Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple of Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey. And as the title suggests, we are here to learn how to be an extraordinary man. And I have with me, Mr. Andrew, and we're going to start by having Mr. Andrew introduce himself. I want to thank him.
Thank you personally, Andrew, for waking up before the sun over there and. South Korea, it's nighttime for me, not even daytime yet for you. So I appreciate you rallying and waking up early to do this, but we're going to ask you to just tell us a little bit about yourself, a brief overview, and then tell us what does it mean to you?
Masculinity. We live in a time in the world where. There's a lot of new, newer, newer ish phrases, feminism, toxic masculinity, those are big words being thrown around, men's mental health, you know, this and that, a lot of changes. There's pushes for men to be very feminine. There's pushes for, you know, calling back what they call older masculinity.
And so I'm just curious where you stand as someone who leads a network for men's mental health, your definition of masculinity. Okay, so I'm absolutely a man's man, masculine, masculine, not even, we will go through what that means because I was, I was gonna say, I'm not even sure what that means as I say it, I'm not sure, but we will definitely get, you didn't rip your shirt and show off your muscles when you said it, you know, so if you were like, I'm a man's man, ripped off your shirt and started, can I come back to you in a couple of months after hitting the gym?
Yeah, yeah, we'll get, I'll come back to that. Uh, no, yeah, my name is Andrew, Andrew, Michael Horton. I'm from the UK and I've lived in Seoul, South Korea for the last 21 years. I am a jewel elite, nor encoding specialist. I am an English language professor at a university in Seoul. So I do both things. I teach English and I do life coaching as well.
Uh, probably for men in their forties, uh, with self esteem issues. And I'm married, I've got kids, I'm very grateful for the life I have. Um, is there anything I've missed out in my introduction? No, not at all. I'll ask you something real quick because you spoke about men primarily in their 40s who have self esteem issues.
Do you believe in midlife crisis? I know some people will say that's not a real thing, that doesn't really happen. Where do you stand on that? You know, is midlife crisis its own just, you know, Phenomenon, is it just that most people by that time are becoming empty nesters and want to reevaluate themselves?
Or what have you personally discovered by coaching all these men, some kind of secret to the midlife crisis? Well, I hope, I hope I'm not even anywhere near my midlife, um, with that said, though, I think, I think it's, I think it's changed in the last 20 years, at least, at least in my, so when I look at, when I look at where my dad was, when he was my age and where I am at 40, you know, at 44, where I am and where my dad was when he was 44, it was very different.
The, you know, the geopolitical landscape was very different. The economic situations were very different. And, you know, he was. So when he was 44, I was a teenager, I'm 44 and I have a three year old and a three month old baby. So very different expectations on us. Everything's being pushed back. Yeah, it is.
It feels like that. And it's just like my midlife is my peak life. If you like, if this is if I'm middle aged and let's admit it 44 like it very well could be if I'm middle aged then I don't have time for a crisis because I'm, you know, just started a family. Whereas Where my dad was middle aged, he, he was, like you're saying, becoming an empty nester in a sense, and all the pressures of the day, the economy.
You know, providing for his family is what his wife, um, the, their own things that they're going through, uh, were allowed to come to the surface and he could just dwell on it all day and, you know, have a breakdown and whatever was happening, like he could have a crisis. Right. Men at that time had enough, had times, have a crisis when they're in their late forties.
Today we live in a, it's, it's different, right? There's not to mention the issues, as you said, about toxic masculinity and femininity and whether it's okay for a man to admit his feelings and vulnerabilities and things like that. Like, should many even say if they're having a crisis? You know, these are questions that we can, we'll discuss.
I agree with you that. It's being pushed back and I think it's for two big reasons. I think the first one being, economically, people I think are having children later in life for three reasons actually.
The first being, financially, it's not as easy to sustain a family at a young age as it was back then. Plus, people are getting married a lot later in life back, you know, as time has moved forward, we've moved to getting married and having a family later and later, but right now people are barely affording rent or groceries for their own self or, you know, whatever relationship they're in, let alone children.
Children are very expensive, especially the more you have, it's kind of exponential. I feel like unless you're, you know, passing down and everything, but traveling has become a big thing. Uh, you know, you look back in time, traveling wasn't as accessible to everyone. It wasn't as efficient as easy. Now you have a lot of young couples want to travel the world.
They want to go to Iceland. They want to go to Asia. They want to go wherever it is. You have a lot of traveling. And so a lot of people are having children later on in life because they don't want to travel with children. They want to say, Hey. We were setting up our careers. We were doing college. Now it's you and me time, you know, where we're newly wed or we're engaged, or we're a young couple.
We want to travel the world before we have kids, why we still have the money, why we're young. A lot of people saw their parents. A lot of people in my generation, and even the millennials saw their parents finally had the money and time to travel, but they were too old to enjoy it. So a lot of people are getting pushed and advised even by the older people.
older generations to travel while they're young while they can I also believe that there's a huge push on sexual immorality and That's another reason why children are happening later in life because a lot of people a lot of young women are all on birth control Or taking Plan B's left and right and so they're not having Kids, whether planned or unplanned.
And so families are starting a lot later in life because it's being pushed at sex is for pleasure, not reproduction. And with the push of sexual immorality through social media, that is also pushing them back. So between that, the economy traveling, just different mindsets, everything is being pushed back.
So the midlife crisis is really no longer a midlife crisis. It's just. The phase people go through perhaps when they're done having a family. But by this point, you know, for people your age who are in their forties, just beginning to have a family, you're going to be in the retirement phase by then, by the time your kids grow up, I mean, 20 years from now.
You'll be in your 60s and most people 65 to 70s when they start retiring and you know you could say you're going to do whatever you were going to do in a midlife crisis, which typically is associated with stereotypically buying a new car or changing careers all of a sudden, whatever it is, you know, it's always indicated by something like that.
But part of it might be in tying it back to you, self esteem issues. You know, are you buying the new car or whatever, because you got to rebrand your identity because you as a parent tied your identity to your children and being a father rather than who you are, you lost yourself, you became just a father and lost whoever, for example, Andrew or Mr.
Whiskey was before they were a father. And now that your kids are off in college, who are you now? Uh, it's, you know, it's a crisis we see also with military members, as I've spoken on, on your show and other platforms. They get out, they're no longer petty officer or chief or who, you know, who are they now, and sometimes the coping mechanism for that, for that identity crisis, which can cause self esteem issues is buying a new car, buying a new house, doing this or that.
Yeah, what you're saying resonates with me completely. Um, I was just going to add to it, the idea that has been put out there recently of quarter life crisis instead of how, you know, the midlife crisis still exists, but a lot of people, men and women experience a quarter life crisis first, where they, you know, they, they went to university thinking that life was going to be one way and it was going to be this way.
And they were going to graduate with this skill and get a job in this area. And by the time they graduate and spend a year outside of, you know, In the real world. They're like, I hate this. What is this? I don't, this is not me. This is not who I want to be. And they have a lot of an existential crisis of who they thought they were and who they really are.
And that's somewhat similar to what happens when, people get to their middle midlife and empty nesting and they lose their sense of identity. So there's more crises than we thought possibly, but there are similar reasons. I agree. In fact, now more than ever, we have seen the usefulness of college degrees go down the drain.
The prices of college go up every, almost every. Bartender or guitarist at a bar that I have met in my town has a college degree. Some of them, questionable degrees and fields of subjects, you know, some of them, I'm like, well, I mean, there's not a lot of jobs in that field, but some of them like full on psychology degrees, microbiology, whatever, like big professional degrees and they just can't get a job.
I saw people who were going to be doctors and lawyers and they're pouring my drinks. And you know, so it's crazy. Same over here as a language teacher. We see the demand, some of it's delusion or delusions of grandeur for these institutes, these institutions that want to hire native English speakers. They think, I mean, true to be a professor at a university in the UK, you should have a PhD or at least be on your way and you'll be a, They have a term for that kind of underprofessor position.
Um, but in Korea, like they're advertising for a native English speaker to be an English teacher and they require a PhD. And then you look at a salary and it's like two grand, 2000, you know, 2, 500 a month. It's like, are you kidding me? Like, you think someone's going to go through all that hard work to get a PhD in anything, even if it's political science.
And then come out, come over here for two and a half grands, teach English. You're out of your tree. Um, and, but then again, like you're saying, there actually might be people who would do that because they're so desperate for, you know, a standard of living and a job. Right. And one of the big issues is the idea tied to college degrees is college degree is instant six figures when you get out that's a huge misconception.
A college degree can result in six figures, but certainly not right off the bat, depending, on the field, but especially, yeah, like you said, but you know, At the same time, two grand, I mean, really undercutting. And what happens is, is interesting. When I went to the voice acting conference in Atlanta, a big thing they were talking about is advice to all the new voice actors is they always undercut themselves, which brings down the whole is industry's prices.
So like you said, you have these college students who don't want to play guitar at the music bar or wherever, and they get, cause they have a PhD. And if they see a position, Hey, we'll pay two grand for this. Now, boom, they're going to start filling those positions. Other colleges and universities are going to say.
If they're paying only two grand, I can only pay two grand. And then what you get is a whole field of colleges and universities underpaying teachers and just wave after wave of people who are more desperate taking less money and then eventually result in a strike. No one's teaching at all until there's pay raises.
And then the world, you know, Yeah, we've seen it happen and this affects self esteem too. It affects your self worth. If you're not getting paid enough for the work you're doing, it affects how you value yourself, you know, if you, and then that affects how you go into your next interview and how much you'll accept for your next job.
And these things all tie into each other. That's right. I agree. And especially in the industry of podcasting and entertainment. You know, I go to all these conferences with podcasters and stuff, and there's so much comparison to just these, like the top 5 percent or these top five, I think even with men and with dating too, you know, a lot of women had this expectation and that expectation is like the top 5 percent of men, you know, I had an interview called Bodo's your way through life about masculinity, where we talked about.
If you look at these women saying they want this much money or this height and this and that, and you line up all those stats, and you actually calculate the percentage chance of how many men in the population actually make that up, it's, the numbers will blow your mind, you know, it's, it's insane. The number of women looking for that guy and how many of that guy actually exist, it's, yeah, you're basically just destroying a chance of ever being in a relationship, right, for those women.
Right. And luckily I like all those boxes, so I'm not, I'm not worried, but Andrew's good looking. He's funny. He's so tall, you know, yeah. Slight British accent speaks multiple languages. What can I say? I won the lottery as when I was born, you know. Wow. All right. Perfect. So, well, you know what, I'll tie this into a personal question then, Andrew, you help other men with their self esteem, but have you yourself personally struggled?
You just said, you know, you're this perfect man, but we always know that a perfect man on the outside isn't always perfect on the inside or at home. So can you tell us a little bit about your personal journey through life, especially, you know, your younger adolescent years are going to be your quarter life crisis, you know, so to speak.
Yeah, for sure. Um, Yeah, no, I'm far from perfect or I, I will admit that I've done a lot of work on myself for the last, you know, I would say about four years solid. Four to five years. Uh, prior to that, though, my life was a crapshoot. I was very insecure. I was at a lot of very bad coping mechanisms.
Um, and part of my journey has been to uncover some of the sources of that, um, mistreatment by teachers in school, you know, bullying, um, accidental. You know, situations of the way I was parented, perhaps, or, you know, unintentional. I mean, like, not to put any shade on my parents at all. They did a great job.
They did the best with the tools they had, uh, looking back, I can learn maybe better ways of doing things, but all of that basically added up to a very insecure young man who just turned to drugs and alcohol basically to, to compensate for his self perceived lacks until I got sober three years ago, three years and two months ago, uh, until that point I was a mess, but thanks to counseling and therapy and then some really, really great coaches and mentors, I've in the last five years gone from single, desperate, alone, alcoholic to married, sober, three kids living in a very nice neighborhood, uh, with a great, with a good job.
And. Yeah. You know, a very grateful position to be able to help other guys to get through what they're going through. So a complete turnaround in the last five years. And that's what I stand on. When people say, well, like, who are you to help others? It's like, well, this is where I was and this is where I am.
Like that's it really take it or leave it. I think that's amazing. And you mentioned helping other men. And so I kind of hinted at the Extraordinary Men's Network. Do you want to just tell us a little bit about that while we're on the subject? Yeah, sure. It kind of started as a, as a big, big project for, you know, coaching on a grand scale.
And it's just, I haven't been able to, I don't believe reach those expectations because, you know, I am a full time father and a full time teacher. And I'm trying to be a full time coach. You can't, that's too many full times. Um, however I, I started it and it's, you know, the goal still persists that it's a safe community for men to be there.
Authentic self, vulnerable selves and share their journey, their triumphs, their struggles, their pains with other men who are either going through the same thing or who have been through that and can share their inspiration and, and, you know, motivate each other to, to get through, you know, cause there's times where as a man, and this speaks to masculinity where we can't, or many times we feel like we shouldn't admit.
That was struggling. Right. And I believe that for me, my greatest breakthroughs came when I heard another man, it could be a woman too, but for me, I resonated with when these men shared what they've gone through and where they are now. And it's like, wow. Like, did you read my diary? Like, how did you know I did that?
You know, and where are you now? Like you've got what job now and what family situation are you in? It's like, Oh man, like maybe I, so at the time, I was thinking maybe I could do it too. Right. Maybe I, maybe there's a way out of this for me. Listen more, be inspired. And I'm like, okay, so I want to create a community where other guys can get that.
Because I realized all my life, you know, until that point of 40 years, I thought that didn't exist. And even when it was suggested to me, I was like, nah, I don't, I live in Korea. I was like, nah, I don't think that exists here. Guess what it did. But, you know, I was just blinded and kind of ignorant to the idea that it would be here.
Um, so that community existed offline and I wanted to create an online version of it basically. And it's, it's proven to be of need. We have over 600 men and they're from all over the world from every, pretty much every continent. I think now. Yeah, it's definitely, yeah, says to be, it seems to be wanted and needed, and I'm trying to do my best to, to make, to make it valuable to people.
And we'll have the links in the description below for that. It is a Facebook group that you can join and then watch the interviews, share some stuff. And, uh, Andrew could, if you don't mind sharing with us, did you attend any AA meetings in your life when you were battling with sobering up?
Not until I decided I wanted to be sober, I being from the UK and I didn't even, I've met people in AA from, from the UK, uh, just, I guess it was just the neighborhood I grew up in or, or the family I come from, it, it, it wasn't even on the table. I didn't know it was a real thing. Like I thought I've seen it in movies, I've seen it in dramas.
I was like, either it's just an American thing or it's just something that is, you know, played up in TV. Yeah. Yeah. You know, media, um, so when he actually, when my counselor actually recommended it. Like, you know, you're not, if you don't stop drinking, if you don't get sober, you're not going to really know why you feel the way you feel.
Like I was having huge anger issues at the time. It's like, you know, you want to know why you're angry. Least you got to do is stop drinking because alcohol clouds your judgment so much and, you know, misinforms you of what's going on. I was like, well, how can I do that? You know, at the time, for many years, I'd say I wouldn't even live here if I couldn't drink.
Why would I live in Korea? If I couldn't drink to say, to mean that one of the biggest benefits of being here is how cheap alcohol is and how good the party scene was. So that's how ignorant I was, how foolish I was in my thoughts about that. Um, well, after he said it, you know, uh, Maybe 24 hours later, I Googled it and I found that there was an AA meeting down the road from me.
And, uh, I ended up actually attending a zoom meeting because COVID was just, you know, kicking off. And, uh, for a while I did some zoom meetings, but, uh, but yeah, I have for three years been in AA and I've been to many meetings in Seoul. And can you speak about that? You know, cause you mentioned earlier the benefit of hearing other men and their success and what they went through.
And my father, he goes to AA and he just can't. Get the benefit of it. You know, he goes there, he's like, it just makes me so angry and want to drink hearing all of these negative stories. And I try to explain to him, the perspective is you're supposed to hear about what they lost and how they realize what they lost and their reflections on it and learn from that, as well as relate, you know, a lot of people have the same stories of what they lost or about themselves.
And so a lot of people get this. negative perception of AA. They, they think it's a support group, but then they go and they're like, this is just, you know, a pity party. Where's the support? Right. Uh, I mean, I get that. And I've had those feelings too, not very often, and it's down to the, it's down to me and it's down to, you know, I, I believe in extreme ownership.
I love that book. Um, I love the philosophy of it. It's down to me to own what I get out of that meeting and a big message that I got out of the literature and, you know, the, the philosophy of AA is about acceptance. Tolerance, patience, love, when you, if you go to a meeting and you, and you hear complaining all the time, you're not accepting and being tolerant, right?
Like, of course they're complaining that they're drinking themselves to death. What else are they supposed to do? Um, some people just have to complain a few times. Some people never, they just listen and get the message that everyone's on a, takes a different road and you know, different, different schedule to recovery.
Some people unfortunately never recover. Um, I don't, you know, I can't speak to what it is that. It's your, your father, such a bad experience of it. Some, I have heard that some meetings just aren't run well, maybe just needs to try another, another, you know, another venue, um, So, you know, it's a, it's a group of, you know, highly functioning drinkers trying to organize a recovery session.
Like it's a miracle that it's lasted, I think it's 80, 89 years this year, 87, uh, it's in the eighties anyway, of AA running and it's been run by drunks for all that time. Right. Started with two men, one drunk, trying to help another drunk. What do you think's going to happen? You expect it to be smooth sailing and, you know, like all equal and hunky dory.
No, so we do our best with what we have. There's the UK in you. Hunky dory. There's the UK in you. I guess Korea hasn't completely taken over your dialect. It's, uh, to me, it's a miracle that it exists even the way it is. Um, it's, it's not always perfect, but it's, it's amazing that. It does what it does for so many people.
Oh, yeah. And I think my dad has this mindset, like some other people who attend AA or NA or whatever it may be, that it's one and done or a few meetings and you're good for life. Because I remember he came home and told me a story. He goes, you know, Mr. Whiskey, why is this 70 year old man going to AA? He hasn't drank in 20 years and he's still coming to these meetings, sharing whatever he has, listening to whoever.
It's ridiculous. I tried to explain it to my dad. And I had a whole episode about AA and alcoholism and recovery and getting our addicted loved ones to want to seek help. And one of the things we talked about is, it's always in there and it may become a dormant gene or idea or whatever, causes you to want to drink whatever you're addicted to.
But it's a, it's a demon always training in the corner, always wanting to take over. Right. And so that man. Acknowledges his limits. You know, I remember the guest I had, dr. Brian, you know, he was talking about, don't know if it was one of his patients or a friend, but he said he hadn't done coke in decades, but, he said, I cannot guarantee you that if you put a line of coke in front of me right now, that I wouldn't do it if I was a lawsuit, A lot of alcoholics get this mindset, but it's just a drop or it's just my dad likes to say it's just wine. It's not vodka, you know, but he's missing out. He's things that a is a miracle pill that, you know, you only go to a few sessions and then they set you straight for life. It's not, uh, get you better.
It's not a rehabilitation center is a support group. Like you said. And so I think that's part of the issue he has with that is wanting these instantaneous results. Like I'm no longer addicted. I went to AA and I'm no longer addicted. You know, I think that's some of the misconceptions people have. One of the, one of the things I realized after, you know, a year or so of sobriety was what a walking cliche I was like, as, as I read more literature and I read more stories of, of, you know, people's recovery is like, how many times did I say that?
It's just wine. It's not, it's not vodka. It's just beer. It's not soju. You know, it's, it's just one drink. It's not five. It's just like justifications and rationalizations and everyone does it. And everyone goes through that. I feel like every. Alcoholic has some version of the same journey that they, until they accept that.
You know, that you can't make much progress. Um, so hopefully, you know, in your dad's lifetime, he gets that, he gets that awareness. He'd be like, yeah, I said that. Wow. So then how many times did I say that? That's, that's what a fool I was. And every holiday, it's a holiday. Yeah. It's, it's three o'clock somewhere, right?
It's so many holidays now. It's gotta be a national holiday somewhere in the world. You know, it's 5 PM somewhere. It's, uh, it's my birthday or whatever. So many, so many reasons, so many reasons now, I just, I, for me, it's, I've had those thoughts too. Like, why don't I just drink again? And I have friends who are adamant that I'm going to drink again.
And I, for me, I just have to keep telling them, it's like, it's not worth it. I look at where I was and if there's any chance at all, I could lose what I have. I'm not going to drink. Right. Now you have a, do I feel like I could drink again without getting drunk or not, you know, without getting belligerent or blackout or whatever?
Yeah, possibly, but not for very long, you know, one way a day, a day, a couple of days, maybe, but sooner, sooner rather than later, I'll be back where I was and I don't want to be there. So it's not worth losing what I've got in terms of my career, my family, my kids.
That's my reason for not drinking. And that's very respectable. Now, tying it all back to the beginning, when I asked you to define masculinity, we've covered a lot of different facets of it, but masculinity itself. I guess, even if you can tell us where you started in terms of what you thought masculinity was and where you've ended, if running the Extraordinary Men Network or if, you know, coaching these men has changed that, has impacted that for you, or if being a father and a husband has impacted that for you.
Yeah, it's hard to pinpoint, you know, when things changed and pivoted, but I definitely grew up with the idea that masculinity was about, physical strength, about Holding back your emotions, kind of stoic out, strong on the outside, you know, men don't cry things just bounce off you, you know, like nothing, but nothing bothers you, you know, you're like, you're like iron man, whatever you're the whole, you just, you bounce through, push through every, every struggle you have, every, everything that, you know, you overcome all your challenges through brute force, if you have to, and, you know, that's masculinity, that's a real man, um, And I guess it was having a good role model, you know, my father to, to, you know, to his bad luck or whatever, you know, I had a lot of health issues in my late teens and I got to see a man who was very humble in his, in his, you know, with his illnesses, like he was a police officer, he was a successful businessman after that.
And then he, you know, he lost, he pretty much had to lose it all due to health reasons. And, you know, ask him many times, like, don't you regret having kids or regret doing that? And he's like, no, I don't regret any of it because it got me to where I am here. Like I have four great kids and, you know, yeah, four, four, four great kids.
And, you know, my great wife and, you know, yeah, I'm sick and I have these back problems and heart problems, but, you know, It got me to where I am and he would cry sometimes and it's like, that's a, oh, that's what a man is. That's what a man can be, you know, someone who can admit where they are and accept where they are and vulnerably share what they've been through and knowing that it helped me to respect him.
More made me reassess what masculinity was like. Masculinity is knowing yourself, being true to yourself, your own values and your own beliefs, not, you know, not kowtowing or, or, you know, bending to other people's expectations of you, like doing the work to, to know yourself. And I'm being true to that.
That's a big part of masculinity for me. You know, the men that I respect, that's the, that's what they demonstrate to me. Speaking of like men you respect, do you have any role models out in the celebrity world or business world that you look up to as well rounded men that you kind of are inspired by at all?
Does anyone know my uncle, uncle John? Uh, you know, my mental Joseph McClendon the third is an incredible man, honest, honest. Vulnerable, a powerhouse of knowledge and experience and just totally authentic. So, and he's in that picture up there once was that it was my graduation for coaching, but it was a 70th birthday as well.
It's just such an amazing guy. And his partner and mentor, Tony Robbins as well as like more on the celebrity end of this, like he's a celebrity, but, um, I'm grateful to know him. Uh, but Tony Robbins, I would say is one of my. Strongest mentors or inspirations for what a man is like, when he, when he tells his stories of his struggle and what he's been through and, you know, he sheds a tear on stage and it's like there's a man, right?
Like when you think of like, he's like seven foot tall and built like the side of a house and he's on stage, you know, balling his eyes out, you know, when his, when his parents died or when he, you know, had no money to feed his own kids and stuff like that. Okay, that's, that's a, that's a man you can admit, you can admit where you were wrong.
You can put, you know, put the work into fix what you've done wrong. That's that's masculinity. Yeah. And so I know if we want to talk to some great men, you have your network that you're running. and like I said, links and description below for that. And where do you see kind of the future going with that?
Or where do you want it to be? I know you have a lot that you're trying to take care of. Full-time. Husband, full-time. Father, full-time teacher. Mm-Hmm. , full-time coach. So doing a lot of things there.
Yeah. I just want it to be of benefits to as many people as possible. And I want to create the time for me to be able to do that. And one of the things I think is going to do that is leading more into my coaching business. So I see myself working more in, in my coaching and helping men privately one to one, and then that will fund, you know, support me because my community is free.
There's no charge to be a part of that community. And. To be realistic, I have to have a source of income that substitutes that, right, that allows that to happen. Uh, I don't want to just run a paid community. That's not what I'm trying to do, because I want it to be accessible to everyone. Not to say that there wouldn't be some avenue later that, You know, there could be a paid aspect of it.
Um, but for now, my goal is to have one to one coaching clients and that will allow me to free up some time to focus on that community and do that for free and provide all the content and help for people who wanted through that community. So my goal is to grow the community, to reach more people, to have more.
More leaders join the community who want to, you know, be of service and help those who are in need of it. That's the foreseeable future for that. Some people see it as a, there's like a competition, like there's a lot of men's groups out there right now.
It's a, like, as you said, there's so many areas of masculinity that are in debate, femininity and toxic masculinity. And of course there's a lot of support groups popping up now. And I've talked to people who have those groups and they don't want to talk to me because they fear like I'm trying to steal their clients or, or something.
I'm like. Dude, you can join my group and talk about your group in my group. Like if your group helps men, you should be in my group so that you can tout it. Right? Like, don't you want to reach more people? Isn't that the point? Isn't that the game we're in here where we're trying to help as many people as possible?
And I get rejected left and right because they, I don't know. I don't know what it comes down to for them, but. if anyone's watching and has their own, you know, men's community, there's no competition on my side. Like you can come into my group, introduce your group, please introduce your group.
Cause maybe your group is going to provide, your community is going to provide something for the men in extraordinary men's network that I can't, or I'm not currently offering. And I want everyone to have all the help they can get. So I hope that is not a barrier for people joining, um, because I don't see any.
Competition, just teamwork, right? And so at the time of this recording, it hasn't happened, but by the time this episode is out, if I'm not mistaken, I'm not sure of the date, so Andrew, correct me if I'm wrong, you will have already published the, he said, she said. Event, if you want to tell us about that, so we can go check that out.
Yeah, I hope so. It's now a week delayed, basically, technical issues and streaming live streaming into Facebook groups, um, is a problem at the moment. So we've had to postpone it this time next week. Uh, so middle first week of August. It could have happened depending on when this has gone live, but I run a community called extraordinary men's network.
And then I have some peers who run their own women's groups, the empowered women's network and the women's wellness network. So the original spark was between them and me to say, okay, let's join our networks together so that the men can talk to the women and the women can talk to the men and we can share our best practices.
Group knowledge and get questions answered. So the idea being that men can post their questions at them. One of the ones that been asked a lot is do you want us to be. Emotionally vulnerable. Like, do you want us to cry in front of you? You know, cause a lot of guys that compete, like they don't know what their women want, right?
Did, could they handle a vulnerable man or do they want, I don't know if women know what typical, well, I'm not sure if any of us know what we want until we try. Um, but you know, that's one of the common questions is do you, do you want a vulnerable man? Cause some women will be honest to be like, no. I don't want a man who's going to cry.
I want a man who's going to come home and well, you know, do what he does, but, um, you know, be the, be the head of the house and, you know, lead the way. And, you know, and that's fine if that's what they want. Um, but to get those answers from the horse's mouth, you know, like I think most people want people to be true and authentic and honest.
That's what most people want. That's the idea of the show. The women have their own questions for the men. Um, I don't know what they are yet. I'm excited to find out. So either, yes, it either will have gone, it will have happened. It has happened and it was awesome. Check the replay or it's still, it's still going to happen.
And in which case, come and join us live and ask you, ask your own questions. Oh yeah. If it has happened, I'll have the link below so y'all can check that out. Cause I just wanted, I do have women listeners and so I didn't want them to feel left out. So they could go check that out and there's also the victory network and brain to belly our, our friend, her community is also involved now.
So it's grown beyond just the, he said, she said it's, it's, we said, they said, I suppose now. But, uh, but yeah, the original premise was that. Okay. An open dialogue between men and women. Yeah, that's how I found out about it. The lovely Yayoi, I follow her on Facebook and check out all her posts. And I saw that and I was like, oh, there's Andrew.
And they arranged it, ladies and gentlemen, where they each had their own photo on the wall. But it's like them live in the photo. It was pretty cool. It was pretty awesome. It was set up like a group meeting. And I just wanted to bring that up for all my women listening to this show right now.
Wives, daughters. Wives, daughters. Single women, whoever it may be. And I was trying to think if I had any men that I really look up to and. You know, my generation, we have some interesting men who are kind of big on social media. Some of them, I'll ask you a question. What is your generation?
Sorry. I don't, I don't think it's such a negative. I believe 30. Are you 50? Are you 20? I have no idea what generation you are. I believe I've been told I'm Gen Z. I thought I was a millennial. And then someone said, no, Mr. Whiskey, you're Gen Z. And I was like, oh, well, I'm sorry to hear that. I don't, I don't like.
I really don't like that generation and the stuff they do, but I also don't like alphas. And I was like, I, millennials are, I want to be a boomer, to be honest. That's my personality. I wish I was a boomer . I, you know, I'm one of those people who says I'm born in the wrong time, but, uh mm-Hmm. . Which is funny 'cause everything I do is so technology based, but I rather be wearing a full suit talking in old English, doing, I don't know, whatever people would do, but playing croquet.
But yeah. Anyway, that I, I was thinking and I remembered. One of the men that really surprised me, a guest on my show, so this is a shameless plug, but America's number one ranked survivalist, six times Naked and Afraid champion, E. J. Snyder, over 20 years in military service, he is America's number one ranked survivalist.
He is, if you look at him, huge, strong, terrifying cold gaze. There's a picture of him with an alligator he killed over him. Like he is a powerful man. Survival knowledge can live with nothing but garbage from your trash can. And there's pictures of him climbing mountains and he's in his sixties and he's, he could beat up most of us, but I had him on the show, funny, super caring, super charismatic, vulnerable, emotional man, completely well balanced.
And he said he was kind of forced to by society because when you're such a big intimidating guy, you have to be extra. You know, big hearted so that people aren't as afraid of you, but either way, he surprised me so much. One of the most well rounded men I know and watching him on the show, naked and afraid, or just seeing his pictures online or his home defense commercials, you would have never guessed it.
And on top of that, one of the things he said is as men, we need to support each other. And that we're, we're tribal. And so I just remembered him when you were talking about yours. Cause I thought about my generation. I was thinking David Goggins is a big one that a lot of my friends and I like, and don't like, you know, we say, well, we hope we don't want him to influence the youth to hurt themselves.
By doing what he did, he ended up getting a lot of injuries. Especially internally. I listened to one of his interviews, you know, running. 80 to a hundred miles at a time, you know, piss and blood and all this stuff. And, you know, our concern is our young men taking that and thinking they're invincible and getting hurt or saying we got to get hurt to be like David Goggins.
Um, I think there's lessons to be learned there. You're not a real man unless you can piss blood and run a hundred miles. Right. And I think the lesson there that David Goggins is really trying to give is about Perseverance, not being lazy, overcoming, right? He's not saying go out there and do what I do, but he's saying, do the things I did, personality wise, mindset wise, and this and that, however your training may be, like one of the things I did like that I've listened to, he said, a lot of people, when they were training in the military, they wished the instructors would say, all right, we're calling it an early day or that the water was warm or that the run was short.
And he says, I don't wish for that stuff. I hope that the water's cold, that instructors beat us double, that we run further, you know, he wants to be pushed, especially a lot of us don't have the self discipline to push ourselves, but, when you're in the military and they're telling you to do something like that, it's a good accountability system, but yeah, I was thinking of him and then, uh, Not so popular.
I haven't really watched a lot of his content, so I'm not going to make an opinion officially. Couple of nukes are Mr. Whiskeywise, but Andrew Tate was a big name being thrown around. He's kind of quieted down now, but a lot of men really liked his mindset on masculinity and life and that. So I was just trying to think of like from my generation, cause I've heard Tony Robbins a lot from you, Yayoi, Steve Wright.
But all of y'all are a little bit older than I am. And so, when you said that name, I recognized it, but I don't, and I think a lot of people in certain industries know him. But I think if you went out and interviewed a bunch of Gen Z's, they would say, who, who's that? You know? Yeah, for sure. That makes sense.
But yeah, that's what I was just thinking of, in terms of, you know, When you think masculinity, two very masculine guys are David Goggins and Andrew Tate, that I see a lot on, social media, they're very big on, and by social media, not them particularly, but clips of them, people saying what they said, and, uh, about a year ago, there was a huge phase I'm not sure if you're familiar with this word, Andrew, but it's called Sigma.
And it was the mindset that, you know, like masculine man, like stoic, super cool guy, you know, uh, ladies, man, all this and that, and a lot of people. We're referencing the main character from American Psycho, and that they want, a lot of young men want to be just like him, um, Without the murdering, hopefully?
Uh, without, maybe, you know, I don't know, that's, that's what I'm saying, we're not, just thinking about some of the masculine influences of my generation. And then of course, I guess some of the celebrities that they look up to, maybe like Ryan Reynolds, Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Hugh Jackman, that's, like you said, a lot of people still associate masculinity with strength, or at least looking huge, which all those guys do, I mean, all those guys are jacked, but yeah, I just brought it to mind, because I was like, do I have any male role models that I look up to, And I wouldn't say famous wise, not really.
I'm inspired by a lot of the men I interviewed, like you, Steve Wright is a great guy. Check out that episode I had with him. He's, amazing. Or like I said, Ricky D. Sluder, EJ Schneider. I've had a bunch of wonderful men on who aren't celebrities, but they're doing their own thing in their own community and expanding it every day.
And to me, they're the real men. They're the extraordinary men. Yeah, that's what's affected me mostly actually, since starting the community is, is all of the incredible men that I've met, who would never have crossed my path, right, right. Especially those from different continents and those from different cultural backgrounds.
I never would have, never have met them and heard their story. And just to see how much similarity there is between us all is one thing. But also, yeah, to get the inspiration and lessons learned from them is just phenomenal. Yeah. I'm so grateful to have this opportunity to, to be interviewed by you is another amazing opportunity, you know, to interview them, to interview you, you've been on, you've been in the community, you've been interviewed.
I couldn't, I wouldn't have imagined even this time last year that I would have spoken to so many incredible, incredible examples of, of, you know, men. Same, same, just a year ago for me as well. And like you said, different continents. I've met people from, it's crazy. I never thought that, you know, I would be friends with people from, from Korea, from the UK, all over the place, even being military formerly, you know, meeting people.
And that is one of the things I want to ask you, Andrew, the final, one of the final questions here. I know a lot about Korean culture as far as women go, because I follow K pop idols and the women singing groups, which is a different setting. I don't know about a good example of Korean women. Yeah, that's totally different.
Uh, but what I want to ask, uh, is I don't know much about I can get my wife to come in if you want. No, no, no, no, no, no. I want to ask about The Korean culture on men in South Korea and how that has impacted your life at all, because you moved, obviously you teach English and all of that, but I'm not sure their views on masculinity compared to the UK and even UK compared to America, you know, it's different everywhere we go.
And how that impacted you at all, if, if Korean culture has changed your mindset at all. I mean, you're living as, as a Korean essentially, or maybe you're not, I don't know how you live, but if you've really changed your life to that culture, I'm assuming, is your wife from Korea or? Yeah. So my wife's Korean born and raised, uh, Korean parents, all that.
Yeah. Korean. Okay. Lineage. My, so my kids, uh, British, Korean, I've been here 20 years and sometimes I'm talking to my students, they're like, well, you're more Korean than me. Or they say things like, well, you're almost Korean. And I just look at them like, I'll never be Korean
Not that I wouldn't wanna be, it's just, I'll always be, in my mind, I'll always be British, like I'm just a British guy. You know, um, to talk about Korean masculinity and the differences or, or, you know, have I adapted to it or whatever? I think it's served me well that I'm a British man and I have British values and, and, you know, I live the way I live as a Brit, you know, because I was raised in the UK.
Because we're different and the, the women, the mothers, you know, I teach all age groups, um, from young girls, the elementary school age to, you know, my main job is university age women, I work at a women's university and I teach, you know, middle age and women in their sixties and seventies. So I think it's certainly well that I'm not a Korean man because I'm, you know, I, how am I different?
Try it out. I think I don't want to say particularly, however, I would say, stereotypically, right? Um, Korean men are the. Old fashioned masculinity that we've mentioned earlier, you know, they, they keep their emotions hid. They, they lead their household. They in public, they tell their wives what to do. They lead their family to make all the decisions.
They earn all the money. They don't have much to do with their kids. You know, they don't change diapers. They don't feed their babies. They don't even know what the kids hobbies are. Probably They go to work early. They come home late from work. Um, sounds like my dad, that that's what it used to be like.
Yeah. Yeah. These days they're much more on par with Western expectations of men. Um, COVID did a lot to help, um, you know, they didn't have to go to work. So they realized, Oh, being at home is actually nice. You know, a lot of men realize that being a family man is nice. Um, they realized there's great benefits to be spending time with their kids and getting to know their kids, getting back there and to see where their partner may be, things like that.
To me, it was amazing how many parents slept in separate bedrooms, you know, how many women would talk about their husbands, like they're talking about their brother and not in a, not in a sexual way. Uh, I live in the south. So I, I, my, my men, my mind, just Like a platonic relationship, like we're a business partners raising these kids.
And it's like, wow, that sucks. Like, why would you want to be in that? And I guess I can't imagine it if I don't live it, but that's the way they went. You know, like they get married and they have all this intimacy and passion for each other and they have kids. And it's like, well, I have to now go to work and put all my energy and emotions and focus on earning for my family.
I don't have time for you when I get home and the wife's been, you know, exhausted all day, taking care of the kids that when, by the time the husband comes home, the last thing she wants to do is get sexy, you know? So yeah, they sleep in separate rooms so they can have a good night's sleep. And I get why it happened.
I just, I feel my, my, my natural reaction is to feel bad for them. Like I, I put a lot of effort in to make sure that, you know, my wife and I. Get time together and don't let the kids get in the way too much. Um, because that's important to me and that I think that's one thing that helps is that we're so different.
We contrast each other so much that we are constantly like, kind of in flux, you know, like, we don't get stuck in a pattern because we're constantly interrupting each other's patterns. If you like her Korean way of doing things. And my. British way of doing things are constantly different that we keep each other and detained or, you know, sometimes she, uh, interrupts your 12 o'clock tea time.
That's right. I'm trying to have my 11s, you know, trying to have my cup of tea and she's like, we changed the diaper, honey. Sorry, darling. I'm having my tea with a wet diaper. I'd say nappy. It's a nappy, by the way, not a diaper. A wet nappy in the face and then, uh, Is that British or Green? Nappy. Is that British or Green?
Okay. Never. That's interesting. A nappy. Is it because they wear it when, when they nap? Nope. That's what they wear. That's what they wear 24 7 when their baby's nappies. Yeah, I know that. I'm just, I, I understand how, thank you, Andrew. It's what I wear when I take a nap now. No, I'm just kidding. . Not yet. But when you have your, no.
Yeah. With nappy. I dunno where it comes from. That's interesting. I bet it's See the French or you know, French or Greek. So Latin, you know, they'll have some hair, some or some etymology and old English. Nap. Nap. Interesting. Google it guys. Yeah. Well, I've got a couple of things to say. Some funny, some not so funny.
Uh, first off, Andrew, that's very interesting. You work with all women all day and then you go home and you work with just men. So you kind of got like two worlds. You got your world of femininity and you got your world of masculinity. That's right. You live the, he said, she said, you live, yeah, both sides.
Uh, so yeah, I've ended up with two daughters and my wife. Um, luckily my stepson is around a fair bit, but he's 17, so he's pretty grown up. Hmm. I definitely have a lot of femininity in my life. I've got four sisters as well. Well, hopefully you will have a son on the way in the future. Sometimes.
Oh God, don't say that. Oh my God. My wife would kill me. No, no, no more children for us. Son in law son in law would be fine. Grandson. Sure. I welcome that. Eventually 30 years later, no, no, no more, no more, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, These, this is the last round of nappy changes for me and her. I don't know many Andrew then, but yeah.
Oh, I was going to say, uh, at least, at least they're married. Uh, when I asked that a woman and she said, Oh, you're like a brother to me. I didn't get any financial support. I didn't get any meals. I didn't get. Any even mild, boring intimacy. I got nothing. I just got, you're like a brother to me. You're my guardian angel, my protector.
And then I got the, uh, you know, a couple of months later, Oh, he hit me. Or, or, or we broke up. You were right. You're, you're so smart. I want to marry a man just like you. Uh, so yeah, at least, at least you want to marry your brother. Yeah. I, I, I should have hit her with that. Yeah. I guess. If that's the case, might as well marry me.
It's interesting. I, I just had a conversation with a good friend at the weekend about, say, conversation. He was Teaching me on what he's been reading recently about, you know why couples work and why some couples don't, um, same sex marriages, apparently lesbian marriages have one of the highest divorce rates at the moment.
Um, but that wasn't the main, the main points. The main point was like, you know, why do some women likes these kind of men and why does some men like these kind of women and just the intricacies of how some relationships work and some, and many don't. Yeah. Yeah. And what people think they want and what they really need of can often be very different.
Yeah. I've, I've seen a couple of snippets of a couple of different things. I was watching, uh, on Netflix, not a sponsor. Love is blind. And the one guy brought up a certain book he read where he was. Why offices attract and why they work and that the more indifferent they are the more perfect They are as a couple whereas I've seen people preach the opposite Sigmund Freud and some of his theories and works, you know to summarize men want to date women like their mother and You know daughters one date Men like their father.
I actually find a lot of truth in that in those theories I've seen it happen a lot of times and I've also seen some other things With it whether I've seen it always, you know men want to date someone who's Like their mother because they had a bad relationship with their mother. I've seen it, men want to date someone like their mother because they love their mother.
I've seen it where They, their mother was just taught them what a woman was and that's what they're comfortable with, uh, whether it's toxic or not. I've, I've had episodes on my show talking about toxic women. Marriages leading to toxic relationships among their children because they seek the same thing because that's what they were taught was normal.
Uh, that relationships is a whole, you know, episode on its own. Uh, what's funny though is I did see a clip of the other day about lesbian couples and it was a woman expressing her frustrations because it came down to the, we're both women, who's going to pay, who's going to do this, who's going to do that, and a lot of fighting over that.
Uh, cause she had, uh, the main woman who was telling the story said, this woman acted like a spoiled princess the whole time, wanted me to do this, this, this, and that. She goes, I finally understand men. She goes, after dating a woman, I only ever want to be with men. You know, I finally understand them. Um, you know, I put herself in our shoes.
Yeah, even when you're the same gender, apparently this is what the, the interviews and the data has said that, don't call Mr. Whiskey or Andrew on this. No, no, no. Yeah. This is just from the data. The data suggests, the data suggests that in all relationships that needs to be a feminine and a masculine, there needs to be the, the protector and the nurturer.
Right. Whether it's two women or two men, and apparently it just didn't in these same gender relationships, both refuse to be, you know, the one they don't, the one that's natural to their gender. So, I guess, in the lesbian relationships. They both want to be nurtured. They both want to be cared for, protected, right?
Like eventually they don't start off that way, but they end up that way to men. I guess maybe it's the same. They both want to be the dominant one, right? Neither of them wants to be, you know, the, the, the homemaker nurture type. I don't know if that's true. That's just what the data is as, as into that, but.
To, to protect us, uh, from being canceled politically, right? I mean, we never talk in a hundred percent absolutes. I mean, there's always going to be outliers, different examples, but there, there is a majority of cases and it's certainly an interesting study and. I lost my train of thought with the, oh, the Korean culture.
So I did think it was interesting that, uh, you know, you work with women all day and men all evening. And I said, Oh, I want to tell a story. This is an interesting story about my father bragged that he never changed my diaper to the point that the one single time where my mother wasn't around because she took care of us primarily, classic traditional family.
But the one time she wasn't around, my father drove down the street to his best friend and had his best friend's wife changed my diaper, because he so believed that it was only a woman's role to change diapers and that he would never, ever be so shamed and humiliated to change his firstborn son's diaper, only son's diaper.
And just an interesting story. I laugh at it. Originally I cried at it, you know, I didn't actually cry, but it's like, okay, dad. Wow. Uh, but he also is very, he's always been a man who has held every responsibility of a parent over our head. You know, the, I pay all the bills. I feed you a diss in that, uh, you should be grateful that I do this, uh, on the pottery or the clay.
Can't complain how the vase is made. Uh, he bragged about how he only had to pick us up this many times throughout a whole high school from the bus stop and how he was in a competition with no one but himself, uh, to be the least parenting parent and just be the only fun parent, but that's a whole conversation on its own is an interesting mindset.
When it comes, it's not, it's a masculine mindset in terms of like traditional masculinity, but my father's also his own case because he has a lot of other stuff going on in addition to masculinity and older mindsets. He also has narcissism, alcoholism, drug abuse. Uh, sexual morality addictions and religious weaponization.
There's a whole lot going on over there. So, you know, we, there's been snippets across the show. Andrew and I have talked about my, my book I'm working on. It's going to cover that in a lot more detail, but Mr. Andrews, as we come to a close here, is there anything you want to leave us with to wrap it up, like the very first question you said about masculinity, and I said about, about being true to yourself and knowing yourself. I recently heard about this idea of, people talk a lot about self care and this came from Mark Manson, the guy who wrote the book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.
And he said, people got the wrong idea about what self care is. They think it's ordering a pizza on a Friday night and the self care, you know, it's, it's taking a long bath because I deserve that. I worked hard. He said, no, self care should be having self discipline. Great. And this goes back to what you said about David Goggins.
It's not, you don't have to run a hundred miles of his blood, but knowing that if you do that extra rep at the gym, when you feel tired, you are making yourself stronger. That's the care you need to give yourself. Self discipline is self care. not overindulging because you had a hard day.
It's mastering self discipline. That is true. Self care And it should be something that's continual in your life, not an occasional reward or earned a, it's something self care is something you should be working on every day through subtle and smaller actions. Not some big, kind of outlier event.
It should be like you said, that self discipline I mean, it's good to reward yourself, but that shouldn't be your self care, you know, self care should be like you said, self discipline, like washing your face every day when you wake up, brushing your teeth every day, like you said, doing your work out every day, and, and we've spoken before about confidence in the gym, and it's not about motivation, it's about discipline, because, and that goes for anything in life, whether it's work or whatever, Motivation waivers and Andrew as a podcaster, you know that sometimes when we go for a period of time without interviews or a social battery suddenly shrinks and it's like, Oh, I don't want to do this or it's, it's been the saying for, for decades, the more you do, the more you want to do, the less you do, the less you want to do self discipline is you're going to do.
It, whether you is about more or less or whether you want to, whereas motivation comes and goes, you there's days you wake up, you're like, I don't feel like going to the gym and there's so many factors that affect it. Self discipline is having that. I'm going to do it. So I like that tying self care to self discipline.
And I think that's something great to leave us with. So again, ladies and gentlemen, if you want to reach out to Andrew, we will have his Facebook as well as his Facebook, the Extraordinary Men's Network in the description below. Andrew, did you have a personal website you wanted to plug at all? I, I do not.
Just, um, No, my, my coaching handle handle has, I think was the right word. I don't know. Uh, Oh, it's not a game on Facebook. Summer game attack. No, but my, I go by ordinary guy coach or OG coach. That's the only other thing. Um, but Andrew Michael Horton on Facebook and extraordinary men's network, the two main ways to get in touch with me.
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show, Andrew. I appreciate it. Thank you very much for having me, Mr. Whiskey. Been a pleasure.
