Anton Nootenboom - Serving Men's Mental Health—One Step At A Time
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All right, Anton, welcome to the Man Talk show. How are you doing, buddy? Pretty good, man. Thank you. How are you? I'm good. How are your feet feeling?

My feet are doing pretty well, actually. They've got all the time to heal now. It's the rest of my body that I was worried about a lot of it, but now I'm doing better. Good. Well, for those who don't know who you are, maybe just give like a 30-second context of what you embarked on this past year in 2024. Sure. Yeah. So I am a Dutchman, Dutch Army veteran, and I just finished walking from Los Angeles to New York City barefooted.

which is a new Guinness World Record to raise awareness for men's mental health. And it finished as November and just got back home and mission complete. Nice, man. Well, why walk across the US and why walk across the US specifically barefoot? Well, the barefoot part is there's many reasons to it, but the main reason it takes something very out of the ordinary and challenging these days to get attention, to raise awareness and

The barefoot thing is just a paperclip thing. You know, it's as simple and easy as using my two bare feet that do the trick to get the attention because no one's ever done it before, like on that distance. And well, why, you know, across the US, I think men's mental health is a global issue, but I think the US paints a pretty good picture on how it is right now and it's not good. So I figured, you know, if there's anywhere I want to create change, it's the US, but also if you want to

have like this big ripple effect going to all corners of the planet, doing it in the US as well. Like the platform that you can create is way bigger. So there's multiple reasons. And of course, it's a beautiful country. Like I always wanted to go from West to East Coast. Now I just did it in pretty slow pace. Yeah, it really, really took you. Like I have, I love to drive across. I actually went across the country. I don't know if many people know this, but when my wife and I got engaged, my father-in-law, who is now 87, I think at the time he was like 81,

has a very big fear of flying. We got married outside of Vancouver, British Columbia and Canada, which is I'm originally Canadian. We spent a lot of time in Vancouver and in Whistler. It was one of our favorite spots. We wanted to get married in Whistler in British Columbia. Her dad was like, well, I'm not going to fly there. If you guys want to do that, I won't be there. I

I remember having this moment of like trying to convince him. I was like, come on, man. Like you gotta, you gotta get over your fear. It's just like, you're just, it's just flying. There's all of these things that you can do to help you. And you know, he's an eight at the time he was an 81 year old man and he was

not having it. He was just, I'm not flying. I'm not getting on an airplane. He's just terrified. And so I was like, well, you're not missing your only child's wedding. You're not missing your daughter's wedding. That's not going to happen. And so I made a side comment about drive. I'll drive you across the country if I have to, so that you can be at your daughter's wedding.

I was kind of half joking at the time. And then later on, probably about a week or two later, we were on the phone. And he's like, so were you serious about driving me across country? Is that a real option? I've been thinking about that quite a bit. And I think I could probably do that. And I'd be open to it if it was you. Oh, shit. Yeah.

But it was a really, yeah, it ended up being a really cool experience, you know, before a week before my wedding, driving my father-in-law from Somerset, New Jersey, all the way to

on one side of the continent all the way across to the other side of the continent to Whistler, British Columbia. It was an adventure, man. So I can only imagine how many experiences you had. But I'm curious about a couple of things. Number one, what was the strain like for you mentally and emotionally? Because I would imagine that there were mornings where you woke up

your body's in pain, your feet are hurting. No part of you is wanting to get out of bed, let alone continue to walk however many kilometers or miles in that day. How did you deal with some of that mental strain? The mental, physical, and emotional strain was just out of this world. And I felt that way every single morning. I was like, no, I do not want to do this again. But it was showing like one part of this whole journey was to show lead by example. And

And there's a lot of things I share about mental health. And one thing is that we feel like that often when we are struggling mentally or emotionally that we don't even want to come out of bed. Like getting out of bed is like the biggest task of the day. But then I encouraged like, just get out of your bed, get through your day. And by the end of the day, you're one day closer of coming out of it. So I got to show now by doing this that I did not want to get out of bed. I didn't want to hurt myself again by walking barefoot through the freaking Rocky Mountains.

But I did. And by the end of the day, I was one day closer of getting out of this, but also showing that, you know, you might think this day is going to be this massive challenge with everything you came up with in your own mind. But it turns out to be this awesome, beautiful day meeting cool people. And sometimes it wasn't. Sometimes it's just miserable. Yeah.

A lot of times it was, but you know, it just shows as well. Like you never know what the day is going to bring. So just get out of your bed, get the day going. And by the end of the day, you'll be one day closer of going out of it. And that's what got me going as well. Share a couple examples of some of the hardest moments for you. Cause I can imagine, I mean, I've ridden motorcycle through the Rocky mountains. I've hiked through some of the Rocky mountains. There's parts of that that are

very challenging landscape on a motorcycle and hiking. So I can imagine doing it barefoot, but share some of the really challenging moments. Maybe there's a couple of stories that you have from the journey. Because how long did you walk for? How long did this actually take? To me, eight and a half months. So 260 days. Yeah. So 260 mornings of thinking, I do not want to do this, but I got there.

And man, there's been so many moments that were beyond challenging. I think at first going through the Mojave Desert, there's not a lot of options on roads. And the road I took turned out to be made out of Lego. You know, like, you know, well, not literally Lego, but it felt that way. You know, when you miss that one piece of Lego that's in the living room and you step on it, the entire road felt like that. So I figured, hey, you know, this disease, like these deserts,

roads, you know, the dirt roads. It's going to take one of these and at least it gets me off this road. Well, that turned out to be a bigger mistake because it was just Lego all over the place. But then in the middle of freaking nowhere,

And you know, just nothing, no towns, no city for days and days surviving on canned food. I was there with my girlfriend, she was in a camper van, but it was just nowhere to get food. So energy got low. And that was just a start. Like that was within the first two or three weeks that we were like in the middle of the desert. And there was just no end to these roads. Like I would start my day and sometimes you like have these hills or mountains.

It would climb up and you'd stand on top of this hill and then you just see this endless long road just ahead of you going straight through the desert. And I just, I knew like every step I'm going to take of this road I'm seeing ahead of me right now, it's going to hurt, but there's only one way of getting there. And it's just by taking that step. So we have a desert at the start. I think Rocky Mountains, as I mentioned before, there was still six foot of snow when I had to do the Loveland Pass.

I had to take the Loveland Pass. It's, it's, you have the I-70, which is the interstate, but obviously I wasn't allowed to, to take that. So I had to go all the way around over the mountains. So it was like a 12,000 foot mountain peak with six foot of snow. So luckily the roads were cleared of snow, but it's still cold as hell. It was beautiful. And lucky enough, I get into this mindset. I can fully enjoy the fact that I'm just, I'm just doing it. Like what

What the hell? I'm here in the mountains. I see people coming down the mountain on skis and I'm walking here barefooted. But it was so cold. Like it was so cold. Like it gets into your bones. And of course, when you bare skin of the bare feet, touch that, touch the ground, it just gets into your entire body. So there's no way of heating up as well. But again, I managed to get through it without freezing my feet off. I still got on my toes. But I think the hardest bit was the Midwest summer heat.

Apparently it was the driest summer in a hundred years. There was a lot of drought problems. At least that's what people get telling us. You know, high nineties, low hundreds. And then the humidity, as soon as we got into like Eastern Kansas, Missouri kind of part, man, that humidity just smacked me in the face every single day. It was so relentless. And for three and a half months, it was just like high nineties, low hundreds.

And there's no hiding from it. Like I was out there, you know, it's, it's plains. There's no hiding. There's not a lot of trees. So I was out there in the sun for like eight hours a day. I burned my feet twice because I was just too stubborn. I felt like I can do another half an hour where I couldn't. So I had to take siestas during the day and just walk at night, which then, uh,

It gets more challenging because people don't see you on the side of the road. But yeah, those were, I think, you know, one of the hardest bits. One particular moment to finish it off with was in the Mojave Desert.

like again, this, this endless long road. And I just, I went on Google maps to see like, Hey, this is where I'm going. And I told the team, like, this is where I'll end up. And on Google maps, it just showed, it was one straight road and I was almost there, but it was like something that Google maps didn't show. There's an entire mountain in between. And I was pushing this, this stroller, like a stroller, like

like a dock a dock stroller and i was just by myself so there was no way in hell i was going to walk all the way back through the desert to go around pick a different road it's like i need to get over this mountain there was no trail there was no road just bare rocks um it was so challenging that after a long day of walking i had to pull this heavy trolley up a mountain

And then once I got on top of the mountain, like one guy of the other team, they're at the campsite at the other side of the mountain. And he came up and he told me like, man, you still got a long way down. So it took me twice as long. I had to like, like Gollum, I was coming down that mountain, like on hands and feet. I couldn't stand on my feet anymore. And that was one of those things like, well,

You never know what you're going to get. Sometimes, you know, it's, it's a good day. And sometimes it's a bad day. This was one of those moments where I thought, this is not my best day. But again, there's only one way of getting there. And it was like up and over that mountain with the trailer, with the stroller. And I made it, it was dark. It was, it was horrible, but yeah, we got there.

What's going through your head during those moments? You're walking through the desert, you're going through a mountain pass, feet are freezing, or the inverse of that where you're just getting swamped by the Mideast air swamp, or you're having to go through this other mountain pass. What's going through your head in those moments and then how do you traverse that? Because I think this is very relatable for a lot of guys where they're... I mean, it's...

a little different, right? Because you're not, maybe the guys aren't going through this type of physical challenge, but they're facing something in their life that feels insurmountable and you just want to quit. You know, you want to walk away from it. So what's going through your head in those moments? Well, the beauty of this is like, I saw a metaphor in everything I went through when it comes to like, on her main going through similar things with her mental health, just different shapes or forms. But

And I just let my mind wander and go wherever it wanted to go and without judging it. So you hear so often like your mind is the blue sky and your thoughts are just the clouds passing by. And I really liked it all because it's so freaking simple, but it works. And for me in that moment as well,

I think because I've been in the army for a long time as well, but also went through my own mental health chapter for quite a while. I learned the tools on how to navigate through these emotions. And whenever I felt angry, I just felt angry. I would scream, you know, loud as hell. I was in the desert anyway. Whenever I felt the emotions come up because I was just so tired, I would just cry.

Um, and in other moments, like just before I went up that mountain in the Mojave desert, I was just doing 360s by myself. Cause I was like laughing out loud because I was feeling like, well, like, look at this. I'm, I'm here. I got myself here and it's, it's beautiful. And then I went up to the mountain and I was just swearing like Dutch word, like swearing words was going through these valleys.

But I think the most important thing is like, I just let everything be like every emotion that came up was welcome. And I didn't try to control it. I didn't try to not be angry. I didn't try not to be sad. And it was like, it was such a relief that everything was just welcome. I didn't have to force it to be in any way. The situation sucks. There we go. I am allowed to be angry, but not let it take control over me. So I wouldn't.

lose myself in those negative thoughts. I would still, like I said, I know these are just clouds passing by. I'm allowing myself to be angry or sad right now. I know this too shall pass. This will get better and I'll come out on the other side. And that was just, I think that was like a mantra that I was just keep telling myself was like, this too shall pass. Like whenever I was laughing and having the very best time, I knew this too shall pass. I will get

I will get, I'll get to be challenged probably like in an hour or so again. And same for when I felt shit. It's like, I know this too shall pass. I will feel better in a few hours, a few days, however long it takes for me to get through this. But everything was welcome. And I think that was the best tool to have with me, to have the knowledge I will get through it, to not lose myself in the emotions and let them just be there. Yeah.

- I'd say, I just did an interview on Modern Wisdom with Chris Williamson. He's got a pretty decent sized platform and I've been on there a couple times but we just did a man's guide to emotions and it

It was funny because he's asking, he's very logical and very, very rational and linear. And he's doing his job as a podcaster, right? Trying to extract information for his listeners, which are largely men. And it's so funny because as men, when it comes to dealing with our emotions, we always want some rational, linear breakdown of what we do with them. And I think one of the biggest things that I was trying to drive home in the episode is exactly what you're saying.

which is one of the worst things we can do with our emotions is to try and stuff them down or ignore them or to repress them instead of actually allowing them to just be there and come up and out in some capacity.

And that process of allowing yourself to just feel what it is that you're naturally feeling in any given moment without having to become overrun by it or become that emotion fully, but just to allow yourself to feel it, have some form of expression around it, that is processing your emotions. And over time, you become much more proficient at it. And so it sounds like you had this eight and a half month journey

of like emotional processing in some ways that really, you know, I would imagine has led to a different layer or depth of emotional calibration, understanding, regulation, self-trust, all of those pieces. I wonder, I want to back the train up a little bit because we haven't touched on why you actually went on this journey in the first place. Like why trying to raise awareness around men's mental health? What spurred that on?

So I've spent 10 years in the Dutch army. I did three tours to Afghanistan and afterwards his life happened. So relationship issues, so heartbreak, financial issues, not being in the right job, not being in the right place. And above all, after leaving the army, losing my identity. And I didn't know how to deal with all of that combined. Like I call it Murphy's law, everything landed on my plate at once. And I was one of those guys that said, don't grime it up. You know, just keep going.

And I learned a hard way, if you don't speak up, it's yourself and a family around you that you're punishing. And I ended up on a cliffside in Sydney, in Australia, where I was living at the time, not necessarily wanting to die, but just wanting that pain and endless long, dark toll ahead of me.

that I imagined to be there, I wanted that to stop. And lucky enough, I scared myself enough with just having that thought. And I stumbled back and I saw this sign on a fence saying Lifeline. If you're a mental distress, call Lifeline. We're here 24-7. And even in that moment, I still told myself, I do not have a problem. And even if I have a problem, I'm a dude, I'm ex-military, I'll solve this myself. That took about another week.

until I was just pacing up and down this beach. I was just in like in a deep depression. I didn't know how to deal with it. And at some point I was pacing up and down this beach and all of a sudden I stood still and I overlooked the ocean and I felt like I'm at this intersection here. I can keep doing what I'm doing, but that's not going to get me anywhere. Even worse, I'll go deep down the rabbit hole. I won't come out of it. If I want to feel different, if I want to have a different outcome, I'm going to have to start making different choices.

And there's only one person that can make that choice and that's me. And in that moment, I chose to seek help. And before, if people will come toward me saying you should come to like a mental health coach or whatever, I was like, go hog a troop. It's not my thing. Go float away in your magic carpet, but you know, way out of my comfort zone. But I figured, you know, I'm rock bottom here. I got nothing else to do. I might as well just try it.

So I went out, I got help from this spiritual coach even further out of my comfort zone. But that's when I realized like, hey, this is doing something to me. She gave me like a few small things to do, like meditation, like mindfulness. And at first, again, with a lot of resistance, I was chewing on a raisin and I had to go through all these sensations, like what the hell am I doing? Or meditation, I had to look for a quiet spot, sit there with my own thoughts, thinking that's the least I want to do right now.

But I did it anyway. And along the way, I figured like, hey, but I'm not thinking about my own misery right now. So this is doing something. And it got me onto this journey of just self-awareness on, okay, what else is out there? I started reading more books, started listening to podcasts. I watched YouTube videos, downloaded more apps. But most importantly, I started to talk.

And I bumped into the same people every single day when I was just pacing up and down the beach and they're always asking, how's it going, mate? And my standard answer, yeah, you're good, busy, busy, be good. You know, standard answer to pretty much everything. And then I realized like, but I'm lying to these people every time they're generally asking, how are you doing? And every time I answer it in honesty, when I told them what I was going through, I felt like, hey,

I'm not alone because every time I share it, they share it. And if I like, so everyone I'm talking, like talking to is going through something and they all have their own tools to, to kind of deal with it. If they can do it, I can do it. And fire that way. I just slowly, you know, made my way out of it. And I came out stronger than ever before because now I had all that self knowledge as well. But in that whole process, I learned how big this issue is.

Like how many people are struggling with their mental health silently and even more so how many men are struggling silently with their mental health because they were like me and they see it as a weakness. And I know now it's courageous to speak up. And if the army told me one thing, it's lead by example. So I now had my story and the tools that I learned.

And I wanted to create something so I can share my story and the tools that I learned in the hopes that creates like a safe space for someone else to feel if he can do it, then I can do it.

And walking barefoot in Sydney, Australia is just a bit more in the culture because you live at the beach. And I was just walking home barefoot one day and I figured I already promised myself I would take myself through the Himalayas. I wanted to see the highest mountain on the planet as a physical and mental challenge to myself so I could empower myself again. And I figured, you know, I want to raise funds and awareness for people living in these remote communities. They can use some help.

And I'm pretty sure no one's ever done base camp of mine ever as barefoot because why would you? You know, it's super uncomfortable. And that's when I thought, I'm just going to be the first person ever to do it barefoot. That way I can generate attention or awareness and funds for these people living there.

And so I did. And as I reached base camp of Mount Everest, like this cliche Hollywood scene where I stumbled towards like this big rock with the height of base camp Mount Everest. And as I touched that rock, like all the emotions came out, like I was crying and laughing at the same time.

And I fully realized I got something here. It's as simple as using my two bare feet and willpower to create change for someone else. So that's where the Barefoot Dutchman was kind of born. I need to use this.

And I just kept researching, you know, what mental health means, how it impacts people and how we can change it. And yeah, I just started to use that crazy thing to generate attention for men's mental health because, you know, in a lot of countries, it's the number one cause of death. But, you know, you don't hear for men, but you don't hear anyone talking about it. So we hear about the flu, but we don't hear about the number one cause of death for men because still this stigma exists.

around it. And I just want to show the opposite is true. It's, it's not a weakness. It's absolutely, it's an act of bravery and hopefully this way I get to show that. Yeah. Yeah. I love that, man. I mean, it's, it's interesting. There's, there's a bunch of different threads that I want to pull on in there. What the first, I just want to sort of touch on is what do you think are the real challenges that guys are dealing with today? Like what, what do you see as

I would imagine that you had a bunch of different individuals reaching out to you over your journey. You probably ran into a bunch of people as you're walking across the country, et cetera. And so what have you seen that men are really struggling with on the day-to-day and within themselves?

I think just not feeling safe to say anything, just having that feeling of always just having to be that rock. And I think it's a very healthy thing to be the rock, but not, they have to feel like a lot of men are stuck in just that one way of thinking. So the only side they have is it's very heavy, masculine, not,

particularly very healthy masculine side, where a lot of men are not aware they also have another side that's fully allowed to be there. So the main thing is men do not feel safe to say, I need help. You know, even when you go to Ikea to build this big-ass closet,

I will fix this. I'm a man. I'm going to put this together. No, man. Like if you deal with a mate, you're going to be twice as fast and you might learn something as well. I think a lot of men see each other as competition. So we don't dare to ask for help to our mates anymore because he's doing this. I need to do this to be a better man. Like we're all brothers. We're all on the same level. We get things to learn from each other. But that

feeling is not there yet because society kind of makes believe we always have to fight each other instead of just collaborate and work together. So on that level, that's where it starts. Like we have all these responsibilities as men and they're beautiful.

but we don't have like this, how do you say, like an off button. We're always on, we're always working towards something. We're the rock, we'll get the bread on the table. We'll do this, we'll do that. But we don't have like this off button where we can just say, hey, you know what? I want to do this, but I'm not really sure how to, or I'm experiencing some stress or whatever, but I don't have this felt that I can relieve some of that pressure. We just don't know where that button is. We only know the on button

but we don't know the off button

And yeah, that just causes us exactly to be like me at first to say, God, but I'll fix this myself. No, you're going to learn the hard way if you don't speak up, it's yourself that you're punishing. But on a more bright side, that once you do, this whole world of opportunities and solutions will open up. But we're so stuck in this, in this one way of thinking, this is what it means to be a man. And this is what I need to do. And there is no other thing. There are no emotions. I don't have vulnerability. Well, I got an

in a newsflash for a year, you're just human. Like everyone else, you're born with it. The first thing you do when you get born is you dry. It's in your system and we're just allowed like anyone else to show that. And the problem with that is so, well, the solution to that is I think like it's just up to us to make each other feel safe.

We can have the most beautiful organizations out there that do like the best work to help us. But if we don't make each other feel safe to go there, we're not going there. They're useless then. So it's up to us men to level up and just to create that safe space for each other to say, hey, you know what? If you need any help, I'm here for you. Or if you see a mate struggling financially,

that you know for a long time. You know that someone is struggling, even though it doesn't always show. When you've got a mate and there's something going on, there's always little things that you might, you know, notice and just ask like, hey man, I just noticed that you're acting off a little bit. Is everything all right? How's home? Just start a conversation.

That's sometimes all it takes for that burden to relief because that person feels seen. It's like, oh man, this person just creates a safe space for me to actually say, hey, you know what? No, I'm hurting right now. It's fine. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a bit of a, it's like a catch 22. I think it's a conundrum that most men feel because we know that a lot of our value comes from being able to provide

Be that rock, be solid, be strong mentally, emotionally, physically, and we're rewarded for that. Society, culture, women, other men rewards us for having that strength.

So, you know, I think for a lot of men that I've worked with over the last decade, it's like, well, wait, am I not supposed to be strong? Like, I think that's what my way for my girlfriend or my boyfriend, like that's what they're actually asking for from me. They're wanting me to be robust. They're wanting me to be resilient. They're wanting me to have grit and determination. And so I think for a lot of men, there's this, there's recognizing that it is something that's extremely valuable to the world.

It's recognizing that it's also very rewarding for us because I think every man who does develop some type of mental strength, emotional ability and acuity, physical strength...

et cetera, just go down the list, he feels rewarded by that internally. But then it can turn into a kind of prison where if you over-index on that and you don't allow yourself to receive any support or help or praise from outside of you, then all of a sudden it can morph into this really negative experience of,

isolation and desperateness and I have to do everything by myself and then you're bitter and resentful towards your partner and friends and the world and the government. And so it really is funny how this thing that we as men are rewarded for and kind of expected to achieve, this thing can really morph into one of our greatest pitfalls.

Would you agree with that or like how would you look at that? No, for sure. I think that's exactly where we're stuck in and I think

a very simple solution to that. It's simple, but not so simple. I was wrong, we're doing it. But the simple fact is like, we just need to change perspective again, because it's not been like this. It's only been like this for what, maybe 100, 150 years or so, but we need to change perspective because it is a strength. And as soon as we start to see it as a strength, all of a sudden our chest goes out, our chin goes up. Oh, okay. So I'm strong when I reach out.

which is actually true, but we need to, we just need to change perspective again on the fact that you can still be a leader. You can still be a rock. I think you're even better over leader. If you just sometimes say, I need help with this one, we can go there together. And,

And, you know, towards any relationships as well. Like if you, as a man just says, hey, you know what? I don't have the answers to this, but I will find the answers. Like I will find help to get there. You show that vulnerability, you become even more of a man to your woman by just showing that you've got that emotional side to yourself as well. Like it is not a weakness and that's the thing that we need to change. That's the thing we need to lose.

is that it's not like one or the other, that if you show emotion, all of a sudden you're less of a man. No, you're even, you're more of a man if you show it. It's not like black and white, like there's, there's more to it. And,

you know, I fully vouch for it. Be the rock, be the leader, be that man, stand tall, chest out, chin up. You know, it's, it's good for you, but also know that you have this other side that's fully allowed to be there and it doesn't make you anything less of a man. Opposite is true. It's making, it may, it will make you more of a man, but it's,

Again, up to us to show each other and again, to lead by example. It just takes that one friend in a group of friends to say it out loud. And I can assure you that maybe not in a group session, they might kick your chin first. Afterwards, they'll come back to you. Hey man, thanks for saying it because I'm actually going through this right now. I can assure you that it will open up that space.

your mates, your colleagues, you know, wherever your teammates be that one person that says, Hey, you know, this is what I'm going through. And I can assure you someone else would say, Hey, me too, man. And that will open up the conversation. And that will show you by practice that it's not going to make you anything less of a man. And I think a cool thing to know about that as well, that it's been like that for thousands of years.

We sat on rocks and circles, men coming together, and we learned from each other and we shared stories. And young men learned from older men how to become a man by talking, by, you know, sharing stories. And the wilder men did it. The samurai did it, you know. We have all these really cool Hollywood movies. They show there's one aspect of being a warrior, you know, you know, battles, the spear in one hand, shield in the other hand. But what they don't show in the movies is

But what is written is that after battle, they would nurture each other before they went back to their, to their wives and families. They will be there for each other to mourn their losses. They will, you know, wrap an arm around each other to say like, hey, you know, let's go through this together. They would heal each other wounds so they wouldn't drop it on their wives and children. What happens a lot right now is now at some point the bomb burst and we just drop everything on our family and they're not there to, to deal with your shit.

We as men, that's my opinion, we as men need to help each other so we can safeguard and protect and keep them away from all your misery in that sense of just don't dump it on them. You can talk about it, but don't dump it on them. But like I said, it's been like that for thousands of years. Like we need to come back to that warrior man that stands tall and strong, but also is therefore his mate after a battle. It does seem that

along, like we've kind of, there's a saying in the West that like, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, right? And I think that part of what's happened in the, I'm like trying to word this in a way that I'm not going to get launched at online, but I think I'm just going to say it anyways. I think part of what happened with the attempt of dismantling the quote unquote patriarchy was that what came along with that was the villainization of any type of men's spaces.

And the view that men hold all the power, men shouldn't be allowed to gather. I remember when I started Man Talks 10 years ago, I literally for years would get messages, like hateful messages from people. I mean, a lot of women initially, but men and women as well saying like, why do men need this? Men already have everything. Men already control all the spaces. Why do men need another space? And it's like, hold on.

How many spaces are there for men to talk about what they're going through, to share support for one another, to create maturity and elderhood? That's not what a lot of spaces are for men. Modern male spaces are sports-oriented, finance-oriented. They are not about...

emotional, psychological, soul-oriented, spiritual-oriented health. That's not what they're about. So it was very interesting when I started the company that there was so much hatred. And I think it was very telling because it's almost like you can be almost assured that when you catch that much flack and that much resistance that you're onto something. When people launch at you that hard,

And even just the name, Mantox. I mean, I got so many people like, what do men need to talk about? And everything from like, this is gay, you're a cock, to all the way to the other side of the extreme of men just need to have cuddle parties and cry with each other. And it's like, oh my gosh. There's so much misunderstanding of men, how men operate.

And there seems to be so little interest in actually genuinely understanding how to support men. I think I've said this stat on the show before, but there was a study that was done in the UK and it looked at male suicide. And what it found was that 91% of the men who had taken their own lives had sought out therapeutic help at some level. And 80% of those men who had sought out therapeutic support

They had been deemed as low risk of suicide or no risk at all.

And so we really do have a culture of, even in the therapeutic space, I think the therapeutic industry has done, and I've said this before, a real piss poor job of being able to support men and meet men where they're at. I think that the biggest problem within modern psychology and modern therapy is that it approaches men's issues from a female-oriented lens.

And it misses out on large pieces of what men actually need to do in order to find mental health because those things are in some ways fundamentally different from what women go to therapy for. You know, a lot of men...

they want to feel competent and they want to feel competent in their emotions, in their decisions. They want to feel competent in how they show up in their relationship and their communication. But that's not necessarily what the majority of women are going into therapy for. They're looking for... I mean, I don't want to speak for what, because that'll just get me. I'll just have tons of... This is not what women want. And so I don't even want to go down that rabbit hole. But I think

I think that having worked with so many men, having worked with so many therapists and psychologists and counselors and coaches,

and having them as clients and supporting them. What I've noticed a lot of, and then digging into the therapeutic and kind of being outside of the therapeutic industry as somebody that's very skilled in therapeutic practices and modalities, it's like that whole space needs an overhaul. And in terms of how it approaches men's issues, because it's almost like taboo to

to say that men and women are different and how they approach their problems are different and what causes

problems internally for men and women might actually be different. That's a big thing that you shouldn't say. And it's like, well, how the fuck are we supposed to solve anything for guys if we're not allowed to say maybe what's causing men to take their own lives is different than what causes women to do that? And that we should be able to study that. And I think as clear as daylight, that is the fact. And then...

Like you said as well, like it's, it's like this very delicate thing to discuss because we can't, like everything has to blend in. Everything has to be equal and the same thing. I know there's just differences in our biology. We just need different ways of, of dealing with it than women. And it's fine. Like it doesn't say the one is better than the other. It's just different.

I had the same thing. Like my campaign was called Brave Man Talk. I had it over and over again, the same discussion, like, oh, why men, for example. And then I think a very important note on that is, is that us men do not take care of our mental health. The numbers in...

discrimination, in sexual abuse, in violence, anywhere, like in a home, it's just going to grow and grow. Like it's, you know, we have way many more women that are dealing with men that, you know, are violent or, you know, just misbehaving in whatever way. So that's why we need to work on our mental health. It's not just like, oh, but you guys have so much already. No, no, no. This is the issue that we have. And this is what we need to do to actually help you guys as well and to have kids that grow up with a better sex

sense of what it means to be like a healthy masculine man or what like a healthy relationship looks like. Therefore, we need to work on our mental health. I also, I'm just going to jump in there. I also think that there's, I also think that we need to shift the perspective and the narrative and really push back

on this perspective that men are at the cornerstone of the problem within society and modern relationships. When you look at the data out of the UK, out of the US, there are a lot of men that experience domestic violence and domestic abuse. And a lot of the data shows that when domestic violence, and this isn't every single time, so I don't want to make it sound like that's what I'm saying, but a lot of the times, I don't remember what the stat is,

When domestic violence happens, it's both partners that are contributing to the domestic violence. It's not just one party. But what ends up happening is that men don't speak out about domestic violence. We don't see it as a real issue because men are stronger than women. There's a whole bunch of stigma around a man talking about domestic violence and those types of things. And that's just one example. But I think at the core of

of it is this notion that women are the victims and men are the trespassers.

That is very prominent in our culture. Now, that isn't to say that men don't enact more violent crimes than women. They certainly do. But again, when you drill down into the data, it is a very small percentage of men that are repeat offenders. They're doing these things over and over and over and over and over again. And so what can happen is that you can see the data and you can have the perspective of, well, the volume of men that are committing violent crimes

committing violent crimes against women is so much greater than women committing violent crimes against men that you can have the perspective of, well, many men are violent against women or many men are violent just in general. It's like, well, no, it's that data and those stats take into account guys that are repeating that violent crime. But I do think that I talked about this in an episode where I talked about what I call the patriarchy virus.

where there's a notion in Western and modern culture that every problem socially, relationally, economically can be traced back to men. And it's the patriarchy's fault and it's men's fault and

and men need to take responsibility for it. And in some ways, it takes women out of the equation. And I think it amplifies what a lot of the pressure that a lot of men feel, which is like, man, I'm the problem for everything. And I talk to a lot of young guys who feel that way, where they're like,

I watch the news, I go on social media, and it seems like I am the villain for absolutely everything that's wrong in the world. Like, why should I even bother contributing to society?

when I haven't even graduated high school, I haven't even graduated college, and I just have the target on my back of you're the problem with society. So how do you think about communicating with young men that are maybe growing up in a culture that I don't want to say is anti-male because I think that's dramatic,

but that are growing up in a culture where they're hearing a lot of these narratives of like men are the problem you know men need to get their shit together guys just need to be better just sort of blanket statements like that who you know a lot of young men sort of feel like how am i supposed to even contribute when i'm just seen as the problem yeah well i think

The solution to, well, not say that's just one solution, but a solution is what I mentioned before, like young men learn to be men from other men. And I think we need to ingrain that more into like normal life. Let's say have groups like that in schools where men can just come together and learn from each other. Like, hey, what's going on in your mind? What's going on in your brain? And have a discussion about it. So, because what happens with a lot of teenagers nowadays, like you get social media, you don't talk.

So you get all this information, but you don't let it out. Like, so that becomes the truth where if as a young man, you just have these conversations already, you birth that bubble, you get more information. You feel like, oh, okay. So maybe what I understood from just seeing these videos is not the truth. There is like different truths out there and I can, I can search for my own, but the half these conversations in schools already, I think is the most important thing to do right now for young men.

I always say a little less of Pythagoras and a little bit more about life. And it definitely counts. Like it counts for, you know, girls and boys. But I think especially for boys, because like you said, they feel that pressure of having to be a certain way already from a young age. Like I need, I eventually need to be that leader. I need to be the provider. You haven't even left, you know, high school yet and you already feel that way. You already feel that pressure.

suicide amongst teenage boys is again the number one cause of death for a lot of teenagers it's like freaking ridiculous like they shouldn't die at all

But if they do, they should die from being stupid enough to jump from a roof because they're just being boys, not from mental health issues because they're just boys. They just start life. So let's start focusing on the whole system on how we teach or what we teach our boys and how we do it. Like you said, like in the whole therapeutical system, it's the same thing. We need to, you know, redevelop certain programs. I think we're like...

have different looks on how to deal with certain situations when it comes to men's mental health, but especially with young boys. Like, we need to plant the seeds as early as possible that talking about these emotions and going through these, you know, mindsets or thoughts is one, okay, but also that you need to talk about it

And, you know, if there's any young boy listening right now, please talk about it because whatever you see on social media or on any movies or whatever, it's not true. It's not, it's don't stay in your own bubble and make everything the truth and make it heavy and heavy. Please chat and your bubble will burst. You'll get different insights and you'll feel lighter and better about it. And you'll get the right tools on how to navigate through these

emotions and whatever you might be dealing with. Tools that are way more important than, you know, grammatics or math. This is, I mean, I think this is a good segue into the sort of connection between physical pain, physical resiliency, and emotional struggles, you know. And

What I really love about your journey is that it really is at that intersection of physical discomfort, a lot of physical discomfort, and then the emotional struggles that come along with that. And so I'm curious about how you see the relationship for men, especially of men,

having physical discomfort, the role that it plays in being able to teach you about how to deal with your emotions and how we can create or how young men or older men can create opportunities for themselves to actively... Maybe I'll ask it in a more simple way. Why do you think it's important for men to do hard shit? Because that's ingrained in our

DNA, that's who we are. We're not supposed to be sitting in a chair all day in an office and then sit in the car and then go to our couch and eat crap all day. Our body is supposed to move. That's how it's designed. That's why we feel miserable when we sit for too long. And that's why we feel great when we go for a run or we go to the gym or whatever you want to do. That's why our body starts creating happy chemicals when we start moving. Like it's ingrained in us. So, and especially for men,

It's kind of like, again, going back to the old days, that's our task. Like we are supposed to be warriors defending our freedom and safeguarding the women and children in our life. You won't be able to do that when you're just lazy in your chair, not moving at all. You'll never get that sense of confidence from your chair. You will not grow in your safety bubble. It's ingrained in us to move, to get stronger, to lift heavy things, to

to run, it will create like a sense of confidence that will create like a feeling like no water, that you are on top of this world and that you can, you know, if you want, you can safeguard your family. Not that you, because that's where it goes wrong a lot as well, that we go into that direction, but then we get into this kind of, I wouldn't, I don't like using the word toxic, but we start to abuse our strengths. So we get physically exhausted.

abusive or emotionally abusive because we feel strong. No, just know that you can doesn't mean that you have to use it.

I think the knowing that you can is something that we all have to have, like that sense of confidence. And the same goes on for your mind. Like that's, I always say, like if you train your biceps, train your mind as well. Like it's another muscle for you to, you know, to go to the fitness for. Understand how your brain works, understand who you are and how you respond to certain situations. Like it's just as powerful to know that you can lift, like bench press 100 kilos. I don't know how much that impounds.

But to know that, hey, I'm being triggered right now and I've got a choice on how to respond and I'm going to let my emotions control my response. I know how to observe my emotions and how to respond in a certain way that I keep control in that sense. And I'm not like outbursting or whatever. Or, okay, this is the time just to let my emotions go and I'm crying. Do you think that men need to go through physical hardship in order to

to have some level of emotional mastery or can they attain deep emotional mastery without having to go through some type of physical hardship? - I think you can do it without physical hardship because some like heartbreak, for example, is one of the toughest things to have to go through in life and that will teach you a lot of tools or how you deal with certain things as well. But I think for us, that's a very negative way of feeling it.

the most positive way to, to gain that strength and to gain that knowledge is by challenge yourself physically. Like it's a healthy way of learning and growing and getting stronger at it. So yes, I think we need the physical challenges in our life and we need to pick it. Like we need to get out of our comfort zones. We need to get off our lazy butt. That's what we need to do. Yeah. I mean, I, I agree. I agree. Cause I've always wondered about this of

You look at even monks as an example. I mean, they sit for hours and it's not comfortable. If you've ever meditated for more than five minutes, you know how much discomfort can arise physically, mentally, emotionally. And I do think that there is something for us as men about confronting discomfort and being able to intentionally put ourselves into situations where

whether it's a hard conversation or something physical or something that we risk being rejected that develops us emotionally and psychologically in a way that we can't get otherwise. And I think that part of the issue that a lot of men are experiencing today is that modernity has kind of sold them this bill of goods that says, if you seek comfort, you'll be happy. And a lot of men attain some level of comfort in their life

and they're fucking miserable, you know, because there's nothing for them to press up against. There's no discomfort in their life. And you begin to atrophy psychologically and emotionally. And I mean, it's really such a strange thing. You know, it's like I've talked to, I've had a couple of guests on the show where we've talked about, you know, do you have to go through real hardship? Do you have to go through some type of

whether you want to call it trauma or extreme discomfort or extreme hardship to really achieve some kind of greatness. And I'm starting to believe that the answer is more and more like, yeah, you do have to put yourself into things and experiences and create opportunities for yourself to be really uncomfortable and to get that level of discomfort to sharpen yourself.

I think Tom Brady, I think it was Tom Brady. Yeah. They're like an awesome speech about that, that, you know, in the wind, like when, like, cause they were winning so much, like I did not learn anything from winning Superbowls. Like it's cool, but I, it doesn't do anything to me. It winning all these games doesn't teach me anything. It's when shit hit the fan, when everything was destructive, when I wasn't picked, when, uh,

Uh, we were losing when physically at an injury. That's when I was learning. That's when I felt alive. Like I'm not, you know, I'm not really sure what he said, but like it got, it got to that point where, you know, it's, it's like the winning stands for comfort in comfort. You're not going to win anything. Like it's, it's just going to make you numb. It's about the challenges. The challenges will make you grow. The challenge will make you stronger. It sounds so cliche, but it's so needed because like fact is the majority, the vast majority of population has

has become weak because of all the comforts we have. That's why we have so much disease. That's why you have so much mental distress. We have become weak because of all the comforts.

We need to go back to the basics and understand again, what are the important things and challenge is part of that. Like again, back in the days, they had challenges every day just to survive. Now you go to your kitchen and it's like, I don't know, whatever you want is right there. We need to, yeah, we need, we need to go back to the basics of what made us thrive as humans. And that is definitely, you know,

the challenges we were out in a cold we were out in the heat we had to survive we were part of nature we were eating healthy we were exercising because we had to go out and catch our own food not saying we have to go back to being cavemen again but you know understand the pure basics of what it means to be human get yourself out of that comfort zone and get yourself in that spot again make yourself long for food you know like uh fasting in that sense is another challenge you can do

you know, get used to not eat every single hour because that's one of the most unhealthy things you can do. You know, a challenge lies in so many things you can do for yourself and there's so many healthy ways of challenging yourself, but in that growing, understanding yourself better and knowing how to respond better and to stand taller and stronger. Beautiful, man. Well, that feels like a good place for us to maybe begin to wrap up today. Give our listeners

a little bit about where they can find you and maybe what challenge you're looking to next. I know you're in full recovery mode, so maybe you're like, I'm not looking at anything right now. But yeah, where they can find you, follow along in your journey, learn from you, and maybe what challenge you got next. Cool. Well, yeah, they can follow the journey mainly on Instagram, TheBearfulDutchman. If the is not there, it doesn't come up for some reason. So TheBearfulDutchman,

Same for Facebook, Anton Notenboom. I think it will come somewhere in the text because it's a difficult last name.

And you can find me on the website, bravementalk.com. Yeah, and I will come actually, I'll come to the US as well to do a men's retreat by the end of the year, which is, it's awesome. It'll be awesome to see you then as well. And I will be doing other challenges. Like I'll never ever do something huge like this again, that's going to take like almost an entire year to finish. But there's one I want to do in a year and a half. There's a Guinness World Record of the longest barefoot run in 24 hours.

which stands at, I think it was 130 miles or something like that. I hate running. Like if I run for like two miles right now, I'm dead. So that's where the challenge lies. I want to go from, you know, absolutely zero to running a new Guinness World Record in about a year and a half. So I'll be training for that.

over the next few, well, let's say the next year or so. Awesome, man. Well, thanks for everything that you're doing for manning the example that you're setting and being able to press yourself and push yourself physically in this way. Sharing your wisdom and your lessons as you go along, I think is really, really inspiring for a lot of guys. And so thank you for everything that you're doing, buddy. Keep in touch. For everybody that's out there, we'll have the links to Anton's social in the show notes.

if you're having trouble finding it, just in case. And until next week, as always, oh, don't forget to man it forward. Man it forward. Share this episode with somebody that you know will enjoy it. Until next week, this is Conor Beaton signing off.