The Limitless Power of An Alcohol-Free Lifestyle With One Year No Beer Co-Founder Ruari Fairbairns

29:36They're still stuck in the matrix. They're loving drinking. It's not a problem. They don't have a problem. People convince themselves, right? Right now we're in dry January. They're like, okay, I do dry January every year. Therefore, I don't have a problem. But I also drink three bottles of wine every day at lunch. Now I know a guy who said that to me, right? Yeah. You know, he drinks three bottles of wine at lunch every day, probably finishes off with all sorts of whiskey at home later. And because he can do dry January, it's not a problem. Yeah. Because he has proved to himself that he can quit and put it down when he wants to.

30:08Nevermind, you know, the white knuckling and whatever. All of those things. The delusion. Went into, you know, just making it to day 30 so he could continue to perpetuate that argument as a form of denial. But yeah, point holds. Millions and millions of people, Rich. Millions and millions of people. This is why people who come into Alcoholics Anonymous or 12-step programs will, once they kind of get well or better, will identify as a grateful alcoholic or addict because the pain was so severe and the habit was so pronounced, they were forced to reckon with it and break up with that lover. And as a result have been blessed with tools and this brand new life that has created something wonderful out of this disease.

31:00But for the person who's a heavy user or drinker who can continue along that path without wreaking inadequate amount of havoc in their life where they have to confront or deal with the fact that they might have a problem, They're stuck in a cycle that is harder to break because there aren't circumstances you can point to to say, it's time, you gotta give it up. And they live their lives, most of them live the rest of their lives in this suboptimal state where they're really not living the life that is freely available to them otherwise. Yeah, exactly. And I think if we can direct the conversation to where people are looking.

31:46If they're not looking to stop drinking, then where are they looking? They want to lose weight. They want to double their business this year. I mean, Lewis Hamilton, right? He wants an extra 1 % performance improvement. They want to avoid divorce. They want to be a better father, be a better mother. They want to be calmer, I want to be happier. So if we can direct the conversation to there and then help people do the math, oh, you want to lose weight, do you? Okay. Well, let me just explain about what your regularly drinking alcohol is doing to you. It's a bit of a Trojan horse, right? Because that person is never going to walk into an AA meeting.

32:27Never. And if they really do have a problem by kind of welcoming the challenge under the rubric of weight loss or whatever, the truth will be revealed. As we talked about earlier, either they're not going to make it or something will happen. And yeah, it will become clear rather soon whether that program needs to be kind of escalated. Exactly. Well, then that's another widening part again. So it doesn't go from, oh, I tried to do the challenge and therefore I need to go to AA. What we're saying is, okay, so you've tried to do dry January for a year, a few times, you've stopped drinking for a month, but then it comes back.

33:10Well, there are drivers of compulsive behavior. Do you know what those are? And are you mitigating those? And are you doing anything about them? Let me ask you, do you have a high level of stress in your life? Right? What do you think? Every time I ask somebody that, what do you think they say? Yeah, of course they do. Well, we just talked about why stress is absolutely intrinsically linked to your relationship with alcohol. It's the most well-used, known, available, readily available tool for dealing with stress. But it also creates stress. Alcohol releases significant amounts of cortisol. In fact, they recently found regular alcohol consumption over time increases the production of cortisol.

33:54So you're not only releasing cortisol in the moment, but you're producing more cortisol over time. Now cortisol sends you into fight or flight, right? So your sympathetic nervous system stressed out, you're busy, busy, busy all day, you know, building the business, being successful, whatever it is. And then not only that, but so, so that stress during the day then gets you to that end of the end of the day where you're like, I need something to take the edge off. But what people don't realize is that alcohol consumption over time is reducing your ability to deal with stress, right? So I speak to successful driven business owners all the time.

34:31And I say to them, do you have more stress now or have you reduced your ability to deal with stress? And I think that's the thing people are not realizing about it. Let's have a conversation about stress, right? And let's deal with the stress. Let's talk about sleep. Let's talk about these other things because that's what you are looking for. And in the background, just like you said, we're going to help you change your relationship with alcohol.

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38:25When we cast our gaze on the emotional landscape even more broadly, the other thing that comes up for me is the difference between abstinence and emotional sobriety. If you really are an alcoholic and you find your way into 12-step, there is the initial phase of detoxifying your body, right? And perhaps the Trojan horse there is people come in, they're just like, I just wanna learn how to stop drinking. What they don't realize and what comes later is this notion that putting the bottle down is really just the beginning of trying to figure out a way to be emotionally sober. Because when you no longer have that coping mechanism, all of the uncomfortable emotions flare up and you're left with no tools for how to manage them because the way that you have done it historically has been taken away.

39:19So in the case of the people that you have worked with, given that perhaps they're not alcoholics, on some level, everybody is self-medicating with alcohol. And so when you remove their favorite medication, what is replaced there? And what is the work that needs to be done to identify whatever those triggers are and find healthier ways of processing and transcending the emotional kind of, what's the word I wanna use? the emotional impulses and patterns that emerge that require redress, because without any kind of tools to redress them, they're gonna wreak havoc. And so perhaps, you know, alcohol resulted in angry flare-ups, but if there's a latent anger underneath that you've been medicating with alcohol to kind of keep under wraps, suddenly that's gonna come out and it's probably gonna to be worse than it was when you were drinking.

40:22Yeah. Yeah. And I think this in part was the bit I felt, you know, really needed to evolve because I could see that we were helping people to take a break from alcohol. I could see that we would, we would give them this insight and this vision of what alcohol-free could feel like. And you know what happens when somebody has been regularly drinking and stops, they get all of this positive feeling that, you know, all of these things come back. But we weren't really there to help them with this emotional issue or the big T word, right? Trauma, the driver of so much of our behavior. And so this is why we needed to evolve into more intensive program for people so that we could start looking at those underlying things because you're right, right?

41:08Let's look at the work by Gabor Mate, who significantly influences the programs in here, or Besser van der Kolk, right? The body keeps the score. Our relationship with alcohol is intrinsically linked to the experiences we had as a child. That's just a fact, right? Now, if we called this, hey, come and sort out your trauma program, I think it would be even less successful than, hey, come and sort out your drinking problem, right? So we have to do that in the background. Now, we use wonderful tools like, oh, you had Dick Schwartz on the thing, so we use IFS, we use somatic experiencing, things like that, to help people start to feel these emotions, but more importantly, to link them back to these past experiences that they were, that are running on autopilot.

41:57Let me give you a little example. So, you know, decades of therapy, I did psychotherapy, psychodynamic therapy, talk therapy, since six years old, right? tons and tons of counseling and therapy. And I wouldn't say, I said it helped evolve me significantly, but I never really got to, I never really came to find my trauma. And when I went through a meditation, but also in time with that with some somatic experiencing, I released some stuff and discovered a very old memory that nobody had talked about. My mom and dad didn't talk about it. My siblings, nobody really talked about it. And it was when I was two years old.

42:37Okay. And I fell off the boat. Now, when I fell off the boat, my dad was down in the cuddy and he had to come up and he literally had to dive down, swim down and save me. Right now that created this imprint in my brain of needing to be saved. I had no idea about this until, you know, like Steve Jobs says, you have no idea until you look back and connect all the dots. So what did it mean for me? Well, through my life, I had all these near-death experiences, including my suicide attempts, almost every single one of those things. I always had somebody nearby there to save me. When I looked for partners, I was looking for somebody who would save me.

43:20I was so destructive, so disruptive. I was looking for somebody to come and save me. When I built my businesses, they were always in suffering. And I was looking for, you know, the next freelancer or agency or guru to come and save my business. So this pattern was locked in my subconscious. I didn't even know it existed. And this is the power of trauma. And so when I got to understand that and shift it, I got awareness of it. That's the most powerful thing about doing the work, right? I know you're such a big advocate of doing the work and this is it. is once I got awareness, I could say, hang on a minute, I'm running that pattern again.

44:00Like I don't need somebody to save me. I don't need somebody to come and save me. Well, the other piece there, of course, and sorry, I don't mean to jump in, but the other piece isn't just needing somebody to save you. It's putting yourself in peril so that you can be saved. So you're actually incurring risk into your life unconsciously for the purpose of whatever the emotional experience of being saved does for you. Exactly. And that was the pattern of my life, like ADHD, severely destructive, all of those behaviors. So, I mean, that's why I could easily have such addictive behavior and, you know, fit alcohol like a glove coming into that.

44:41But now I'm such a huge advocate of doing the work. Let's put it as simple as this. alcohol is showing up a bit too prevalent in your life okay let's change that but first of all let's change that by doing the work now you're such a huge fan of doing the work right that's what this podcast is all about is about showing people what they need to do and the things they can do to do the work and i think when you do the work that is what is going to change your relationship with alcohol but people don't want to do the work but they're up for the challenge yeah you know they're Like 28 days, if their mates are gonna do it, I'll do it too.

45:20We'll see, I'll beat you. Like that sounds fun, right? And there's an end point on that. So that's a much easier thing to get, you know, people to subscribe to. You've got to start nice and gentle. What do you mean the work? Like, I'm just gonna, you know, say no to the beer at the pub, but you know, that's how these things have to begin. And I think what you've done really effectively is just create a welcome mat where, hey, it's nice and warm in here. It's cozy. Come on in. There's lots of other people doing it. We're having a good time. We're building community around it. That's the other huge piece, of course, where you feel supported and you don't feel alone or like some kind of insane outlier in trying to do this.

46:02Yeah, the community element is huge. It's so, so powerful. Interestingly, you know, we were talking about dry January and things like that. And what a lot of people, when they do dry January, is they hide away, right? They stay at home, they go to the gym, they change up their routine. And what they're doing with all of this, avoid their social circle, cancel all that stuff, count down the days to the 1st of February so we can go out and get smashed again. And what we're doing while doing that is we are reiterating this belief, right? This whole social conditioning that we need alcohol to have a good time, that we need alcohol to have a fun life.

46:40Like January is so boring, cold dark, that's why I'm going to not drink, right? Right. So, and I think that's what can actually create more of an issue with people's relationship with alcohol. The main thing there is what's happening is people are becoming more disconnected. Right. Now, unless you're a sociopath, we don't want to be disconnected. Right. We want to be connected. And so this is the importance of being sociable, being around people, building a community for yourself who are changing their relationship with alcohol. It's so well ingrained. Right. That if you want to change a behavior, get around a community of people who are living like that.

47:18And I think nine, ten years ago, when I started changing my relationship with alcohol, that community was pretty small. Now a days is huge. So don't hide away during dry Jan. Let's get out there. And also the whole point is to develop some level of resilience. And if you're just isolating and hiding from people, then you're just preventing yourself from having those slightly challenging experiences that if you weather through them, will teach you that you can do this thing, right? And it emboldens you and it strengthens that reflex to say no instead of, you know, sort of catering to social preference.

47:58Yeah. Well, let's take it back. I wanna hear the whole story. Like I wanna hear how this all came to be because there's some entertaining shit in there about what happened with you, man. So you grew up on this weird island. Yes. Right? I'd never even heard of this island. Mull, the Isle of Mull. Like way up in the Northwest of Scotland. You should run a retreat there. Yeah. Oh, it's amazing. Beautiful. You like Ireland? Well, you live in Mallorca. That sounds like a lot better to me. I like tropical terrain. Well, I want to keep it simple. I moved from one island to another. It was Mull and now it's Mallorca.

48:30Yeah, right. Well, that makes sense. Is there a direct flight between the two? Probably not. Five flights. So kid growing up in Mull, I don't know what goes on there, but I presume there's quite a bit of drinking. Absolutely. In fact, west coast of Scotland, if you were to put it on the, as a country, it would be amongst the highest in Europe of drinking culture, alcohol per capita. So yeah, very synonymous with drinking culture up there. um now um my uh my parents were originally born in england moved up to the isle of mull and um so why was that what what yeah um i think my dad married a beautiful woman and didn't want anybody to nick her off so he he bought a he bought a hill farm uh was she gonna squander away with this woman and made sure she couldn't that sounds healthy she couldn't go very healthy There's a book about that.

49:25She's written one. That's next for me. Well, get my mom on the podcast. Yeah, for sure. I need to know more about this island and you being, you know, absconded with. It's a beautiful, beautiful part of the world. 260 rain days a year, though. But anyway, so I was very challenged in the head. I think I came out with a bump and now been diagnosed with ADHD. But back then and on the Isle of Mal, they had absolutely no idea what this was. They just knew they didn't like it. And so at six years old, after being significantly disruptive through school, my parents were given an ultimatum, drugs or counselling.

50:06And to me, I feel fortunate. Obviously, everyone is different and make their own choices. But I feel very fortunate that they chose counselling because it started from a very young age, me trying to understand what the hell was going on in here at 9 million miles an hour. So you were just hyperactive, couldn't sit still, couldn't pay attention, couldn't learn. And so all the way through that, my parents were trying to juggle this and five kids and businesses and all of that kind of stuff. So it was very difficult to get attention. And I think quite young, I figured out that when you set stuff on fire, you get attention.

50:42So quite disruptive. And, you know, through that, my parents would say, you know, you're special, you're gifted. But the people out there, they were like, you're bad, you're naughty, you're disruptive. And I recently spoke at ADHD UK. I'm very, very passionate about ADHD. I'm very passionate about the conversation here about ADHD. I was just, it just wasn't known. There wasn't support. so when I got to 13 years old and with the noise going on inside my head and not understanding who I was or where I belonged I decided to take an overdose and it was a very very dark place you know I think I've talked about suicide before but I think there's such a great misunderstanding around it I think the place somebody gets to when they want to leave is such a horrendous place.

51:40Like it's, it's, it's a horrific feeling and, and, and there is no option and there's no other alternative. You're, you're the problem. You're the issue. And you, and the solution is gained by you departing. It's, it's not a conscious decision. It's awful. How old were you at this point? At 13. 13. Wow. 14. I actually stepped off the stairs with a Taijutsu belt around my neck. I was determined to ago. And my parents were out at an anniversary dinner, very thoughtful of me. And they had an argument and came home early and they came home as I was dangling on the stairs. And so they brought me down.

52:21And coming from that, my dad had worked at, you know, voluntary at Childline and he was an amazing man and very wise and very knowledgeable. And he knew from working with these kids and also cancer kids and things like that. He'd done a lot of work that when you give a child hope, they're far more likely to pull out of whatever it is they're going through. So he encouraged me to write a letter to somebody famous. Now, my dad was called Richard. He run multiple businesses, but one of them was a recording studio. And so I was thinking of somebody famous and I thought, ah, Richard Branson. So I wrote a letter to Richard Branson at 14.

53:03And I said, amongst a whole bunch of stuff about the weather and how many sheep there were on the Isle of Mull, I also said, and I think this goes to show how separated my brain was, but from this conversation of being special and gifted and yet naughty and bad. And the special element I wrote into him, I said, I'm going to change the world one day. And I'm looking forward to having lunch with you. So that's when I set off to try and change the world. So I left school before the legal age, set up my first company, determined to be the next Richard Branson. Ran that for two years. In fact, with the time I was 25, I'd tried five different companies, the biggest of which employed 10 people for three years.

53:44We used to run a call center, a little tele center in Edinburgh. And I was really desperate to try and make this massive impact in the world. And yet here I was just failing again and again and again. In fact, I called myself a serial failpreneur. And back one day on the wonderful Isle of Mull, drinking my sorrows, sitting in the pub, I was speaking to a friend there and he said, that's an interesting story, Ruri. He said, you know, you should go on that TV program where all failed entrepreneurs go. And I was like, what's that? Didn't really watch TV. And he said, The Apprentice. So I finished off my fifth pint and took my jovial, half-drunk self up and filled out the application form.

54:30And wind forward six months, you know, flights to and from London, doing interviews and doing all this preparation. I'm sat outside the studio for series two in the UK, ready to go on the show. Who was hosting it at that point? Alan Sugar, Lord Alan Sugar. you're fired. So anyway, um, uh, the producers are coming in and coming out and they're coming you're going on, you're going on. You're, you're not going on just yet. Just, just, just stay there. So after four hours of this, they say, look, I'm really sorry, but you're not going on the show just now and we'll fly you back to Scotland. And I'm like, I mean, I've told the whole island I'm going, that's all eight people and the dog.

55:08Um, I've told the whole island I'm going on this show. I can't go back there. So I got to the airport and I saw, oh, look, next flight going to Ibiza. That's a good place to get over rejection. So headed out to Ibiza, put my bags, literally put my bags into check in space, the nightclub. That's a very alcoholic move. Stayed there for three years, three days. Only like a, like that's something I would have done. Yeah. I get it. Yeah. Fuck it. Yeah. I'm not going back. I don't want to face those people who I made this promise to. I'm going to go here where I can, you know, kind of just drown myself in whatever and distract myself.

55:48Exactly. Full on distraction, coping. And so in Ibiza, I bumped into an oil broker and told him my story. And he was like, you should come. As one does in Ibiza. Oh, there's loads of oil brokers out there. Often. And he said, you should come and try oil brooking. So that's how I found myself down in London as an oil broker. I used to say to my boss, David, God bless him, I used to say, you know, I didn't get hired by Alan Sugar, but I did get hired by you. And he would say, Ruri, there are two types of people who go on to The Apprentice. One, have some form of business acumen, and the other's good at TV, which are you?

56:31And I was like, definitely good at TV, David. There you go. So the days of becoming an oil broker, we will call it an oil trader here, right? Well, trader, broker, slightly different. Similar? Different. Doesn't matter. Who cares? The broker's the middleman. Yeah. But this is, you know, Andy explained that lifestyle pretty clearly, but lay it out because, you know, it's very much a Wolf of Wall Street sort of experience, right? Like, you know, I thought the days of liquid lunches had gone the way of the dodo, but apparently not in this subculture of finance. Absolutely not. Well, not when I started, which is now, gosh, how long?

57:1220 years ago. More. I'm getting old. So 18 years ago. Yeah, I think when I started in it, people were like, oh, the good old days are gone now. but you know when I started on that desk I started with the senior guys and they're all bored they don't want to go out and entertain they've had enough in crude like the biggest desk the world you know the world's largest oil brokerage and they were like okay your job is to entertain our clients so I was like okay well my budget's gone from five grand a month to 20 now that's great because I'm doing everybody else's entertainment so I got really really good at it I mean you know I was the only guy to get 250 men into a nightclub last minute.

57:54You know, like just, I knew all the bouncers, I knew the good restaurants, I knew where the places to go. So yeah, it was amazing fun. It was wild, but the drinking was huge. Let me give you another example. We go out for a lunch, like you said, down to the curry house, and I'm drinking all the way through. And, you know, Andy and I used to be thick as thieves, right? So while he's doing little magic tricks over there, making himself levitate and making a fool of himself, I'm busy topping up people's pints with either vodka or champagne, right? To get them more smashed. And then next minute, I'm looking down at my phone and I'm like, oh, it's the window.

58:35Now, the window is when our office with 15 people in or, you know, 15 people around a desk all shout at each other to set the crude oil price. Now, 85 % of the world's oil is set as a benchmark to that. And the vast majority of us have all come back from lunch absolutely blotto. And here we are setting the world's crude oil price. That's what it used to be like. Yeah. So this is not happening at 10 o 'clock at night. This is in the middle of the afternoon. Oh yeah. This is at 4.30 PM. Well, it used to be. so um and you know another crude example is oh crude nice pun there really um i remember taking some customers out to lunch um and my thing always used to be let's do whiskey tasting so you know we'd have lunch and then we'd do some whiskeys and i'm sitting there having having those whiskeys and next minute i put it down and i'm like oh my god it's 5 30 I'm supposed to be at my NCT class, which is basically newborn child classes.

59:43My wife is pregnant and I'm supposed to be there. And I looked at my phone and I'm like, quick, go shoot home, you know, smashed and go to my first parent class. Yeah. That's not a good look. No, it's not a good look. But you've got a lot of examples of you, you know, telling your wife that you're going to be home at six or seven o 'clock and then showing up at five o 'clock in the morning. Yeah, exactly. And then there's, you know, I think that begets itself. There's a lot of people who swing past the pub rather than go home. In fact, you know, we use a wonderful heart monitor to show people's central nervous system, right?

1:00:21So they can see minute by minute whether in sympathetic or parasympathetic. And, you know, recently somebody is like, the most stressed I get is when I go home and I have to deal with the kids. Like I'm actually fine at work. And then that stress absolutely spikes in the evening. And so like that, it would come to, shall I go home or shall I go to the pub and pretend that the train was delayed? You know, I worked with a guy, right, who used to do the night, the close, that time when they set the price used to be 7.30 PM. It took him two years before he told his wife that the time had changed to 4.30.

1:00:58It's not a great look when you don't want to go home. No. Well, that's happened. I think that happens to all of us sometimes. Sometimes, well, maybe not all of us, but I think many, many, many people out there will swing by somewhere before they go home just for a little sharpener, just for a little quiet one before they go home. They need to take the edge off the day before they go home and face that. And with these things, often, you know, they're creating it. That's the thing with alcohol. It not only is used as the solution, but actually creates it in the first place, right? So, you know, you feel stressed out, but alcohol is causing stress.

1:01:36It's creating more stress. Your relationship, as an example. Well, you feel like you need a drink because of your relationship, but your drinking is causing problems on the relationship. and this is what it's like with so many areas of our life. I mean, it's not just the drinking, it's the lying and then the erosion of trust and the unreliability and the unpredictability, all of that. There's a cascade of dominoes that all fall as a result of that and there's a difference between the person who goes to the pub and has one pop.

1:02:35maybe you shouldn't do that. not that guy. I'm not. And I won't be. I think a lot of people in the preventative space are kidding themselves in part with that. They're like, I'll never, I'm not going to be like that. Well, there's always somebody who's worse. You can always point to somebody who's further down the line and say, I'll never be that person, or at least I'm not doing that. And those are all crutches to reinforce the unhealthy behavior pattern that you're trying to protect. Yeah. And all the people who are down at the end of the line, the vast majority of them say, I don't know how I got here.

1:03:05You know, it crept up. It just started to creep up and creep up. Launching this business was an amazing thing when we got inspired, like Andy coming on, talking about the challenge and why the challenge works, why that is so significant for people. Because I'd spent a long time trying to be, you know, evangelical, standing out there in Piccadilly Circus with the, you know, with the bell, hear ye, hear ye, stop drinking, it's amazing. You know, and everyone's like, shut up, go to the pub. And so that's where the challenge fit in so beautifully because it was like, hey, this is cool. This is something to be proud of, right?

1:03:42You want to be fitter, faster, healthier, happier. You want to be a better dad. You want to be a better husband, all of those things. You want to be a better mom. This is from the challenge. So I think when it, when it sort of really came into was probably been a year of investing in this, right? Hundreds of thousands of pounds invested into this business. And I sent a tweet out to a journalist and I got into a bit of a conversation. And off the back of that, we got a 10 minute feature in BBC World News in over 200 countries. Kind of unheard of for a business to get that kind of exposure, but it was amazing.

1:04:21And a friend of mine called me up in Italy and he said, Ruri, I've just seen you on the news. I think what you're doing is amazing. I'm meeting the Dalai Lama next week. Would you like to meet him? right just a quick check my diary let's have a look wow so um so i flew over to pisa and very random you know when serendipity and things like that show up you know you're on the right path right so next minute all sorts of things happen and i'm standing on this stage asking the dalai lama a question in front of thousands of people in pisa like just unbelievable so i asked him. I said, and I just wondered what your advice would be to anyone who is trying to get control of their addictions.

1:05:02And he said, if we teach our younger generation how to develop inner peace and how to tackle when negative emotions come, then I think through systematic sort of method teaching. A future generation could be better. That's my belief. So I just found all hundredly appreciate people like you who really try to help such people. Wonderful. What we need to do is help children to feel their emotion. This is the Dalai Lama's really big thing, right? This is the ultimate prevention because if we can help our kids feel more emotion, we can prevent all these things. But when he said that to me, I was like, okay.

1:06:01I remembered back to the letter to Branson. I remembered back about this purpose, about this being, about why I was on here. And I was like, this is it. I know why I've been put on this planet. It's to spread this message. And I went in on Monday morning and handed in my notice as an oil broker. My boss said to me, what are you doing? Like you've got a successful desk. You can, they'd let me spend 70 % of my time for two years building the business on the side. They were like, just carry on, take the money. I was like, I can't do another day. That day is the worst financial decision I ever made so far.

1:06:37Yeah, walking away from a really well-paid career where they're actually supportive of you building this other thing on the side. Exactly, and they were, they were so supportive. They saw what impact it was having. But when you're treading those two worlds, you're preventing yourself from really accessing the growth that's possible if you go all in on this thing. So it's a test. There's also something else really important and important. Meaning and purpose is a huge driver of compulsive behavior. Okay, so if you are misaligned to who you are in meaning and purpose, and you're doing something that you feel is completely meaningless, but you're doing it for the money, I'm telling you right now, it is rotting you inside.

1:07:22And I didn't realize, right, that there's daily, there's drinking, there's all this behavior. Like, I was commuting via tube to a windowless office, right? I'm born on an island near the sea, right? The environment was wrong. the you know what my boss used to say to me he used to say every day there's a pot of gold put on the table and you just have to reach in and grab whatever's yours and that was the purpose that was what we did and inside me was so much more right i knew i knew that i could help people like my dad telling me you're special you're gifted i was like i'm wasting this right i need to help people.

1:08:06And when it comes to this message, Rich, you know, I have been tested with this business beyond all belief. Building a business is so hard. This is the hardest thing I've ever done. And through that journey, I've been questioned so many times, like, why, you know, why don't you go back to oil brooking? You made so much more money. You had a better lifestyle, all of those things. why why why don't you just make a nice little small thing and not really what you know a nice little lifestyle all of those tests have come along the line and I've asked myself and said you know why are you doing this and it came down to something really powerful and that is if some words out of my mouth can help somebody who is regularly drinking alcohol to reconsider of their relationship with it to take the first step to changing that relationship i can change not only their life not only their family's life their their relationships their their businesses like and that's it for me and well also there may be most importantly their relationship with their kids yeah 100 and and create a situation in which their kids are not you know victimized by that person's trauma and as a result grow up healthier and liberated from the cycle of addiction that destroys so many families.

1:09:37Exactly.

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1:11:20And we skipped over the part, though, where you finally decide to put it down. You finally decide to stop drinking. Yeah. Yeah. That came about because I got a text message from my wife and saying, you know, I'll be in Sweden with our daughter. And I knew that that's her putting her foot down, which didn't really stop me. In fact, I took it up a notch. But what happened is, interestingly, with Andy's story, he mentioned that a decade or a whole bunch of years earlier, I'd given him the book, which started everything, right? Started the whole transformation. And that was Awaken the Giant within Tony Robbins.

1:11:56And similarly, he had said to me, you know, why don't you try this thing called Headspace? And that was 2013. So I just started meditating and I used it as when I'm on the train and I'm trying to change who I am from the person I needed to be to survive in that business to going home to a loving family that I was trying to grow, good humans. So I did it on the train and that's when the scratching started to get stronger and stronger and stronger. And I think that's what it is for people, right? I think people just have a little scratch at the back of their head, which is like, hey, this alcohol thing, it is holding you back.

1:12:33And I think sometimes they have it quite loud on Sunday morning. I don't know. Alcohol is really holding me back. But other times it's just a scratch. So when I started meditating, that's when that scratch started to grow. And it was growing and growing and growing to the point where I was like, do you know what? I think I'm going to take a break. Told my boss I was doing it. He said, you are committing commercial suicide if you stop drinking. Well, first of all, just to be totally clear here, it's interesting, like, okay, meditation, headspace, the Tony Robbins book, your relationship with Andy.

1:13:05But leading up to that, there was an incident in which you didn't come home until five o 'clock in the morning. The train. And your wife had had enough. And she said, I'm out of here. She's Swedish. She's leaving. She's going back to Sweden. And this was precipitated, correct me if I'm wrong, by you also like sharing with her a selfie of you leaning your head out the window of a speeding train while you were, you know, hammered, thinking it was a good idea and fun. Yeah. Yeah, that article made the paper. I know, I saw it. But people are like - Your eyes, your eyes in that photo, you know. There's emphasis on like, you know, the air going into your cheeks, but I look at the eyes and I'm like, this guy's gone.

1:13:51Yeah. Yeah. That was on the way home to the NCT class, the first time as a dad. It couldn't have been fun that that photo ended up in all these sort of British tabloid publications. I'm very happy with that. Yeah? Yeah. I will, I mean, not that I'll do anything. I have to be careful what I say. But again, if that, sharing that crazy person that I was, And by the way, when people say to me, that is so crazy, I'm like, that's the tamest thing I did. Right. The other stuff is not on video. It doesn't seem like it's not. No. Yeah. I mean, I've surfed roofs of cars. I lost all the skin on my arm. I mean, no, let's not go into the who's who.

1:14:39I'm sure you've got some tales of debauchery. But that was the sort of instigating set of circumstances that led you into saying, like, I got to find a way to rectify this. they were they were building but those things were again were all normalized and i think this is where a lot of people are right where they can hang their head out of a train and send the message to everyone and everyone just be like that's hilarious right or you know something end up and everyone be like you were so smashed last night you know that's hilarious um and it's the it's the near misses it's the nearly thing and i think for people it's in there like they know this is not right.

1:15:18They know it's costing them a bit, but then there's something stopping them from that change. And that's the bit where we want to be there to reach them and help them. You know, I think prevention should always swim upstream, right? So if we swim upstream, the most upstream thing is the hangover. So how can we help people in the hangover to have better tools, better support, better advice, better guidance so that they can prevent a more serious relationship with alcohol developing? So you decide to put the bottle down for a bit. I did a year. You did a year. At what point do you bump into Andy though and realize that he, independent of you, was doing the same thing?

1:15:59Just around my 90 day mark. And he was more, he was like four or five months in. And he said, he said, I think I'm going to do my 40th birthday and not drink. And I was like,

1:16:16Andy? Thick as thieves, Andy. And he did. He messaged me afterwards about how amazing he felt doing it. So I was like, okay, well, I've got my birthday coming up and I've got Christmas. I'm going to do those. And that's where the momentum builds. You know, you don't sit out at the beginning going, right, I'm going to do a year. It's going to be awesome. I think you do it bit by bit, by step by step. But you had an accountability buddy. Yeah. It's sort of the - An inspirer. The Bill and Dr. Bob, you know, analogy. Yeah. Sort of in your own version. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, and I think that we sort of got together and we were like, you know, we need to do something about this.

1:16:58We need to inspire more people. And yeah, that's where we came up with the challenge. That's what gave birth to the whole thing. Yeah. And so how did that go from an idea into actually being like a thing that other people, that you enlisted other people into participating in? Well, hundreds of thousands of pounds of my own money. I mean, you know, I'm looking forward to writing a book one day, 10 ,001 Things Not to Do When Starting a Business, because I just made all of the mistakes. You know, through the time we had the challenge, we kind of focused on that, and then it came to a moment where, okay, let's take this big, let's raise some money.

1:17:35And that's something I wanted to do, and we both had different opinions there about whether that was the right move. But, you know, I was here to impact the masses. So I knew we needed to raise some cash. And somebody said to me, you know, why don't you send out an email to your list? Maybe somebody knows somebody on there. So I wrote, you know, a powerful bit of email, like this is who we are. This is what we're trying to achieve. This is what the vision of where we're going is going to be. Do you know any six-figure investors out there who might help us seed the round? And I thought, you know, shut the laptop, went home.

1:18:08I thought, I wonder if I'll come into a couple of emails. Maybe somebody might know someone. I came in the next day to 74 emails. We raised 1.1 million in five weeks just from our customers. And this was the thing like, oh my God. And people would say to me, Ruri, even if I lose the 100 grand I'm investing in one year, no beer, it wouldn't be equivalent to the value you've given me. and I was like wow this is amazing like you know now in all of those years we've raised over five million pounds all from our customers well one one one external Joe DeSena Joe DeSena good old Joe good for him he he isn't a customer but I did have to I did have to woo him I know that uh you guys did a podcast recently I listened to that but you were doing were you doing a Spartan race.

1:18:59Where were you in Iceland or something like that? Randomly, I got the call to say, oh, you're doing not drinking thing. Joe will love to hear from you. You should talk to Joe De Sena. So here. So they lined up a call and I called Joe and I go, hi, Joe. He's like, what do you want? If you can't say it in six minutes, it's not worth saying. I'm like, okay, I'm brewery. I'm one of your no beer. He's like, stop drinking. Great idea. You need to talk to my wife. One second, talking to his wife. And, you know, obviously she's been put on the spot. Anyway, chat to her for a bit, try and inspire her to make a change, which Joe wanted to happen.

1:19:35And then get back onto him. And I say, Joe, I'd love to do a podcast with you. And he says, okay, cool. And I say, I only do them in person, which is a lie, but you know, I wanted to meet him. And he said, okay. I said, I can fly to Boston. And he said, you don't need to. I'll be in Iceland in December. You can see me then. And he pretty much hangs up the phone. And I get off and I go, it's a test. Iceland, Spartan, December, Joe De Sena, what pops up? The Spartan Ultra World Championships. And I'm like, you know, I know this guy. He is not going to even give me two seconds if I don't enter this thing.

1:20:10You can't go there and not do the race. He's got, he's, he's absolutely not going to have any time for you. So I did one lap of the ultra. um and uh but still that was that was a serious thing and that kind of kicked off a relationship a friendship actually with joe been very close to him since you know spend a bit of time together um and um you know he well spartan was an investor an early investor into one year no beer and then for a while we were the finish line of all of their events uh we were supporting people there you know really trying to inspire people to take a break from alcohol so yeah it feels like a natural integration to an event series like that in the same way that a brand like athletic brewing can be, you know, kind of, you know, yeah, like embedded into that to shift the paradigm away from like, oh, you have a beer after your race to no, we're actually doing something different here.

1:21:04Also one year, no beer feels like a, like a package that any large corporation, would want to sort of acquire and deploy with its workforce? Is that something that you guys have done? Absolutely. The corporate stuff is huge. And I think, again, in the preventative conversation with people is to say, hey, we can just run a challenge together with you guys and we can support people through the challenge. I think at these organizations, there's a lot of people who will never raise their hand and say, I have an alcohol problem. In fact, even today, it's in some people's contracts, right? If you have a problem with alcohol, we will fire you.

1:21:47And so it's like, are you putting people under all of this pressure, all of the stress in world, and yet the most readily available tool for people dealing with stress, the one that we've been conditioned and programmed to deal with, and is literally everywhere, including many of the social events at organizations still to this day, is alcohol, right? So there are lots of people with a poor relationship with alcohol in these organizations who are not going to raise their hand for fear, for stigma. And so I think what we've done is create a simple tool for an organization to use that helps us pick all that up in the back end.

1:22:23They don't need to know. They don't need to know that one of their individuals had a more intimate relationship with alcohol and needed a bit more support. They needed coaching. They needed more, you know, whatever. Yeah, it takes all that off the table. It just creates this welcome out where there's no shame or stigma like, hey, we're doing this fun challenge. And then people come in and it allows people who maybe were thinking about how to do that, but terrified of being found out or whatever. You know, all of those issues are kind of like resolved through that. I recently did a talk at a very large tech business.

1:22:57And it was a huge talk and it was going around to the vast majority of the organization. so a lot of eyeballs and again it was all around this you know do you want optimal health do you want to be better and blah blah blah and we'd had a guy who'd come through the program and he was there giving his conversation and it went to him and he's like so I am significantly happier I am more driven than I've ever been in my entire 30-year career in this organization I have more clarity, more focus. My wife is telling me she's more in love with me than she's ever been. I'm calmer as a parent with my kids.

1:23:37I'm more productive. I know I'm doing better deals. In fact, last night I was out at one of my client dues and I know I would be absolutely hanging today if it wasn't for this program. And you listen to that and you're like, how is not every organization investing in that right now? Why is everybody not going all in on that? It baffles me. It's baffled me for nine years. Yeah. I mean, what are the barriers there? I mean, you, I think you, you, we came right up to it, but then you didn't actually say it, which was when you, when you decided to stop drinking and your boss said, this is career suicide.

1:24:18What in fact happened was you expanded your book by 50%. Exactly. Right? So your productivity went through the roof. Through the roof. Which must have been amazing for your boss to bear witness to, right? He still wanted to deny it in a way. But, you know, yeah, those stats of increasing business. I was the only broker who wasn't pissed on Friday and the only broker who wasn't literally suicidally depressed on Monday and Tuesday. because I wasn't drinking alcohol. Well, given the fact that, sorry, given the fact that that culture is so oriented around drinking, how did you overcome the social triggers there to be able to do that without all of your colleagues and the clients wanting nothing to do with you because you were suddenly doing things differently?

1:25:13Absolutely. Step it up a notch, change it, right? Recognize what you're actually trying to achieve. So for me, I wanted to build good relationships. That was really key. I don't have a high turnover of customers. I actually build these relationships with customers. And then, you know, for your career, you work with those individuals. So I changed up how I did things. I mean, I ran a relay race at the Olympic Stadium. And that relay race had 40 guys and gals involved in. And every weekend, people would be doing park runs together and talking about PBs for months before the event at the Olympic Stadium, which everyone was looking forward to, that built way better relationships with people.

1:25:53I used to take people cycling, which is why I live in Mallorca. So I took people cycling. The man therapy you can have grinding up a hill, grinding is probably the wrong word, but you can have sitting on that bicycle, going up a hill, having a conversation with somebody about real life, about the truth of stuff, not the fickle, tiny conversations that all brokers are having at three o 'clock in the morning that they can't really recommend. Like real genuine connection. So I think that's, it was about stepping it up a notch. And I mean, we've talked about this before. I also had to stealth drink, right?

1:26:28Which, you know, it's crazy. We live in a world where you might have to stealth drink, but this is true. Meaning you would, you would have a drink that looked like an alcoholic drink that wasn't just so you could dodge that bullet. Yeah. Exactly. Yep. And nobody would know. And you become a master of it. I remember this one time I sit down, I get there early and I tell the barman and I say, look, I'm not drinking. I tip him 50 quid and I say, whatever they bring out, it's alcohol free. Right. So he's like, OK, sure. No, I've got you covered. An income, big customer. Right. They love their booze and they're expecting booze to be to be well had.

1:27:05Beers, everyone. Yep. Yep. Yep. Cool. So they come along and they plot down a pint, plot down a pint, plot down a pint, plot down a pint. pint, pint, pint. Everyone's got their pints. Next minute, he comes up to me and he's literally carrying a sequined flowery glass with a little handle on it, right? And then an alcohol-free beer, which has got dust on it. And he plonks the two in front of me like this. And I'm like, you fucking idiot. So I have to go, what? Get rid of this and give me a pint. How was the pandemic for all of this? What did you learn about people's behavior during the pandemic and the organization and the community of people?

1:27:47um yeah the pandemic decimated society's relationship with alcohol um i speak to people every single day who say that's when it went up a notch um and people haven't been able to get it back down they haven't been able to um reduce because it was just so shocking it was um it was it was trauma um and so i think you know that has been very detrimental to people The vast majority of people will mention the pandemic as when it started to get worse. For the organization, something utterly beautiful happened. So when we were all stuck at home and initially kicked off, I could see that we had all of these workers, We had these health staff, NHS out there in amongst this craziness, right?

1:28:41And relying on alcohol because it's the tool to deal with stress and difficulties. I mean, the amount of doctors and nurses and surgeons who come through our program, you'd be shocked. So I said, look, hey, community, we have an opportunity to do good here. Are you willing to come back, like come back into the community, engage significantly? if we open our doors for free to all NHS staff, health workers and emergency workers. And the response was unbelievable. I mean, well over 10 ,000 people like, yep, I'm in, I'm in. It was unbelievable. And so we opened up our doors for free and we just had this huge powering.

1:29:23And I was actually speaking to a nurse the other day and she was like, I signed up during that program. And it's the only thing that got me through it was being a part of your community. And that was my vice. That was my addiction. The Facebook group and the community was the release. Yeah. I mean, certainly alcohol sales went up during that period. Alcohol consumption went up during that period. But I think your signups went up like 30 % or something like that during that period of time. yeah it's uh the the the world was divided there were people who fell down the bottle and and use an excuse and there were people like right i'm going to use this as an opportunity to change you see the big thing in there is um when we change our environment our brain is kicked into neuroplasticity so it's easier for us to change behavior when we change environment so that's why it was for some people when they were like right no i'm going to get on top of this and i'm going to make a difference.

1:30:21And I think for lots of people who did some of the work and made the changes in their life, they've remained having a healthier or non-existent alcohol-free relationship with alcohol. And I think some people have found it creeped back since doing that work. And so. Of all the people that have gone through your program, what do the statistics say about people who continue to not drink versus people who did the challenge then resume some semblance of their previous lifestyle? Like what is the staying power of these kinds of challenges and how long do you have to do it before you see an increase in the sustainability of a new way of pursuing your life?

1:31:06So when you look at the challenge as an example, the vast majority of people come and they do a 28-day challenge because it's the one that only seems perceivable. And then they go back to drinking for a bit. And then they do the 90-day challenge. And then they might go back to drinking for a little bit. And then they go back to a year. And this is why I wanted to change things up. Because what I see in that is that people are drinking and then they go back, not just to drinking, but probably it starts to creep back into a problematic way. And some people that can get worse and worse and worse.

1:31:41And that's why we had to step up the availability of tools and resources to support people in a deeper fashion. Because in a way, the challenge is just like this light touch element of, hey, let's just give this a shot. And getting people to really do the work on changing the things that are driving it, that is, with every fiber of my being, that is how we really, really help people? Let's talk about emotions, right? Have you ever been taught to deal with your emotions? What about stress? What tools do you use to mitigate stress? Other than just reaching for alcohol, do you meditate? Do you exercise?

1:32:22Do you do breath work? When you come out of a board meeting in the afternoon and it's been stressful for you, Do you reach for a coffee, which significantly delays your ability to return into recovery? Or do you just do some breath work to give yourself the same elation, but then bring yourself back into parasympathetic? So I think people don't have these tools. They don't even have the awareness. They don't have the understanding. And so getting people through that experience, giving them the tools to actually mitigate that compulsion, that's what gives them a far better chance of longevity of changing their relationship with alcohol.

1:33:01From a sales perspective though it's a harder sell than to just say it's a 28-day challenge. People understand that you know intuitively what that means and then you're now introducing like well actually it's complicated and here's all this stuff. This is very difficult to scale and to sell to somebody who's like listen man I just want to drink less. Like I don't need to go into my childhood with you. Yeah. Let's not talk about that on the front cover, right? Let's go back to the 28 day challenge and let's start there. Because in all of this stuff, we're going to help you to start to see that there are these things.

1:33:36And I think it's a gradual thing, right? It's the cooking of the frog, right? Do it little by little, gentle by gentle, and the frog will not jump out, right? I think it's the frog or the lobster Boiling the frog. Boiling the frog. Yeah, you got to boil a frog slowly. So this is where we're meeting people at, right? Let's just start going on this journey. Let's look at this as a journey of changing your relationship with alcohol. And it might take you a few years, right? It might be faster than that. But on that journey, we're going to keep making changes in your life, personal development changes.

1:34:10We're going to help you with these various things. And we're going to help you to have an improved relationship with alcohol, along with all the benefits of that. In all the work that you've done around the behavioral psychology piece of this, what have you learned about the difference between breaking a bad habit and forming a new habit? And where does that understanding inform how you craft these programs or how you kind of approach somebody who's thinking about making a change? Wonderful question. The first part here is Professor B.J. Fogg, Stanford University. Wonderful human being, changed his relationship with alcohol.

1:34:50His research says we change behavior by feeling good, not by feeling bad. And so looking at everything that we do here, it's about being positive, aspirational, right? Oh, I want that. I want to be fitter. I want to lose weight. I want to be happier. I want to be healthier, right? So if we stay in that positive psychology focus going towards a direction of aspiration, then I think that's where we meet the vast majority of people in changing a bad habit. Rather than you have a problem and that kind of language, let's stay in this part of habit change. The second part, he says, is bad habits are like weeds.

1:35:29So they grow over time. They start to infect different areas of your brain. they infect your reward system, your identity, your belief system, your emotions. Okay. So do you garden? No. Lucky man. But if you've ever pulled out a weed, right, if you just go and rip it out, then it grows back and usually it'll grow back worse, which is why we actually have to go through the process of cultivating it out. What do we do to do that? We cultivate good habits. Good habits is how we remove a bad habit. And so that's why during all of that, the challenge and all of these other programs, we're pretty ruthless in helping people build habits, the habit of meditation, the habit of exercise, the habit of sleeping well, the habit of eating well, the habit of gratitude, journaling, like these are the tools that we use to help people.

1:36:24So my anecdotal observation on this, which is not clinical in the least, is that people who have a normal, like a quote unquote, like kind of normal relationship with the world and themselves, which is to say they are not addicts by nature. They don't have that addictive impulse. those people seem to have the capacity to crowd out bad habits by focusing on cultivating new positive habits. And as a result of kind of investing their energy and their enthusiasm in these new positive habits, the bad habits sort of, you know, they just end up falling away. This is something my wife is very good at.

1:37:15And this is also something that I look at with great curiosity because I cannot do this. How do you do that? This is not how I'm wired in the least. And that's because fundamentally my wiring is different. I am wired with a very powerful inclination towards addictive behaviors and things that don't serve me. And so that understanding allows me to approach this differently to say that probably isn't gonna to work for me. It's good to cultivate positive habits, but I have to like do triage on the bad habit. Like I have to address it as the dangerous, acute thing that it is. And no matter how much I pull those weeds out, they're always gonna grow back unless I dig them out completely and make sure that every little, every little, yeah, like tentacle of, yeah, is gone.

1:38:10Eradicated. And that requires, you know, a lot of effort and diligence and persistence to do that. So I guess what I'm getting at is, is that fundamental difference between the person who's wired in that kind of addictive construct versus the more kind of normal average person, if there ever was one, and wondering how through the course of working with so many people through this program, you begin to identify who the people are who might need that more kind of acute redress of the issue that they're contending with that a 28-day challenge is not going to resolve? And is there then kind of a pathway to guide them towards a recovery modality that they might be more suited towards?

1:38:59Because I see all of this as complimentary to 12-step. Exactly. Look, there are many ways to get sober, regardless of your problem. I'm not here to say otherwise. And of course I have my own biases and I'm very much indoctrinated in the 12 step and believe in it and have borne witness to thousands of people who have re-imagined their lives in miraculous ways and overcome, you know, just the most drastic of circumstances to become incredible people. So I'm always, you know, the first to say, you know, if you think you have a problem, you should go check that out. and suspend whatever judgments you have or whatever you saw in whatever movie that made you think one way or the other about what this program may or may not be.

1:39:44And I also understand that it's not for everybody. And if you do have just a casual relationship with drinking, maybe AA is not the place for you. But I'm just curious around the hard cases that I'm sure find their way into your program. Absolutely, they do. And then what happens with those individuals? Okay, well, we take great care. is the first thing. Let me tell you about Keith, right? So Keith, three attempts at the Priory. The first time he went to the Priory, which is tens of thousands of pounds, by the way, to go to the Priory. The Priory being a treatment center. The treatment center for wealthy people in the UK or in London.

1:40:28The first time he goes to the Priory. It's a week later. He's back into problematic drinking. The second time, it's probably a couple of weeks, right? It very quickly went back to problematic drinking. I recently spoke to him. So he came on our Complete Control program a year ago, okay? And he's one of our greatest advocates. He's like, I just don't feel like it, right? He says, I occasionally have a drink, right? But most of the time, I just don't feel like it. I don't have that same cognitive load. Now, the thing is, he would absolutely traditionally, you'd say he is over here. And yet we have been successful with helping him change this.

1:41:10Okay, let's ask each other again in five years and 10 years and see where he is. But I think the greatest thing that about him is, he is now on such a path of self discovery. I mean, he's currently deep in psychedelics and learning about going through trauma and discovered he had significant childhood trauma, which he did on the program. And he's now in this full personal development mode of making huge changes in his life, kicked off from this trajectory of saying, hey, maybe there's more to this. Maybe if you try changing some of these things here, this thing might go down or go away for you a little bit, right?

1:41:50So really what I'm saying is there is no black and white. There is no, he needs to go here or she needs to go there. There is just, why don't we look at the lifestyle things? Why don't we look at the things that we know that all the science out there says to us that drives compulsive behavior, like stress, like trauma, like emotions, like connection to people, like meaning and purpose. Why don't we address all of these things with them and then ask that question, right? Let's give the example of depression, right? Somebody feels depressed. They go into the doctor, they say, I feel depressed. Now, the doctor may or may not ask them about their relationship with alcohol.

1:42:34The doctor will most likely, all the psychiatrists will most likely prescribe them a medication for their depression. but every day they are drinking the world's most powerful depressant and you're not like hang on what about sleep let's ask them are you sleeping because we now know that sleep deprivation is i mean well we know it's used as torture right so sleep deprivation is a significant driver of compulsive behavior all these people who are working shift work and late nights and things like that right what about mental health what about adhd and things like that have they been taught how to regulate their central nervous system.

1:43:11No, they've never been taught that. Well, that's why they're using alcohol because they've never been taught how to regulate their nervous system. Are they, right? So are they exercising? Are they running? That conversation is not happening. It's here's a pill or you have a problem. You need to go here. And I think let's just start with this conversation of, okay, if it's not the challenge, then why don't we look at these things together? Let's look at them with a fine tooth comb. Actually, we use some cool technology, the Oura Ring, things like that. We help them see in data and evidence and clarity.

1:43:43And then we sit at the end of the program and we have this wonderful traffic light system. And it shows our core drivers. We go through all of the data we've captured, all of the evidence. And of those core drivers, there's red, amber, and green. If there's lots of reds, then absolutely, whatever you do, stay alcohol-free. You must move those things from red into amber before even considering trying to control your drinking, which is what they came in for in the beginning. So I think we give people clarity and understanding on what they need to do in order to have a better relationship with alcohol.

1:44:20I'm using the word better. That being said, let's say you came through that program and once again, it comes back to you. Absolutely. You need to go to a treatment center or you need to go to 12 step or you need to find the next thing. And I, but I just think that this is a part where we can help people earlier. All the apps that are available now and the trackers are, are really effective. I think it in, in reconfiguring people's relationship to alcohol, because you mentioned the aura ring or you have a whoop and you can just show people what the data looks like. Like here's, here's what, Here's what your night was like last night after two glasses of wine and their HRV is, you know, beneath the floor.

1:45:05And their resting heart rate is higher, way higher than normal. And their respiratory rate is off. And the lack of deep sleep and REM sleep, like it's just right there. It is. I think those interfaces are so effective at showing the drastic difference between what the previous night's sleep, which was healthy, looks like in comparison. And I think that's very effective at shocking people out of whatever they've convinced themselves. When you can actually see what your body is doing, how it's responding to that, it reframes the whole thing and it gives people an entry point. They don't really have to contend with the fact that whether or not they have a problem, they're just like, I need to sleep better.

1:45:48And in order to sleep better, I need to do this. This is it. It's like different things speak to different people. Exactly. You mentioned weight loss. That's another one, obviously. But building a more successful business, you know? I mean, Alex Oromozi out there saying, you know, absolutely, I stopped drinking. It was the best thing. Everything shot up from then. The stopping drinking was the catalyst for a huge transformation for me. And to have some, you know, big influencer like that talking about it in that way, I think that's going to reach so many more people. They're like, no, I want to double my business this year.

1:46:21But the difference with like the whoop is like, it's literally immediate. Like it's overnight. You can see this. Yes. Build your business over time. You had a 50 % increase. Like these things are real, but they're stories told by somebody else. They're not direct experiences that can be had, you know, literally in a period of a couple hours. Exactly. I mean, your man, Blake, behind the camera there was saying exactly the same thing. He was looking at it on his whoop and he was like, hang on a minute, this is really costing me. And as a new dad, you've got enough sleep deprivation without having alcohol.

1:46:54Everything's stacked against you as it is already. So explain to me what this complete control program is all about. Completely, yes, complete control. This is confusing to me. Go ahead. Bear with me, Rich. We're doing good things. I'm trying, buddy. We're doing good things. Okay. So again, born off the research, you know, what I saw was a lot of people like myself who took a break from alcohol and then went back to problematic drinking. So I knew there was more to this. Like I knew there was more in the underlying. And what I wanted to do is help people in a more intimate way. Right. So what would that look like as we sat down as a team.

1:47:35So, you know, we have successfully unlocked the greatest product ever sold by One Year No Beer is equity, right? That was the greatest product we ever sold. And so if we look at this for serving a different audience in a more impactful way, what is it, right? What is it to help people understand what drives compulsive behavior? Can somebody control their drinking? Well, I mean, I have. I've been able to successfully control my drinking. I usually choose not to drink, occasionally have a drink. I had a very problematic relationship with alcohol. I know thousands and thousands and thousands of people who've gone on that same journey and been able to achieve the same thing.

1:48:15So what is it to do that? So that's why we came up with something which would help people understand with clarity what is actually driving it. So the idea is to go through an eight-week program. We use some pretty cool technology. We help people see their stress. I'm talking about seeing minute by minute, whether they're in sympathetic or parasympathetic, and being able to see the impact that that is having on them. This is like one of the most impactful parts of the program because the vast majority of the people who come to the program are very driven, had celebrities on the program, we've had MPs, very large business owners, director at world's largest banks, you name it.

1:48:54And when they see their stress in data like this so clearly, but they also see how impactful alcohol is when they have a drink. It's very, very compelling for the change. So we take them on this journey. We help them understand what is driving the behavior. And then we kind of coach them through trying to change those various areas of their life. When people come into the program, literally 100 % of people are looking for control. They're like, I don't want to stop drinking. I don't want to stop. I'm looking for control. Sure. And the joke that I told you is that this is the great adage of, you know, the great kind of recursive mantra of every good alcoholic, which is they hold on to this delusion, this great desire to be able to control their drinking, to drink like a gentleman.

1:49:44So if we take just 1, 2, 10, 5, 10 % of those people and we change them and actually achieve that, is that not success? It's success only to the extent that the people who really need more acute help are not deprived of that because they're trying to perpetuate the delusion that this is possible for them. And in that case, yeah, then it's problematic. But what we do with it is say, okay, thank you so much for coming in and looking for control. Now let's have a look at your life. These are the areas of your life that you need to change. The program is life-changing because we're going to show people the areas of their life that they need to change, right?

1:50:33That we're going to start doing some trauma work. For the vast majority of people who come into here, they've never done any trauma work. They've never done any talk therapy. Like that in itself is hugely positive, right? To take somebody who's looking for control of their drinking and then bring them to the table to start dealing with this childhood shit that they've been ignoring and packing down their whole life. That's success. Or what about, we talk about stress a lot, right? What about teaching them how to deal with a much higher level of stress? I've had a guy who built half a billion turnover business.

1:51:06And he's like, I had no idea, right, that I needed to integrate these tools into my day. And I had no idea of the capacity of stress I could handle until A, I removed the vast majority of my drinking. And I'm talking about the vast majority, right? He now rarely drinks. We caught up with him in Mallorca. He flew over by private jet to take my wife and I out to dinner. and he's like, I'm going to be out here for 15 days and maybe on one day I'll have a drink or two. The rest, I've just got absolutely no interest. And so this is what happens when you show people the impact of stress, the impact of trauma, the impact of these things.

1:51:44They can change those things. So yeah, I think wrapped up inside, hey, is alcohol causing a bit of trouble in your life? Is it something that you've struggled to change and it keeps coming back? Let's look at some areas of your life and shift those and see if that finally does it for you. Sure. Yeah, I get that. And I totally understand that. I think in the board game of sobriety and abstinence, if one is to pursue this path of complete control and realize time and time again that they find themselves out of control, it's maybe time to not pass go and maybe not go to jail, but go to step one, which is to embrace the fact that you are powerless over this substance and that your life is unmanageable.

1:52:36Yeah. Because the real premise of 12-step is acknowledging your inability to control this thing that persists to the level of astonishment. Yeah, absolutely. And it's been hugely successful. Well, it has been one of the most important things in society for a long time for helping people change their relationship with alcohol. And I think where we're coming at this from is just to widen up that gap, to widen up that story to say, look, people are different. and you don't know what might be the catalyst for finally changing somebody, for finally them putting it down for good, for finally making the changes in their life or their business, whatever it is they need to do.

1:53:26You don't know what that catalyst will be. For some people, you never know, Rich. It could be this podcast, right? It could be somebody listening to this and they've had a significantly problematic relationship with alcohol and they go, do you know what? Fuck this. I'm done. And in that moment, they decide to go and make these changes in their life and go on a personal development journey. And I don't know, go to take some ayahuasca or do iboga, which I've done nuts by the way. But, and iboga be the thing that stops them, which is very powerful at doing. So we just don't know what will be the catalyst for somebody.

1:54:02And I think when we open up that conversation to say, there are other tools and a wide arrangement of tools and we have to treat people like that. And I think similarly, that's the conversation in society, right? Is it, is what, at what level is the problem? At what level does the person have to admit there's a problem? And if we turn that conversation around and say, let's not have a conversation about it being a problem, but let's just say, is alcohol causing you problems? Because if it is, why don't you change your relationship with it? What have you learned about the relationship between ADHD and alcohol?

1:54:4399.9999 % of people who come to complete control either identify with or are ADHD, ADD, or neurodivergent. My own personal journey of understanding my incredibly destructive behavior derived from ADHD, like a nuclear bomb, is being so intrinsic in helping me understand other people and deliver a program which is helping people change significantly. ADHD and that coping mechanism of alcohol are so intrinsically linked. When we look at this in the data, right, what happens with ADHD is we get that hyperactivity, okay? So imagine, are you ADHD? Well, I ask for personal reasons because I'd never thought once about whether or not I was ADHD.

1:55:34And I did a very intensive week of trauma therapy last year, right around this time, where I was - What kind of trauma therapy? Childhood trauma. And basically every skilled practitioner that saw me and I saw a variety of them over the course of this week, all agreed there was a unanimous consensus that I was ADHD, but I was not a hyperactive kid. Like it's a whole different set of circumstances, but go ahead. If you don't feel hyperactive as a kid, then ADD. So there's a couple of things into here. Don't let me lose track. There's a couple of things into here. If you look at the work by Gabor Mate, he says that actually ADHD, ADD, things like that, they're a coping mechanism from a traumatized child.

1:56:23Okay. So this past trauma then drives us as an engine to create this. There's also some really interesting studies out there showing that, you know, that ADHD is very much intrinsically linked with sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation in babies creates ADHD. Now, my mom always said I slept four hours and every 24 as a baby. So I'm like, oh, thanks, mom. You gave me ADHD. No. So, oh, come on. That's not fair. Well, yeah, exactly. Love you, mom. The thing about ADHD is imagine it's like a dynamo. You know, when you push the car like this and the little dynamo, you push and push and push and it goes off into the distance.

1:57:10That's ADHD, right? So our central nervous systems, they get wound up faster. Okay. So the stress that we bring into the day, let's say you drank last night or didn't sleep well, you then increase that level of stress that you have. And as you get into this busyness of the day, you drink coffee, which is very impactful on our central nervous system. Once again, adds in more stress is that we get up into this hyperactive state, which we love because it makes us super busy. In fact, We can do the work of 10 people in a day, and we pride ourselves in this ability to be able to handle stress and do so much work and be productive.

1:57:48The problem comes at the end of the day. Just like that dynamo, we've been winding and winding and winding and winding and winding. Guess what the preordained outcome is? Your central nervous system needs to numb out now. And what is it? Well, if it's a coping mechanism for a traumatized child, then the truth is a lot of it is emotion, unprocessed, dealt with emotion, which drives through our stress and daily, you know, lots of daily activity like that into a very busy brain. And so people go, I just can't switch my brain off. And alcohol is the most readily available tool out there for helping us switch our brain off.

1:58:26The issue is not alcohol. The thing is not the problem. What the issue is, is a very stressed out central nervous system, which is not being calmed down. And so in this here, we're literally forcing people to meditate. I'm talking about monitoring them every day and phoning them if they don't meditate. I call this the ass kicker, right? When I said I wanted to deliver a program. You're holding up an aura ring for people who are just listening. So this is used for extreme accountability. because I get all these business owners, these high achievers, these people coming in and they go, I just, I mean, I just tried to stop drinking and it comes back and I'm like, yeah, but what are you doing about your stress?

1:59:07Well, I'm very stressed. Yeah, but what do you do? Nothing. So when we teach them these tools and they calm down that central nervous system, that is when all of the change happens. You were talking about doing trauma stuff. Meditation for me is really, I look at it like this and some people might not like this, but it works for me. I'm sick, right? I'm ADHD. I'm sick. If I do not take my medication, then I will get my Uzis out and I will fuck my life up. I'm like, blow everything up. So I must medicate every day. And my medication is really simple. It's exercise and meditation. And so helping people see it from that perspective, who they're like, oh, I tried meditation, but my brain is so busy I just can't switch it off.

1:59:58Yeah, that's because you need to meditate. Super interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I have so much more I need to learn about the world of ADHD. I'm just beginning to kind of understand it. My first step there, and the first step for me, was to get ADHD for dummies. I found it really interesting. Do you know what it was? It was hugely relieving. To read about this stuff of like, oh, so I'm not a fucking weirdo. Are we allowed to swear? Yeah, you can swear. It's the same. I have done a little bit of reading and it is that same experience when you go into an AA meeting for the first time and think you're the only one who has this experience or feels a certain way and you hear your story recounted back to you.

2:00:39Yeah, exactly. I felt that point of relatability with what I've learned so far. Did you feel that the first time you went in there? To Alcoholics Anonymous? Yeah. Really? Yeah. I wasn't ready to do the work. No. And I didn't stay and I didn't get sober immediately, but I knew that I belonged there. So I went to AA and I walked straight back out and I was like, this is not me. And I hear this a lot. Contempt prior to investigation, my friend. No, but what I'm saying here is that's, I think, the part is that you identified immediately with it because you recognize those conversations and those stories.

2:01:20and there are a lot of people out there who are saying hey i don't resonate with that and i think that's the importance of having this smorgasbord of tools and conversations and things like that to meet people where they're at i get that but i also think it's important to to to um encourage people to set aside their prior convictions and their judgments because often those are misplaced. And I think people go in with already, you know, predisposed to not like it. And the minute something happens that they can like hang their hat on that, they're out the door and they're like, it didn't work for me.

2:02:02I mean, I answer emails every single day. I tried that, it didn't work. I'm like, what about it didn't work? And you kind of like deconstruct that and walk them through that. And more often than not, it's their own, you know, biases that aren't working for them. So I always wanna make that available for people and to kind of do my best to kind of... put to the lie, like whatever notion they have about what it is and it isn't. And a lot of people get hung up on the God stuff and we all have our baggage with religion and things that have happened to us. So I'm sympathetic to that, but I think there's ways around that.

2:02:44And again, I'm saying this from the perspective not to be critical in the least of what you're doing. I think what you're doing is super powerful and it is providing this amazing welcome mat for the untold millions of people who have some kind of issue ranging from very moderate to somewhat concerning with respect to their use of alcohol. And you're able to capture those people, redress that problem and produce better lives as a result. And I think that that is a worthy mission for your life. And I think to heed the words of the Dalai Lama and to take that to heart and put them into action is quite laudable.

2:03:27I think it's a beautiful thing that you're doing. Thank you. Yeah. The one thing in there is, you know, once you've discovered having an impact on people, and this links interestingly back to ADHD and also emotions. A lot of people who from a young age have a very high level of emotion. We can call some of those empaths have a high level of emotion. They then turn to alcohol and drugs, right? Because they struggle to deal with those emotions. But what happens when you remove that from people, you remove the alcohol, you move the numbing is now you bring back that emotion. You were talking about that earlier.

2:04:08They're a live wire without any tools for coping with all of those confusing emotions. But they're also highly empathic. And what people find is that, you know what, empathic people usually feel like they need to give back and they're in jobs or they're in careers where they don't feel like that. And that was me. You know, I didn't feel like I was giving back at all. And so when I made that shift over to a purposeful life of helping people, right, that is another level of being able to - Yeah, it's an inoculation against that. I mean, I know what it's like to be in a career, both when I was drinking and when I was sober and not feel fulfilled, not feel purposeful and not feel like what I was doing had any real extrinsic meaning other than like getting a paycheck every two weeks.

2:04:56And when you're in that place, you want to numb out from your life and those uncomfortable emotions. And you'll find yourself overspending or thinking that if you buy this thing, it's gonna make you feel better. And now being on a trajectory where I really do feel connected to meaning and purpose and service. Totally. All of that goes away. Like that is something that kind of falls by the wayside because you don't feel compelled by it anymore. It doesn't lure you because what you're doing is basically satisfying that craving in a healthy way. I'll give you an example. A guy I'm seeing tomorrow, he was scrolling innocently through Instagram, stumbled across one of our ads.

2:05:46And in it, it says, do you feel like you've got more to give? Do you feel like there's more out there for you and you're just not quite achieving as much as you want to achieve? then I guarantee you it's probably alcohol, right? That's the conversation. And he's looking at it and he's like, well, I've built 300 million turnover businesses. Um, so I don't feel like I've not been successful, but I do feel like alcohol could be holding me back. Right. So that's where it came from for him. He clicks on, jumps in, has a conversation with me. And he says about the program, he's like, you know, I just have a whiskey a day.

2:06:21You know, I come home, I have a whiskey, and then at the weekends, it's, you know, a few more. But it's not a problem. Everyone's doing it. Normally, that's just what it is. And we're like, okay, well, that's fine. No problem. But we guarantee you that this is holding you back in a significant way. So he's like, okay, if I come on this program and it has an impact on me, I'm going to help you. So he comes through this thing. And once again, we help him find some significant trauma he had no idea about, right? And he's like, I just can't believe it. Now he comes to the end call with our coach, my wonderful wife.

2:06:56She is our lead coach. And he says, do you know what? I believe it's my life's purpose to help you guys grow this program. And that is the element we're sitting here saying is passively sitting on the couch, just maybe drinking a little bit too much to profoundly life changed when you start to address and help people see that alcohol is not the problem. It's just the outcome. It's the result. It's the result of some things that you're doing in your life. And when you make those shifts, it's life transforming. You don't have to tell me, man. Exactly. So many lives transformed, as I said earlier, in ways that would just absolutely blow your mind.

2:07:40People traversing from the bottom depths of insanity to leading productive lives of meaning like it is a it's a remarkable thing and when you get to participate in that um it changes it changes you it changes who you are and it changes your sense of possibility and it and it also you know connects you to the value of being in service of that of that mission which clearly clearly you are Yeah. Yeah. It's a beautiful one to be on. Cut me open. It's unbelievable, the passion for this subject matter. Like I said, you know, this conversation might be the catalyst for somebody to make that change and, you know, putting families back and things like that.

2:08:26So, you know, never stop having this conversation. Let's really ramp it up now. Like, this is the time. Like, let's really get this conversation going out there because there are so many people suffering. The very, the very, very piece of alcohol is suffering. I mean, you drink any amount and you feel like suffering the next day. Everybody is suffering with hangovers at the weekends. So I think, yeah, let's just keep having the conversation. We never came back around to the letter of unrequited love to to Sir Richard Branson. Richie Brie. Yeah, so, well, through all the raising of cash, and, you know, we now have over 4 ,000 investors, every single pitch, every single conversation I mentioned about this letter to Branson and it being my fuel and, you know, what we were here to have an impact.

2:09:25And as I kept bringing out that message, I had a message one day from a guy through Joe Polish who was in Genius Network. And he messaged me and he said, I've just heard your story about Richard Branson. Amazing. I'm going to Necker Island. Do you want to come with me? And I'm like, yes, I'm about to fulfill my life's dream. This is unbelievable. I can't believe it. And he put me in touch with the organizer. And the organizer was like, he'd just done a year alcohol-free, not through us, but somebody had mentioned to him about, you know, one year, doing one year, no beer. and so I spoke to him and he was all really excited and he was like when you tell Richard Branson this story he's going to love it like you sit there FaceTime your dad sitting next to Richard Branson like this is full circle from those suicide attempts to to um coming through so it was all lined up to happen and I was heading off to Necker Island and then the pandemic happened.

2:10:25Um, and the trip got canceled. Um, and two months later, my dad died. And, um,

2:10:34when my dad passed, um, you know, I was very, very fortunate through this organization. Um, thankfully for the business that I spent the last four weeks with him and caring for him. And he was an incredible human. And he, he always wanted me to believe that I could do more than I could do something great in the world. And so he was, he was my greatest champion. So I'm very sad that I didn't get to have that moment, but, um, wind forward, you know, some more time, a few months go by. And I heard that some people close to Branson were doing our challenge through various other people. And I was like, okay, we're getting closer.

2:11:16Um, and then I heard that somebody very close was doing the program. And so this got exciting. And next minute, again, another six months, year goes by and I'm lying in bed one night, one of those sleepless nights, you know, that happen when you run an organization. And I'm looking at my phone and there is, you know, he's in Mallorca opening up the new hotel. So I shot a message to the person I knew, like, are you here? Yeah, you should come up. And then they never responded. And I was like, come up where? So I thought, you know, fortune favors the brave, just turn up. So I headed up to there, went to the hotel, couldn't find the person, couldn't see anything, very busy camera crew around, people running around.

2:11:58I said, I'm going to meet somebody, can I have a coffee? And they were like, yeah, sure. Just go out onto the terrace. And I kid you not, as I walked through that archway into there, I walked out onto the patio and he could have been anywhere in that moment, like filming, they were doing a tennis thing. Richard was standing in the pulpit, staring out at the view on his own. So I just walked up beside him and I said, amazing view. And he was like, it's one of my favorite in the world. I said, Hey Richard, can I tell you a story? And he said, is it funny? I said, no, but I might cry. And then I started to tell him the story about, you know, suicide and coming back from that and the impact we were having and getting tearful.

2:12:39And he gave me a big hug. And after telling him the story of what we were trying to achieve, you know, he said, well, we won't have that lunch, but how about we have dinner tonight? So yeah, my wife and I, she came up as well and we had dinner with him. And it was an amazing moment that really taught me one thing. And I think that is that the most important factor when you are trying to change something like this, we talked earlier about a paradigm shift happening not in months or weeks, in decades, right? My vision now is in decades. And the most important thing is one thing. People talk about consistency, they talk about that.

2:13:25No, water will break down anything, any rock, anything over time is persistence. It's just persistence. And that's the thing with this, right? I was thought it was all going to happen very quickly. I'm nine years into this message. I'm now looking at the next couple of decades, just here saying this one thing that if you are regularly drinking alcohol, then I guarantee you it is holding you back. And you have these two archangels in the Dalai Lama and Sir Richard Branson on each shoulder. And then Joe DeSena, some here as well. Yeah, shouting in your ear. Rich. Shouting in your ear. These champions who are helping us keep going and keep sharing the message.

2:14:09You know, one thing, and you may resonate with this, at the darkest moments of running this business, which is the biggest challenge of my life, At the hardest times when you're almost ready to switch the lights off and there's nowhere to go anymore and it's so hard. And I'm crying on the phone to my mom going, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? And she said, when you want to show up big in the world, you're going to have to push through a lot of stuff. So just everyone out there, keep persisting. And especially with this message, just keep sharing the message. Keep inspiring people to drink less.

2:14:46keep talking about your sobriety keep talking about what you did to change it like let's rise up let's all help each other beautiful um the final thing before we put a close to this um as we welcome uh a new year it's 2024 by the time this goes up yes um in consideration of that and understanding and seeing you as this change agent, which you are, I wanted to kind of close with thoughts that you might want to share with the person who's listening to this, who's entertaining the possibility of making this change for maybe the first time. What are your thoughts on the nature of change itself? Like how do you approach the process of making that change?

2:15:37What's the best way to begin? And more importantly, maybe what's the best way to sustain it, to follow through on that process? Great question. So I think that it is small baby steps is how we create change over time, is making small iterations. And so if you're going to, if you are currently in dry January and you're taking a break from alcohol, start to make fundamental shifts in the areas of your life. You know, things like who you hang out with all the time, because if everyone you hang out with all the time is saturated in booze, guess what? You're going to go back to that. All the different things that we touched in here, like start making these improvements in your life because the alcohol coming is a product of how you are living your life.

2:16:25And just very gently to start taking those steps. I would say to anyone who has been here before and taken a break and found it come back, I would say, please, please stop going in search of willpower. Stop going in search of more, I can do this, I can do this on my own. And instead go in search of four things, accountability, connection, support, and education. And they can come in all sorts of ways. They can come in 12 books and alcohol-free articles and listening to podcasts like this. So go in search of the tools that will help you change. And I think lastly, I'm just going to scratch that itch again.

2:17:12There are two things people say to me after they've changed their relationship with alcohol. Number one, I had no idea the impact alcohol was having on me until I changed my relationship with it. And number two, I wish I'd done it sooner. So don't be that guy or gal. Let's not wait. Let's just get on. Thank you. Thank you, Rich. I loved it. It's a beautiful mission you're on, and I appreciate you coming here and sharing with me. I think that many lives will be impacted by what you had to say today. So thank you. And more power to you. I'm at your service. If there's anything I can ever do for you, please reach out.

2:17:54In the meantime, everybody who's listening or watching, if you want to learn more about Rory and his mission, you can do that easily by going to oneyearnobeer.com. Your book, The 28-Day Alcohol-Free Challenge. Boom, nailed it. That's it. You can buy that anywhere, Amazon, wherever. Anywhere else you want to direct people or anything coming up in January that would be of interest to people that are enjoying this? yeah we we have all of our challenges to help people who need a self-help um course uh check out complete control if you feel like you need a little bit more support um and you know we provide tons and tons of free content um our our social media uh oimb or one year no beer um our community our huge facebook groups and things like that they're all part of the challenge and we also have our own podcast, which you should come and be on, Rich.

2:18:51Yes. The One Year No Beer podcast. Yes. How long have you been doing that for? Oh, well now, well, nowhere near your downloads, but yeah. You've been doing it for a while though. We've been doing it for a while. A lot of guests over now. Nine years? Yeah. Yeah, some really, really good guests. Nine years. Exactly. That's no slouch. Yeah, I don't think it's nine years. I don't think it's nine years. It can't be because you started One Year No Beer in 2015. Yes. did you start the podcast right away pretty very close i think no probably two years after gosh i'm my memory but yeah yeah um i think uh yeah so it's it's six seven years yeah cool really clearly not good at timelines anyway man that was great thank you uh come back and share some more with me and uh let's get you outside so you can enjoy this beautiful uh weather we got here in Los Angeles, although in Mallorca, it's probably better.

2:19:48But anyway, you're here for a bit. I want you to enjoy your time here. I just want to say, Rich, again, huge kudos to you. You know, huge kudos to you for having us on and sharing this message. And I think this is the greatest thing we can do is really share this message to inspire people around this one thing, which, you know, is absolutely going to happen over the next decade or two. The time is up for alcohol. And so thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Well, least I can do at your service again. Thanks, Rory. Thank you. Cheers. Peace.

2:20:27That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and or comment.

2:21:12Supporting the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo, with additional audio engineering by Cale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis, with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake.

2:21:50Portraits by Davey Greenberg, graphic and social media assets, courtesy of Daniel Solis. Thank you, Georgia Whaley, for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love. Love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants. Namaste.

2:22:33Thank you.