uh, yeah, and then what will happen is people will be like, oh because july fourth you're wearing that ironically and I'll be like I'm wearing it actually but uh, so So this this this this point I wanted to make is this uh, you know guys out there if If you're kind of looking because what I what I have seen I haven't seen any difference in the reactions from women But what I have seen in a difference Uh in terms of what guys say their fears are and what guys say are is holding them back And this is what's really interesting because Women like the the attractive women that you want to meet Right the actual what the high self esteem women um You know who who are naturally beautiful and have stuff going on and and are interesting and and you know intelligent um Those girls those girls those girls are happy. They're doing great They don't need they don't need you know feminism to justify their their their failure and their misery More than a half Then more than happy to meet you and they'll be very happy to meet you as long as you do as long as you do The approach in in you know in as effective a way as possible, which is what we teach when I was in Poland This is what it felt like talking to women just a copy shot like that.  They don't act like men It's amazing and it sounds ridiculous, but dude in america It's gotten so bad even in the 2000s pick up was a lot different than this now And you want to assume it's in your head like oh, this is like some sort of bias Like the political lens gets changing. Is it really that much though in social settings? And it is dude even in holanda, which I've done the most game at things have changed 2009 2010 2011 is a lot different And nowadays it's just getting nuts man The gender war the gender relations and they could fall apart Well, this is so better than them.   Like I mean you had it you had like a terrible experience with one of your relationship and it's totally reasonable To feel like to feel, you know, an anger about it and to and to feel like, ah, you know You know, there's there's women out there that are manipulative and all the stuff and that's absolutely true But I just I just have this I have this feeling like Because there's there's so many people out there and there's so much There's so much kind of Sensory data coming in at all the times you can't notice everything Yeah, so if you get if you give into The kind of the negativity you will find that Like you will there people toy people have this kind of woo-woo thing of like you create your own reality, man And it's not so much that you create your own reality, but it's just because there's so much Yeah, you can only focus on like a tiny we can only we can only um Focus on five plus or minus two things At the same time like that's what humans are designed to do our subconscious can do a whole lot more But consciously we can only really keep track of like a couple of things So I I I agree with you you're creating a reality to the extent of what you're focusing on which is not Which is not woo-woo.  Um, yeah Well, I will I'll see if I'll bring a bunch to uh, see if I get a bunch for Poland because I you know what I actually I actually bought I bought a few and send them to my Uh, send to my brother's place and I don't know what I don't know what happened I forgot to get I forgot that I forgot to get them back because I wanted to give all the all the girls in my like Family and my and my girlfriend like one of the pink ones each. Um Women love the pink ones too, man. It's like a hot pink. They just put it on immediately.  And I'm like, yeah, sure But then the really smart ones I'll be like so women are great right now. I'm like, no, that's why I have a hat on Yeah, uh, do you think they're great? Why are they great because they're going crazy from what I can see And So let's shift gears a little bit. So the upcoming poll in convention Warsaw, Poland July 18 to 21 Get your tickets now at the 21 convention dot org. That's the 21 convention dot org link in the description Uh, are you excited for the other speakers there or specifically uh, a few of them? Maybe yes, um, I was just I've been speaking to a few guys that I know so Gareth is coming back, right I'm talking gareth. I should invite him. That's a good idea last minute gareth. Thanks. He's cool.  He's um, he travels to europe all the time So it's like super easy that he's always based in texas. He's always in france for some reason. Um, okay I'll hold him up. Yeah, yeah, uh, but uh, john cooper will be there. Uh, Yeah, browser browser pua Richard granin, you know, richard granin I don't Oh big youtuber from london. Uh, he's got like 130 000 subscribers. He focuses on psychology Talks of relationships, uh trauma. You like him a lot.  It's like a travel thing.   Yeah So it's just a travel thing with passports and blah, blah, blah, blah. We'll see what he can do Um, I do tates awesome.  I didn't know anything about him and then tommy robinson shared one of his videos Oh, yeah, yeah Oh, yeah, this and he was talking he was like he was talking about he was talking about brexit in his in his like Ferrari whatever he has This fucking knows what he's talking about and then I started sort of seeing some of the stuff It's a good man. He's he's very uh very eccentric Like there's no one else like him in the atmosphere and it's awesome to see uh seen me a part of it How does he speak in the future though 21 convention if not in poland then in the future At some point 100 he's cool as fuck I think his speech too will be really big pretty viral, you know, we'll put it out on his channel and of course 21 studios And uh, he's never given a talk like that.  I'm like that is awesome.  He's he's he's he's he's he's similar.  Are you like what is happening? Um So, yeah, I've always I always I I I would I would actually switch back Because I would always be like I don't want to do this thing where I'm halfway in the middle Um, because it just sounds so weird and it throws people off and they go Like americans, especially they're like, uh, are you like australian or something? I'm just like no I'm just even now with a completely english accent americans.  It's like those accents are completely different. Um, but yeah, I realized like um, if I can Either way, it's like if I'm american in england That's that sucked for a lot for a long time because people would people would make People make fun of americans here. Um, because they think they're better um and But being english here is just normal, but then being english in america is like a plus It is like i'm either zero or plus versus normal or minus So I was like no i'll be english everywhere. Yeah, you're right. Tate is um, he's american british like you Yeah We're the best. We're the best breed and and bars johnson Oh, yeah, that's right. It's like he's like churchill, man.  Obviously.  It's been a good chat. I'm gonna be catching up again. Look forward to seeing you soon in Poland You'll be there. You need to be at speak early, right? You said the 18th 19th I'd love to speak on the 18th if if I can if I can be squeezed in there and Thank you for having me on this and thank you for for having me at the summit I look forward to seeing you guys watching at the event Fuck yeah, man. And uh, where can everyone find out more about you? Is it uh infinite? It's real simple. We've consolidated everything. You just go to infinitemansummit.com a little bit of a long url Infinitemansummit.com we've got everything now We've got a we've got a free report all about how to get social freedom We've got all our uh, all our events where we're speaking me and sasha. It's all right there Got it. Got it. I'll put a link in the description as well as to your facebook account That's your main social media right your personal one. Yes Cool. I'll put the there Awesome, man. Thank you Yes, sir everyone else. Thanks for tuning in today to 21 live with ryan black special edition And I'll see you guys in the next episode


Hey everybody this is Brian and this is kind of a personal note. I found out the other day that my job is being discontinued. Oh yeah actually it's not really being discontinued. It's being transitioned to a different role meaning I may not have a job. So I'm gonna, I'm actually, let me back up here, I'm a military contractor with SAIC, Scientific Applications International Corporations.  I think they have like 40,000 employees all over the world. I'll be honest I don't know what I'm gonna do. I kind of want to stay where I am. I'm in Michigan in the United States because I have a daughter and a 92 year old grandma that I take care of and I really don't want to just up and leave them high and dry. I'm gonna finish up the contract because I have you know employees that count on me and I have responsibilities so I'm gonna make sure they're taken care of and they get transitioned and hopefully I'll get transitioned too if not I will be job hunting. So if you see my resume out on the job boards and all around hacker, server, administrator, network guru, and professional programmer in multiple languages so other than that if you see my tutorials kind of come to a screeching halt for a while it's probably because I'll be job hunting and or starting a new job learning the ropes. Anyways thanks for watching.


Does your right and left side not match perfectly? Watch this. Our next caller is Jeremy from Oregon. What's up, Jeremy? How can we help you? Hi there, guys. Thanks for inviting me on. I just have a question about bone structure and muscle imbalances, because my arms and legs on the left and right side are different lengths. And I'm wondering if that's like the root cause of muscle imbalances and how I should approach my workouts. Yeah, that's a really good question. First off, how did you get diagnosed with the differences in length in your right and left side? And what was the diagnosis? What was the cause of it? There's like no diagnosis. I just wear a size 32 pan on one side, size 34 the other cell. Well, it's not that significant, but you can notice the difference from like five feet away. Like it's they're noticeably different sizes. Well, no, here's why I ask. Here's why I ask because I remember I remember years ago, early trainer, I had a client and she came in.  Such a chiro move. And we went and looked and did the whole thing. And what it was is her QL, right? So this is a muscle that attaches to the hip was just shorter on one side because it was tight. So if you actually measured the limbs themselves, just the limbs themselves and you measured them from the same kind of origin, then we saw that they were actually the same length. That's why I'm asking the question. So is this something you've had since you were a child? Was there scoliosis or an accident or something that caused this? No accident, but it's been probably since I was like 13 or 14 that I noticed it. OK, I would get it diagnosed officially, but I'm not saying you're wrong. I would do that also. But here's the here's the answer to your question. Could that cause muscle imbalance as well? We got to understand what a muscle imbalance is. Imbalance meaning I guess we could loosely define it as less than optimal muscle recruitment patterns. If you do indeed have one side that's a one or two inches longer than the other side, then your muscles are going to acclimate themselves to help you move and perform in the best way possible with that particular context. OK, now how would I train around that? I everything I would do would be unilateral. So and not unilateral at the same time, meaning I'm not going to do a dumbbell bench press with both dumbbells at the same time. That's that's going to give you a little bit of a benefit. But when one arm is an inch or two long on the other and you press the dumbbells both up and one's higher than the other. Now you're still going to have compensating effects. So I would do one arm at a time, one leg at a time.  So that's how I would train. And that's how I would do all my workouts, if that's the case. And the only thing I would add to that is start with the weaker side. So whatever side is less dominant of your arms and legs. Start with that. Let that dictate how many reps that you do on the other side. So let the weaker side dictate how many reps you do for the other one. But that's exactly how I would train this person.  There's not a human being on the face of this earth that their left side is exactly the same as the right side. So we all have a little bit of this asymmetry going on. So how much of it would really depend on how much problems that it could cause? Do you suffer from any aches or pains or back problems? Or do you have anything going on? Do you have to wear? Do you have to wear a shoe lift on one side? No shoe lift. But I my left shoulder gets like tweaked and injured pretty frequently. OK. Yeah, I was just going to ask about your shoulders because it's going to go all the way up the kinetic chain. We have these compensation. So do you notice too, like if you're in good posture, are you nice and symmetrically kind of square with your shoulders? Are you kind of slouched a bit? I'm pretty symmetrical for the most part, maybe a slight lean to the left. OK, Jeremy. Yeah, I would go get an official diagnosis, make sure the actual limbs themselves are longer and it's not coming from, you know, one side being tight or, you know, like I can make one arm short in the other. If one rhomboid is more, you know, activated and shortened versus the other, for example, I could do the same thing with my legs. So make sure it's an actual limb issue. If it isn't, my advice is going to actually stay the same, though, with your training. I would still do one arm and one leg at a time and try and get them to kind of balance out. Now, I did ask the question about the heel lift and all that. Just a little side note, if you've been walking your whole life without a heel lift, adding one now is going to cause you pain.  I'm going to add this heel lift because it's going to balance things out. Well, you know, you're so used to walking one particular way. It's a long process before, you know, adding something is going to start to feel good. So consider that as well. For sure. And then would I would I just go to my regular doctor to get that checked out or like a chiropractor? No, avoid the chiropractor. Yeah, I would go. I would go to your doctor, your GP and see if they who they recommend you. You go through for these types of assessments. Can we get like Luna in on this in terms of like if if we get a physical therapist, if I would feel would have a better assessment. Yeah, PT would actually be awesome. You know, you could go to getluna.com. If you have health insurance, your health insurance will cover it. You don't need a general practitioner referral. You can go directly to them and they'll come right to your house. And I would bring this exact issue up with them so you can have an expert actually diagnose you with, you know, with with some that'll be helpful. Yeah, right on. That's getluna.com. That's it. Yeah, I think getluna.com forward slash mind pump. If I'm not mistaken, I don't know if you need the forward slash mind pump. All right, just getluna.com. Yeah, thanks, Jeremy. Right on. Thank you guys. No problem. No problem. Yeah, I've actually had more than one person come to me and say, my chiropractor told me it's the old school chiro move. You know what I'm saying? It's the old school where they pull they do one of those like, you know, they used to have the ones with all the strings in the back.  They send you down and go, oh, it's like the old gym move that we used to do. Yeah. When people walk in, oh, the gym's getting you. Oh, man, come over. One name is definitely. Come over here, sit down. Let me show you this prepaid membership I could sell. You know what I'm saying? So it's the same thing.  You're like two inches off here. But let me if we adjust your hips here and we do this, like, come see me three times. I'm 90 percent sure. It's probably what you said in terms of like a QL or something else that's like nice and tight and trying to, you know, compensate for something. Yeah, it's interesting because I mean, it could be scoliosis. See, because he's had no, it could be. He's got no pain though. He's not, he's not having any issues and also he has no official diagnosis. If you have legit one side longer than the other, since you're 13, I mean, I don't know how he grew up and what his situation was, but usually that's going to, it'll warrant a doctor visit at some point. Like, okay, we got to go to the doctor to see what's going on. Then they'll measure things and say, okay, here we have a growth because that's a big asymmetry, right? So you're right.   It could be scoliosis. It could be, you know, issues with your bones and your growth and who knows. So I would definitely, you know, have that looked at and make sure. But yeah, the whole, I remember this, the way they measured her legs is she would, she laid down on something and then there was like, you know, like you could see like it, you know, measured out inches on each side. Oh, your right foot is longer than your, well, yeah, because her left side is all scrunched up. It's not a leg that's longer. Yeah. You got to measure the leg. All the muscles that are like rubber bands holding everything together, you know, that when that shifts and it's off a bit, it definitely changes your entire like structure and how you carry yourself. Yeah. You know, these, these tricks are so insidious. I remember one time going to the mall and I was 17. Tell me about the arm one.  I was 17 years old and they were selling, do you guys remember when they were selling those bracelets for baseball? The brass ones or the magnets? Yeah. And they're like, you put this on, your performance is better, professional, this guy and that guy. And so the guy goes, come here, let me have you test this out. And he goes, watch this. He goes, stand on one leg, put your arm out. I did and he pushed down and I lost my balance. He goes, now put the bracelet on and try it again. He did it again. I was better. And he goes, oh, the bracelet's amazing. My friend's like, wow, it really worked. And I'm like, no, I tried it the first time. You knocked me over. I knew it was coming now. Yeah. My body got better at the second time. Like nice, nice try.  And I said, that's it, that's so funny. Hey, if you enjoyed that clip, you can find the full episode here or you can find other clips over here and be sure to subscribe.