Die With Zero - How To Stop Sabotaging Your Best Experiences: James Swanwick

The greatest investment that we can make is in experiences, creating memories. Alcohol is the ultimate experience thief. It's really destroying your experiences. Your life energy is finite and you exchange it for money. The only point of money is experiences. My family and I are supposed to be in the United Kingdom right now, but instead I am in Medellin, Colombia where I live and my mother who's 81 years old and my brother Edward and my niece and two nephews are over in the UK holidaying without me. Holidaying without my wife Laura, holidaying without my 6-month-old baby Isabella and my 13-year-old stepdaughter. Why? Because I didn't realize that Colombian citizens, of whom I wife is and my daughters, uh they're all Colombian citizens, uh require UK visas in order to enter the UK. Now, this was not the case 2 years ago when we went to the UK, minus Isabella of course cuz she wasn't born yet, but Laura, Maria and Hill and myself, we went to the UK 2 years ago and at that time Colombian citizens could just go in, no problems at all. But unbeknownst to me, they changed the law about a year ago and so our plans to leave Medellin to go and spend 2 months in the UK and depart Medellin last Saturday suddenly got cancelled because we are still waiting for our UK visas to come through and the consequences of that were immense. I had to cancel flights, had to cancel hotels, I had to break the news to my mother who was who's only over in the UK until this coming Monday, who was eagerly looking forward to spending time with her granddaughter and her son and her daughter-in-law. And my uh 14-year-old niece Sadie was looking forward to spending time with my 13-year-old stepdaughter, Maryann Hill, and by all accounts, she was very upset when she realized that we weren't coming and we weren't able to come. And it's all a bit of a mess. And I spent 4 and 1/2 hours at the UK immigration office, uh, trying to get visas, the UK immigration office in Medellin, Colombia, I should say, last week, pleading, begging, trying to get them to sup- uh, super expedite our visa process. I was like, I'll pay anything. Give me Give me the super priority. Let me Let me Let me do this. I won't go into all the boring details as to why we couldn't do it, but it was chaos. It was certainly chaos for our family, cuz I had this flight booked, I had the accommodation in the UK booked, I had booked hotel rooms for my mother, my brother, my niece, my nephews. This plan This trip had been planned for 2 months, and yours truly forgot, or didn't realize, I should say, that we needed UK visas, and now everything had to be canceled. We're going to miss our mother. She's not going to be there. She has to return back to Australia. And now we're not leaving until probably June. What a mess. Changed hotels, changed flights, and a mother who has to fly back to Australia without seeing her son and granddaughter and daughter-in-law. Now, guess what? I was irritable, and I did feel stressed, and I did feel anxiety, and I felt pressure. And if I was drinking, I would have lashed out, lost my cool, probably yelled, probably screamed, probably demanded. But I didn't do any of that. I wouldn't say I calmly handled it, because I didn't feel calm. But let's just say, without demonstrative emotion, I just went through the process. I was polite. I was courteous. I dealt with my mother's upset. I felt guilt. I felt embarrassment. I felt shame, certainly. Because really it was on me to have understood that I was supposed to get these visas. So I've And I also felt responsible because eight human beings were really dependent on me or were affected by me and my inability to realize that we needed those UK visas. Eight people were affected. Me, my wife, my stepdaughter, my daughter, my mother, my uh brother, my niece, my two nephews. I think that's eight people. It might be nine. Um I didn't kick. I didn't scream. I just stepped up and I handled it. Consequences is that we're not leaving until June and I'm not going to see my mom, but she's now got over it and now they're having their vacation and holiday in the UK without us and I I've I've kept their hotel rooms. They're staying in a very nice hotel in Bath, the city of Bath in Western England. They FaceTimed me and Laura today and and showed us what a lovely time they were having while simultaneously expressing sadness that we weren't there. And I'm disappointed, but I didn't lash out. I didn't yell. I didn't scream. And I didn't blame anyone except myself, of course. And so that is a segue into what I want to talk today about, which is this concept of dying with zero. And I'll explain that. This is a book called Die with zero by the author Bill Perkins and I've read it a couple times now. Uh the sub-headline is getting all you can from your money and your life. Die with zero. Three concepts from this book. Number one is your life energy is finite. And you exchange it for money. But according to this book, the only point of money is experiences. Okay, that's the first point. Second point is delay is decay. Your health at 45 gives you options your health at 65 doesn't. The time to have the experiences when you can most enjoy it, not when you're finally wealthy enough. In other words, if you're in your 40s or 50s now, love the body that you've got. Get things happening. Stop procrastinating and waiting until later until you're 65. Most people wait and procrastinate until retirement age and then they then they'll go traveling. They'll not go and do things. At least according to this book by the author Bill Perkins. Have the experiences now. And the third point really is memory dividends. He talks about memory dividends. That an experience now pays joy for the next 30 years. A dollar in the bank at aged 80 pays nothing. In other words, the greatest investment that we can make is in experiences, creating memories. Think about it. Think about two or three of the top most euphoric moments of your life. Could be a child being born, your wedding day, your first kiss, someone said I love you, you had a breakthrough. How much joy and pleasure does does that give you right now? Thinking about that, remembering that. How long ago was that moment? May have been 20 years ago. That memory's been giving you joy for 20 years. As long ago as that experience happened and all of the good feelings that you've been feeling since then, remembering that experience. That's the gift that keeps on giving. So, in the book Die with Zero, Perkins is talking about money. And dying with zero money, like spending your money now, investing your money now on experiences. But, I'm talking about something more insidious. And that is what happens when you're finally wealthy enough, but you're too foggy, you're too anxious, you're too checked out to actually experience your life, to actually experience what you've built. Uh many of you will know that I have an organization called Alcohol Free Lifestyle, and we help business owners, entrepreneurs, executives, attorneys, retirees, financial professionals, aged mostly in their 40s, 50s, and 60s to finally rewire their mindset from alcohol, to release alcohol from their life, in the simplest way possible, inside a really supportive, engaging community of other like-minded folks, like the folks I just described. Alcohol is the ultimate experience thief. It's really destroying your experiences. It suppresses your REM. Okay, that's our REM sleep. Alcohol disrupts the sleep cycle where memories consolidate. So, you didn't just have a blurry night because of your drinking, your brain literally failed to file the memory. Perkins, the author of this book, wants you building memory dividends. Alcohol corrupts the filing system. Cortisol. Alcohol spikes cortisol the next morning. So, when you experience this low-grade anxiety, the vague dread, that is not the hangover from your drinking the night before, that is your stress hormone running 30 to 40% higher. And you cannot enjoy your life when your body is in threat mode. I'll say it again, you can't enjoy your life when your body is in threat mode. And that's what alcohol does, it raises your cortisol levels, creates more anxiety, creates dread. And then the pre-front I'm sorry, the prefrontal cortex, that's the part of your brain that makes you a good father, a good mother, a decisive executive, a present husband, a great leader, that pre-front frontal cortex is what alcohol degrades first. The good news is is that you can recover that brain functionality over what I've experienced to be 90 days. That's about the sweet spot. I quit drinking back in 2010. I was at the South by Southwest Festival that year in March 2020. I had two Bombay Sapphire gin and tonics. I went to my hotel, I went to sleep, I woke up the next morning, I walked into an IHOP next door to the hotel, an International House of Pancakes, and I had a hangover. And I looked around and I thought, "What am I doing? I'm I'm 20-30 lb overweight. I'm irritable, I'm stressed, I'm anxious, I'm envious of other people. The drinking really is causing most if not all of this This drinking thing has to go." That was a die with zero moment for me. I was out in in Austin, Texas. I was having a seemingly great experience at a festival there. I was an Australian living in America, traveling, going to these cool things, spending money on experiences, but the morning after I was eating all you can eat pancakes with whipped cream and maple syrup, feeling like crap, feeling like garbage, wanting to get alcohol out of my life. So, what are you doing? how are you wasting your life on things that don't matter? Are you chasing money? Are you chasing status? Are you chasing something? Are you numbing yourself? Are you procrastinating? Have has the drift of mediocrity got its hands into you? Or are you doing what Bill Perkins says in this book, which is Dying with Zero, in the sense that you're truly living now? The greatest investment ever, he says, he argues, are experiences. And experiences aren't experiences that involve alcohol. They're experiences that create joy and connection and fun and amazing memories. We have a 90-day stop drinking program in Alcohol-Free Lifestyle, it's called Project 90. And one of the exercises that I do with our clients on our group Zoom call, imagine if you will, we have like 30 people on a Zoom call, all quitting alcohol together, and I take them through an exercise and I ask them to write down their top 10 happiest moments in life. I play a little bit of music in the background to help get them in the mood. I give them 5 minutes. They write down 1 through 10 and they think about the things in their life that really have given them the most joy. Child being born, a wedding, things like that. And then I ask them to share and they share for a few minutes and they've got smiles on their faces and they're saying, "Oh, the happiest moment of my life was when my son was born and I remember just blah blah blah blah etc.," okay? Then I ask everyone to look at their top 10 list and grab a pen and circle those top 10 individual moments that involved alcohol, where alcohol was present. And they look at the list. On the most recent call that I did this, the average number that people said where alcohol was present in their top 10 moments was two. So, some people said alcohol was present only on one of one of the occasions of their top 10 occasions. Someone else said three. I think the most someone said, if I can recall correctly, was four. So, of their top 10 most euphoric, happiest moments in life, alcohol, at most, at least with the group that I just had recently, one person said alcohol was present for four of them. But, the average was two, which means 80% of their happiest moments in life, alcohol wasn't even there. It wasn't even present. They were just having a beautiful, incredible experience, which made it worthy of getting onto their top 10. Pretty amazing when you think about that. And yet, we all worship, or many of us worship, at the altar of alcohol, thinking that we need it for connection, for fun, for memories, for romance. We have to drink at the Four Seasons Hotel on the beach at sunset. It's so gorgeous. It's You have to have a tequila. Have to have a cocktail. When you go to that wedding, I have a friend right now who's over in Tuscany in Italy. His name's Billy, and he's at a wedding, and I was following him on his Insta story on Instagram uh yesterday, and I recognized the location of the wedding, cuz I went went to the same location for a friend's wedding all the way back in 2018, and I was messaging him, and I and I was looking at some of the images that he was sharing on his Insta story, and all these people were drinking alcohol. Because that's what you do at a wedding, right? You couldn't You wouldn't dare go to Tuscany in Italy to a wedding and not drink poison. What are you talking about? Of course, you're going to drink poison. Or, you could be like my friend Billy and suddenly what I was like in 2018 and choose not to drink and toast the bride and groom with a soda water instead, which is what I did back in 2018 at that venue, and which I'm assuming what Billy did at did at this time because he had he had at this wedding, I'm sorry, cuz he hasn't drunk for 3 and 1/2 years. He says inspired in part because of him hanging out with me and seeing me being alcohol-free and the experiences that I get to enjoy because I'm alcohol-free. Let me share with you a couple or a few actually, if I may, of my Die With Zero moments. These are three stories and really incredible experiences which are worthy of being on my top 10 if not my top 25 most memorable experiences. And all of these have happened, by the way, in the last 6 months. So, let me just share actually the most recent. Okay, so April 2026, I invited my 81-year-old father, Ron Swanwick, to an alcohol-free lifestyle event. It was in Atlanta, Georgia. We got all of our stop drinking clients together. There were about 55 of them who chose to fly to Atlanta, Georgia, stay at the Four Seasons there, and we had a two-day, three-night conference where we went out for dinners. I had guest speakers, we did exercises, we did a silent disco, and we danced. We had a lot of fun. These are folks mostly in their 50s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, high achievers. And I've been telling my father, Ron, for well, since 2015, so what's that? 11 years now, what I do, which is help people to quit drinking so they can feel better and save their marriages and all of that kind of stuff that I do. I've been telling him that for years, but he lives in Brisbane, Australia, and I live on the other side of the world. And when his friends ask him, "What's James doing?" he says, "Something on the internet." >> [laughter] >> Uh I think he he something on the internet. Helps people with drinking or something. Yeah, helps Americans or something. Yeah, something like that. For 11 years I've been trying to have him get what it is that I do. And finally, I invited him to come over to the US from Brisbane, Australia. I took him to the US Masters Golf Tournament at Augusta National. Which was a bucket list item for him. We had a wonderful time and then we went to Atlanta, waited a few days for the event to start for the Alcohol be Lifestyle Movement to start. And then all the clients flew in and then I introduced him to all of our clients and he came to the dinners, he came to the event. I asked him to speak and share his story. He was a star. Everyone was was finding my father wrong to be very pleasant and very entertaining. And my father watched a room of transformed high achievers who were all at times thanking me and our coaching staff for helping them finally break free from alcohol. They were they all had tremendous problems with alcohol, which was causing them tremendous challenges in life. And they came through our our program, our Project 90 process and they've successfully quit alcohol. And now they're making new friends and allies and they're feeling amazing and they're creating experiences. And my father watched this for two days. And he told me later he finally got it. In fact, he wrote me a very lovely letter about a week after he'd returned back to Brisbane and letter in part said, "This will be your crowning legacy, James." It was words to the effect of everything that you've done until now, hosting SportsCenter on ESPN, your journalism career, the Swannies blue light blocking glasses company, you did the podcast that you did. All of these kind of things was just were just small steps to this. This will be your crowning legacy, creating transformative generational impact in people. It brought me to tears reading what he said. That he finally got it. And not only did he finally get it, but he was so complimentary about it. And there was one time when I was standing in front of the the the crowd the clients at this event and I was standing at the the front of the room and I was at the podium at the microphone we're doing a little bit of a Q&A and a gentleman a client sort of got up and said James I just want to share with you I had a conversation with your father at dinner last night and he was expressing how tremendously proud he was of you and just how you US Masters last week was one of the most memorable moments of his life. And this man was kind of sharing this conversation that he'd had with my father and as he was saying that I could not stop myself from weeping. I was overcome with emotion. And imagine if you will I'm standing in front of a room of 55 high achievers including my father and this man is telling me about a conversation that he had with my father and I start crying. And I'm the internal dialogue is don't cry don't cry don't but it just I couldn't stop it it came out and I started weeping and the man saw me and he stopped mid-sentence cuz he was still sharing the story and there was silence and I had to close my eyes and kind of put my head down and I realized there were 55 people staring at me. Including my father. And when I finally was able to take you know five or six seven seconds and kind of look up and took all of my courage to say to the gentleman I said thank you thank you for sharing that. And then I kind of awkwardly kind of moved on you know half jokingly trying to deflect the attention off me and my tears said okay let's move on hahaha and people kind of you know encouragingly laughed as well. We moved on to another topic. I looked at my father through the through the tears and he was just sitting there stony-faced he he wasn't showing emotion he was just kind of looking at me. I couldn't really pick up what he was feeling. It was only that week later after he returned to Brisbane, Australia, in the letter that he wrote me where he acknowledged that even uh in that moment as he was observing me, he said, "You know what? Let me just pull up what he said cuz I'm going to butcher it if I don't. I'm typing into my uh I'm typing into my inbox right now at my computer. What did he say? Let me pull it up here. Uh >> [sighs] >> Here it is. He said, "Although I was not as overtly emotional after my address as you were, nevertheless, under cover of a straight face and self-control, I was feeling emotional, too, and so very pleased that I was able to make you proud of me in front of your large group. Now, it's hard for me not to get emotional rereading that. I mean, I've read the letter a dozen times. And even now, like, the first time I read it, I burst into tears. And now I don't burst into tears cuz I've read it 12 times. But even now, as I'm saying it back to you, I still feel emotional with his words. Um let me see if I can find where he was talking about the crowning legacy. Yeah, here it was. He said, "It was so interesting to see you in action with your group, to see what it was all about and the size and magnitude of it. Just how you started it off and the size it has become was eye-opening. You are doing so much good for so many people. The obvious regard that they had for you was very gratifying to see. The constant stream of comments to me was proof of that. You can be so proud of what you have created and what you have achieved. This will be your lifetime legacy. Everything you have done in life up to this, all your journalism, ESPN experience, and dabbling with various health projects has been a preparation for this crowning legacy. I really enjoyed meeting, interacting, and socializing with all the delegates uh delegates, I'm sorry. It was obvious that I was something of a celebrity and a curiosity being your son, but regardless, everyone seems to be so genuinely welcoming and friendly to me. I consider myself so very fortunate that I have a son who was able to fly me halfway across the world and to provide accommodation and everything else for me as you did. I really enjoy your company. Our mutual interests seem to contribute to a comfortable interaction. If on one view, this is reaping the dividend for investments made earlier in life, then they were very fine investments. So, in summary, thank you for your generosity in arranging everything for all stages of my trip. It has been a wonderful experience and maybe my best experience yet. I have a son of whom I am incredibly proud. Love, Dad. To receive that as a 50-year-old man as I am now from my 81-year-old father was incredibly touching and meaningful and um you know, getting a little bit choked up talking about it now. Not to the degree that I did when I first read it and reread it, but uh I've had time to process it now, so I'm not as overtly emotional about it now, but uh internally, it still really feels to tremendous. I'm so happy that if I look at the context of this book, Dying with Zero, like bringing my father over, taking him to the Masters, walking that golf course together. He walked 9 and 1/2 miles that day. In the 14 months preceding him walking Augusta, he'd had spinal surgery and a knee replacement. And all of his recovery was in uh was motivated by getting to Augusta to experience that uh bucket list item for him. And so for me to be able to contribute to that was incredible. Um and then for me to be able to have him experience our AFL community and our clients and our members and to get it and to to share how proud he is of me was really incredible as well. That's what I mean by dying with zero. It's investing in experiences, in family, in connection. And for me, I decided to invest my money, my time, my focus on creating world-class experiences for my parents who are both in their in their 80s, which is why I feel like I let so many people down recently with not getting the UK visas or not realizing that I needed to get those and and you know, pretty much essentially messing up this planned UK trip for my mother, Jill, who's over there still right now now with my brother and nieces nephews having the holiday that we were all meant to have together. And you know, I messed up. I I I forgot the visas. I didn't think of that. I didn't realize until it was too late. And it was very disruptive. And I'm not going to die wondering. I'm still going to create those experiences. I'm still going to bust my ass to get over there and see my parents and spend time with them and invest in time with my nieces my niece and my nephews and my brother. Being a family man and embodying a family man is not just what I can do and how I can provide and how I can protect and be there for my wife and my daughters. It's also for my parents. It's for my brothers. It's for my nieces, for my nephews. And then by extension, the staff who work at Alcohol-Free Lifestyle, from the producer of this very podcast who puts it together, who edits it, and uploads it to YouTube, and puts it onto Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and then to our amazing coaches who coach our clients, to the tech team, to my chief operations officer Becca, to our CFO Kelly, to our chief marketing officer Mark, to our vice president of enrollments Josh, to all of our enrollers. To everyone, everyone in the entire organization. I want to create world-class memorable experiences for them. As the leader of this organization, as the founder and the CEO, I'm not going to die saving a whole lot of money. I'm going to invest my time and my money and my focus and my energy into creating world-class experiences for those who I love most. So, that's one example. Next example is the documentary. You may or may not know I am producing a documentary. It's uh currently titled Attractively Packaged Poison. I started filming this in August of 2025. We're just doing final filming now. It's almost June 2026. I've got this amazing editing team who are based in Hollywood. They're They're editing the team editing the documentary together with the existing footage in a studio on Hollywood Boulevard, just around the corner from Paramount Studios, actually, in Hollywood. If you're familiar enough with Hollywood and you know where Paramount Studios is, the editing suite that they've rented out at the moment where they're currently editing the documentary is right around the corner from Paramount Studios. I was fortunate enough to watch 12 minutes of edited footage recently that they sent to me and showed me, and I felt emotional. Because it was cinematic, it's emotionally compelling, and it's the compound return on 16 years of being alcohol-free now. I quit drinking in 2010. It's now 2026. I've been alcohol-free since then. Haven't touched a drop of alcohol. And it's the return, like I said, of 16 years of my experience living alcohol-free. Now, the author of the book Die With Zero, Bill Perkins, refers to that as the memory dividend. It's the dividends you get from this amazing memory. I created this incredible experience of living alcohol-free, and I'm getting the dividends of that. And I just watched mine intangible form with this 12 minutes of edited footage. It's amazing. It's beautiful. I'm investing in in experiences. I'm investing in memories. And the gift that keeps on giving are the emotional and beautiful feelings I feel from recalling those memories, experiencing those memories. Then the third example is my 6-month-old daughter, Isabella. Every time that I am intentionally present with her, fully present with her, I speak with her. I look into her eyes. I watch her face. That is a memory dividend. Every parent will know what I'm talking about here. Just tonight, only 2 hours ago as I'm recording this, it's 8:03 p.m. Around 6:00 p.m., she was sitting in my arms, and I was speaking with my wife, Laura, who was sort of sitting in front of me across the room. She was having some little snack eating at the dinner table. I was sitting on the sofa. We were kind of, you know, a good 20 yards apart, and I was just sitting on the sofa with Isabella kind of sitting in my arms, resting somewhat on my knee, and I had my left arm around her, and she was kind of nestling her head into my left bicep, and her legs were kind of falling over my my knee where I was sitting down. And I was just conversing with Laura, and then I kind of looked down to Isabella and I realized that she was just staring at me. She was just literally staring at me as I was speaking with Laura, she was just staring at me, watching me speak. And I looked down at her eyes and I sort of we had a bit of a staring contest, I must say. I was just looking at her and I was saying to Laura, I said, "Oh my god, Isabella's been just staring at me since we've been talking. It's amazing." And then she looked away, Isabella looked away and she kind of looked over at Laura. And then I looked to Laura and I started talking to Laura again and then I could tell just in my peripheral vision that Isabella had returned to just staring at me. And I said to Laura, "I'm not going to look at Isabella. I'm just going to just keep talking to you and I can see out of the corner of my left eye that she's staring at me. I know that she is. I've got the peripheral vision." And Laura was looking at her saying, "Yeah, she is. She is." And so I just started talking to Laura and Laura was looking at Isabella looking at me. And then Laura was saying, "Oh my god, she's just staring at you. She's staring at every mannerism you have, at your eyes. She's probably looking at She's probably wondering what you're saying. She's just staring at you." And I was like, "Wow, this is amazing. This is incredible. I love this." And then I after my curiosity got the better of me, I looked back down to her eyes and she just stared at me for probably 20 seconds and then she looked away again. It was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Now, the drinking version of me would not have fully have been there. The drinking version of me pre-2010 would have been managing his mood, his foggy head, his guilt. I would have been in the room but not in the room, if you know what I mean. I would have been physically in the room but emotionally checked out. And in the book Die with Zero by Bill Perkins, the author says invest in experiences. My daughter Isabella is the investment. My daughter is the investment. I'm not going to miss it. That is my intention. And because I'm alcohol-free, I enjoy clarity and focus and energy and presence. Presence is I wouldn't say easy, it's still an intention. Because I'm easily distracted by phone, by work, by emails, by Slack, by Messenger, but I'm still easily distracted. So, I'm not going to say that it's easy to be present, but let me tell you this, it's so much easier to be present when you are alcohol-free. And when it's so much easier to be present, I'm more frequently present and present for longer. And the connection is deeper, and I liked would like to think and I submit that Isabella felt that presence from me tonight. And even though I wasn't speaking directly to her, I was speaking to Laura at this moment, I submit Isabella was feeling my presence. I was calm. Someone shared the other day that they can tell uh a they can they can surmise what kind of relationship a baby's parents have by how the baby is. I'm not sure if that's true or not. I'm sure there are many things that go into that, and maybe it's it's, you know, too much of a generalization. However, I like to think that Laura and I have mostly a very calm, beautiful, connected relationship. And friends of ours have commented on how beautifully calm Isabella is. She really only cries when she's hungry and at the end of the night when she's tired. The rest of the day she's a very pleasant baby. I don't know if it's because of her parents experiencing a calm house, a calm, present, connected house. I'm not suggesting that Laura and I perfect and that we feel calm and present all the time. I'm not trying to put a halo around my head and have you believe that everything is wonderful 100% of the time. That is not true. We're humans. We have triggers. We trigger each other. We get irritable. We get stressed sometimes. But I'll tell you this, because I'm alcohol-free and Laura is alcohol-free, we are incredibly present and incredibly calm most of the time. Not all of the time, but most of the time. And I liked I would like to think and certainly that is the the submission of of others that Isabella's presence and calm is a reflection of her parents being present and calm. I like that. So, there are a few examples where I'm investing in experiences and being present and calm. And my intention is to die with zero. And again, the author Bill Perkins is talking about spend your money now. You There's a lot of the die with zero in his book is about money. But I'm talking about die with zero regrets. Die with zero regrets. And remember that memories, positive memories, is like a dividend. It's the gift that keeps on giving. So, I want to invite you now to do a die with zero audit. I'm going to give you five questions to sit with. Okay? I'm going to just give you each question. I'll pause after each one just to let it land for you. You might be driving in a car. You might be running right now and maybe it's challenging for you to pull out a pen and a piece of paper and do this. But if you're you are present and you've got pen and paper, then I invite you to get a pen and paper and write down these questions. If you're not, it's okay. Just ponder the questions. Okay? But I'm going to give you five questions to sit with. And I'll pause after each one. The first one is this. What experience have you been deferring until you feel better or you sort yourself out? What experience have you been deferring? Procrastinating on, kicking down the road. You'll deal with it later. Until you feel better, you sort yourself out, or conditions are perfect. What is that experience that you've been deferring and procrastinating on? Because it's just not the perfect time right now. Have a think on that. All right. Question number two. What version of you shows up at your kids' games, your partner's moments, your own milestone dinners? Is it the full version? So, what version of you shows up? Is it a version of you that's acting, pretending? Cuz a lot of our stop drinking clients are very successful on paper. They're very successful in the eyes of their colleagues, their society, their friends, but privately they're suffering. Privately, they're fighting an inner war. What version of you shows up at your kids' games, your partner's moments? Is it the full you, the full present you, or is it 60% of what you could give? 40%, 30%? Are you distracted? Are you irritable? Are you foggy? Is drinking playing a part? Are you envious? Are you jealous? Are you lamenting the past? What version of you shows up? Is it the best version of you, or is it an absolutely compromised version of you? Let me just let that land for a few seconds. Third question I'd like to ask you. How much of your memory from the last 5 years is sharp, vivid, and yours to keep? Think about the last 5 years. How much of the last 5 years is sharp and vivid and beautiful and amazing and incredible? And how much of the last 5 years are foggy and vague and dull? Because you've been numbing yourself with your addictions. Could be alcohol, could be being a workaholic. Being a workaholic is just an excuse for not being present elsewhere. Gives you an excuse not to be present with your wife or your husband or your kids or your friends or to show up fully. How much of your memory from the last 5 years is sharp and vivid and beautiful? And how much of your memory is painful or foggy and dull? I'll just let that land for a few seconds. Fourth question. When was the last time you were completely undeniably present? When was the last time you were completely undeniably present? Not distracted by your phone, not eager to get out of the conversation. When someone's speaking to you, not thinking about how you can respond. Trying to insert yourself in the conversation, not trying to defend, not trying to justify, not being combative, not being distracted. When was the last time you were completely undeniably present? When was it? Do you even remember? Let me let that land for a few seconds. Fifth and final question. If you stopped drinking for 90 days, just 90 days, what experience would become available to you that is not available to you now? If you stopped drinking for at least 90 days, just 90 days, 3 months, what experience would become available to you that is not available now? Would it be presence? Would it be healing your relationship? Would it be saying I love you, saying I'm sorry? Would it be feeling more energetic? Would it be sleeping better? Would it be waking up instead of with shame and regret and embarrassment, but with confidence and a positive mindset rather than a negative mindset? If you stopped drinking for 90 days, what experience would become available to you that is not currently available? Let me let that land for a few seconds. All right. What did you come up with? What does it all mean? Did you do an audit? How did your Die With Zero audit go? The questions were, just to summarize, what experience have you been deferring until later? What version of you shows up for your kids and your partners? How much of your memory from the last 5 years is sharp and vivid and yours to keep and how much of your memory is dull and painful and vague and scattered? When was the last time you were completely undeniably present? And if you stopped drinking for 90 days, what experience would become available to you that isn't available now? I would love for you to share what came up for you, even just one of them. You can always email me at james@alcoholsfreelifestyle.com and share that with me. If you're watching this on the YouTube channel, go ahead and type it down in the comments down below. If you're listening on Spotify or Apple Podcast, head over to the YouTube channel. Either the James Swanwick YouTube channel or the Alcohol Free Lifestyle YouTube channel and find this corresponding video and go in and if you're brave enough, go and type in the comments. And if no one has commented yet, my invitation to you is be the first. Put yourself out there. Or don't share it. Don't reach out to me and just keep it to yourself. That's equally okay. Whatever serves you. But having said that, I would love to hear from you so I can get some feedback as to what came up for you. And I'd love to support. I want to introduce you to the concept of taking a 90-day rewire reset. Because over 90 days, week by week, the brain changes. And by day 90, if you're a drinker, of course, which I would submit most of you are, especially if you're listening to this on the Alcohol Free Lifestyle podcast, by day 90, your brain will have changed if you're alcohol free. The University of Washington conducted a scientific study on our Project 90 Stop Drinking program back in 2023. And the results of that scientific study were a 98% reduction in alcohol consumption amongst the people who participated in that study. >> [snorts] >> Now, it wasn't because of willpower. It was because the dopamine pathways had rewired. The brain that craved experience through alcohol started craving experience directly. That is what the author Bill Perkins in his book Die With Zero was talking about. That's his compounding working properly. When you remove alcohol for 90 days, the brain starts to work the way the brain is supposed to work. The dopamine pathways get rewired, and you now crave experiences with family and loved ones and friends not through alcohol. You experience joy and calm and peace directly without it. One last thing I want to share here. Consistency over perfection. A framework, a support structure. That is what will get you a breakthrough in any challenge that you are facing. Now, I'm talking about alcohol in this particular episode, but for you it might be something different. Not willpower, consistency. Not willpower, consistency over perfection. A framework, a support structure. That's what finally works. If you are a drinker and you don't desire to be, or at least you don't desire the effects of it, you are stuck probably in a very similar pattern. Same brain, same stop-start, shame-restart cycle that every person listening has had with alcohol. You stop drinking for a while, then you start again. You start to feel that shame. You get back on the restart cycle. You drink, it has consequences. You say, "Not this time. I got to stop this." You quit. You stay quit for a couple of weeks, few weeks, maybe even a few months, and then you return to drinking. The slippery slope gets you, and then you get stuck on the stop-start cycle, which you've probably been experiencing in many cases now for years, if not decades. I invite you to get off the stop-start cycle and stop using willpower, and instead choose a framework, a support structure. Perkins in his book Dying to Be Sober "The goal is not to die rich. It is to die with zero. Zero regrets. Zero unlived experiences. Zero moments you showed up for, but weren't really there." You don't need more time. You need the version of you that you can actually use the time you have. Fully present. Fully clear. With intention. With love. With openness. That version of you is 90 days away. In my experience, that's how long it takes. To give the brain a break, to rewire the neurons in the brain, to get around a like-minded community, to get some great coaching, to be held accountable, to make it stick. A habit needs to stick. Takes at least 66 days for a habit to stick according to many studies. 90 days is what really cements it in my experience. That's why we have a 90-day stop drinking program called Project 90. That's why it's not Project 66 or Project 45 or Project 150 or 75 Hard. It's 90. It's Project 90. I've been supporting high achievers to rewire their mindset, to give their brains a break, to die with zero regrets. Zero unlived experiences. I've been doing this since 2015. The highest version of you is just 90 days away. And if you're listening to this and you want a piece of that, and you want to die with zero, and you want to remove alcohol from your life with professional support and help, then I invite you to text a wonderful man on my team whose name is Kai, K A I. He is British. And I'm going to give you his cell phone number. And you can shoot him a text message. He is a real human. He's not an AI. He's not a bot. Real human connection is what we do here at the James Swanwick Show and Alcohol Free Lifestyle podcast and an alcohol free lifestyle. So, here's the number. If you're in the US, you don't need the plus one. If you are outside the US, you will need the plus one, but here's his US cell phone number, 361 321 7764. And if you didn't have time to write that down, just hit the go back 15-second uh button on your Spotify and you'll hear me say it again. Now, that is Kai. He's a real human being. He's not an AI. He's not an automated response. If you are in your, let's say, late 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and you would like to possibly engage our professional services to help you Die With Zero by helping you remove alcohol, rewiring your mindset and having for 90 days access to incredible neuroscientists and coaches who are educated at Stanford, Cambridge University, Harvard University folks here who used to have alcohol challenges but now do not and now specialize at coaching others on how to remove alcohol from their life finally and you desire to do all of this in a community of other business owners and entrepreneurs and executives and retirees and high performers and financial professionals and doctors and executives and those kind of folks. That's the demographic that we support at least inside of our Project 90 90-day stop drinking program. So, you can relate to the tribe. So, there's relatability there. If that's you, then text Kai at that number I just referenced. Just text him your name. Just say, "Hi, it's John. I was listening to James on the podcast. He said to text you. I'm interested in learning about your program." Kai will text you back, set up a time, you guys can have a conversation. But die with zero, zero regrets. Invest in experiences. I started this uh episode talking about the UK visa drama that I had. Yeah, I was irritable. Yeah, I was stressed. Yeah, I was anxious. Yeah, I was overwhelmed. Yeah, I felt some shame. Yeah, I felt like I let everyone down and most importantly my mother who was absolutely craving time with her son and daughter-in-law and granddaughter. And I I failed to to give that to her on this occasion because of the the visa mess-up. And we're going to miss her. She's going to go back to Australia on Monday. We're not going to get over to the UK until the following Sunday. We're going to miss her by 6 days. Uh cuz that's how long it's going to take for the UK visas to come through. That's when we were able to rebook our flights for a number of reasons. But if I was drinking, I would have lashed out. I would have yelled at the people at UK immigration office. And probably maybe they wouldn't they would maybe they would even deny our application for my family to get UK visas. And that probably would have caused stress and anxiety. I would have lashed out at my wife. I would have lashed out at my mother. And I said what I said to my mom, "Just get over yourself. We're not coming. Deal with it." Instead, I was able to say, "I get it. I'm sorry. I'm responsible. I messed up." And while my mother was upset and disappointed, she wasn't angry. But imagine if I was angry with her for being upset. And I tried to defend myself and justify and blame anything or anyone except myself, maybe that would cause a rift with my mother. But it didn't. And we're still connected. And she still called me on FaceTime this morning and showed me with my niece and my nephews and my brother enjoying the hotel which I have given them. Let them just stick to the hotel that I booked for them in Bath and they're they sent photos later on of them at the Roman Baths in the city of Bath in the UK. And they're having a great time. Probably not as great a time if they were with me and my wife and daughters, but they're having a great time nonetheless. That's the alcohol-free version. So day was zero, that's my invitation. Recognize where alcohol is stealing your best experiences. Live your best life. Invest in experiences. Create memories because they're the gift that keep on giving. Thank you so much for listening. >> [music] >> Hope you got some value from this. And if you felt like it was valuable and that someone else in your life might find value from this, please do share this. If you're watching on the YouTube channel, just share the video. If you're listening on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, just click the share button and send it to your [music] friend in a text or a WhatsApp. We can't do this alone. We do this in a community, which is why we don't do one-on-one coaching here. We do it in a community. It's group coaching. And if you join our community, you'll be on group calls with others and we're going to put you into breakout rooms and zoom rooms where you're going to go deep with other people and we're going to really encourage you to get to know other people. And it's private, [music] it's discreet. No one will ever know that you are doing this outside of the other members, of course, unless you tell them. So, share this episode with people. Subscribe as well. If you're listening on the podcast, subscribe so you get notified when I drop a new a new episode. The James Swanwick Show is coming back on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. The Alcohol-Free Lifestyle podcast is more alcohol-focused. I have a YouTube channel just called James Swanwick. You can find me there and subscribe there. And if you want to check out the alcohol free lifestyle podcast which is more about alcohol you can go to alcohol free lifestyle.com/youtube YouTube I'm sorry. I'm also all over Instagram and social media you can follow me there I'm at James Swanwick. [music] All right, thank you so much for listening everyone. I will catch you on the next one. Bye for now.