Meditations: The 2,000-Year-Old Stoic Manual for Those Who Want to Lead Their Families

This alcohol is getting in the way of you leading. You are the Marcus Aurelius of your household. Whether you feel like it or not, your family is watching. How you respond to chaos, how you show up on a Tuesday night. Whether you're present or managing, whether you lead or drift into mediocrity. [music] You've probably seen the movie Gladiator. It starred Russell Crowe. I'm Australian. He was born in New Zealand, but was raised in Australian. And so we Australians, we like to claim him as Australian even though he was born in New Zealand. The actor Richard Harris played the character in that movie of Marcus Aurelius, the old emperor. You might recall he was tired, he was wise. He was surrounded by political chaos and a son that he knows is unworthy of the throne. And there's a scene where he sits with Maximus who is played by Russell Crowe and he says something quietly devastating. He says he has lived most of his life in war or preparing for it and that he fears he has been absent from the things that mattered. Most people remember Maximus, the character of Maximus played by Russell Crowe. But I really remember the actor Richard Harris who plays Marcus Aurelius, the emperor. I remember the emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius wasn't a fictional character. He was real. And what the actor Richard Harris captured in that film was that dignity, that quiet authority, that weight of a man who knows he could have been more present. That's exactly what the book Meditations is about. This is the book right here. If you are watching on the YouTube channel or if you're watching on Spotify, there is a link in the description which will take you through to the YouTube channel where you can see it. But I'm holding up the book here, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I actually bought this book in a bookstore in Cambridge in the United Kingdom in the summer of 2024. And I'm just flicking through it here and you can see I've highlighted certain sections that speak to me. Let me read this. Let me just flick through and I'll randomly choose a page and see something that I've highlighted. Let's have a look. Okay, here we go. Let's see. I seek the truth which has never caused harm to anyone. No, the person who is harmed is one who persists in his selfdeception and ignorance. H I like that. How about this one? Life is short and our earthly existence yields but a single harvest, a holy disposition, and acts that serve the common good. I like that. Let's keep going. Uh, let it make no difference to you whether you are shivering or warm, if only you were doing your duty, or whether you are overt tired or have had sufficient sleep, or are greeted with disparagement or praise, or are in the process of dying, or are busy with something else. For even the act of dying is one of the acts of our life. And so in that too, it is enough to make good use of what the moment brings. Wow, I love that. talking a lot there about presence which is a theme uh of today's episode. So yes, Marcus Aurelius was the emperor of Rome from 161 to 180 AD, the most powerful man on earth. And every night alone in his tent on military campaign or in the palace depending on where he was, he wrote these private notes to himself. They weren't speeches. It wasn't philosophy for public consumption. They were just notes and reminders, self-corrections. Let me just quote from the book again. You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this and you will find strength. Or another one, the impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. Or this one, confine yourself to the present. Now, historically, it's understood that Marcos Aurelius never intended anyone to read these notes. And yet, we've been reading them now for 2,000 years. And I've been thinking about them constantly because every page I read and every section that I highlight, as I have here in this book, as I'm flicking through, you can see the sections where I've highlighted it. I see the men and women in our stop drinking program which is called project 90 over at our organization called alcohol-free lifestyle which we've had now since 2015. I've been alcohol free, alcohol-f free, I'm sorry, since 2010. And every page I read of meditations by Marcos Aurelius, I see the men and women in that program, high achievers, business owners, executives, founders, fathers, mothers, men, women who are powerful in every room except the one that matters most, their own home. So, let me give you some quick context here because this makes Marcus Aurelius's quotes land harder. Marcus Aurelius was the last of what historians call the five good emperors. He inherited the most powerful empire the world had ever seen and spent most of his reign on the northern frontier fighting Germanic tribes in brutal conditions. In fact, if you remember the movie Gladiator, in the opening scene, um, Maximus, played by Russell Crowe, is fighting the Germanic tribes in brutal conditions. It's cold, it's wet, it's damp, and it's a brutal war. And Marcus Aurelius was also a dev devoted, I'm sorry, student of Stoicism. Now, stoicism was a Greek philosophy and that was founded around 300 BC and it spread through Rome and became the dominant philosophy of the educated Roman world. And its central idea is this. You cannot control what happens to you. You can only control your response to it. Not your feelings, not your circumstances, not other people, your response. And in our project 90 program over at alcohol-f free lifestyle where we rewire the mindset around alcohol of our clients including business owners and executives and entrepreneurs mostly in their 40s 50s and 60s. I often talk about the difference between reaction versus response because most of us are reacting to life instead of responding to life. And reacting is the cortisol floods our brain. We get irritable. We get stressed. We lash out. We can't control our emotions. We say something that we later regret. Alcohol exacerbates that. Alcohol leads to more of that because alcohol causes us irritation, stress, anxiety, fatigue, frustration, hostility, combiveness. And so when something happens that we don't like, we react. However, Marcus Aurelius and the idea of stoicism, the Greek philosophy is we control our response. The more stoic way is to respond, not to react. The Stoics called this the dichotomy of control and they built an entire practice around it. It included morning reflection, evening journaling, deliberate exposure to discomfort to build resilience, voluntary hardship so that real hardship doesn't break you. So if we just go over that morning reflection in Project 90 in our stop drinking program, we have folks do what's called the daily 20. And I have people write down 20 things they're grateful for every single day during the 90 days that they're in our program. That's morning reflection. Evening journaling, we don't make that a requirement of participation in our event, but we suggest it. We invite people to do it. In fact, just today, I took three, actually, no, I think I took four of my journals that I had been writing in over the past two or three years with me in my backpack. And I took it to the Peramino Cafe in the Wake Bio Hotel near where I live. And I went and reviewed notes that I'd taken. And some of them were notes that I'd taken in relationship counseling with my wife and I and our relationship counselor. Some of the notes were from a business mastermind I went to couple of years ago. So, some of the notes were from a mentor uh who was guiding me and helping me become a better leader in my business, be a better CEO and founder for alcohol-free lifestyle and how to show up for my staff and how to set a culture that is positive and empowering and inspiring. That those notes were from journaling over the years, from taking notes. That's the dichotomy of control. That's the practice. Deliberate exposure to discomfort builds resilience. Well, I guess you could say taking an ice bath or a cold shower is deliberate exposure to discomfort. And the cold shower obviously builds resilience because you don't really want to step into that cold shower. You don't want to step into an ice bath, which is all the rage at the moment in 2026. People going doing ice baths and ice bath clubs and it's uncomfortable being in that freezing cold water. However, it gets us to focus on our breath. It gets us to stay calm and focused and present and it's a challenge. It's challenging. But then when we get out, we get the profound benefits of that of reducing our stress, reducing our anxiety, and it builds resilience. And then voluntary hardship, so that real hardship doesn't break you. Excuse me. I mean, in some ways, this is an example right now. I'm recording this uh podcast episode and it gives me a lot of pleasure to do it. Having said that, it's 8:15 p.m. at night. I'm in the basement of my home. My wife and daughters are up in bed already and they're sleeping. I've had dinner. I didn't particularly want to record this episode right now in this moment. However, I said to my staff uh 2 days ago on Tuesday's uh weekly executive call that we had that I was going to record three podcast episodes in a row and have it complete by Thursday evening and have all three published the day after. Well, this is the third one. If you look back to the podcast episode before this one, you'll see that I uh did a podcast episode uh called Die with Zero. In fact, let me let me just have a look. What is it? Die with zero. How to stop sabotaging your best experiences? And then the day before that I uh had recorded one and the next day it was posted and it was entitled 98% of people are drifting. Are you one of them? So, if you have a look, if you're listening to this podcast episode now in Spotify or Apple Podcast and you just go back one or two episodes, you'll see the episodes that I recorded beginning on Tuesday night than last night and now tonight. Now, candidly, as I was saying, I didn't particularly want to record this episode tonight. I'm tired. It's Thursday. I'd rather be going and preparing for sleep right now. as much as I'm enjoying talking about Marcos Aurelius in meditations, but I said I was going to do it and I'm holding myself accountable. It's voluntary hardship in a way, I guess, because it's late at night. I kind of want to be done for the day, but here I am in the basement by myself with the lights on speaking into the camera. You're watching me now on YouTube or you're listening to me on this podcast. That's stoicism. That's the dichotomy of control. Now, Marcus Aurelius didn't just write about stoicism. He practiced it while running an empire, while fighting wars and bar, excuse me, burying children. He lost multiple children during his reign. He watched his closest advisers betray him. He led a Rome ravaged by the Antonyine plague, one of the deadliest pandemics in ancient history. And every night he wrote things like in the book meditations, accept the things to which fate binds you and love the people with whom fate brings you together. Another quote he said, it is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. To be clear, this is not a self-help book. This is a man doing the hardest thing a powerful person can do. And that is holding himself accountable when when no one else could. Holding himself accountable when no one else could. No one's really holding me accountable to recording this podcast episode tonight except myself. I declared it. My staff aren't calling me right now. Hey, have you done that third one? No. I'm holding myself accountable. I declared I was going to do it and I'm going to do it and I'm doing it. And I enjoy doing it. I don't want you to feel like I'm you're listening to me and I'm like, "This sucks." It doesn't suck. It's great. It's amazing for me. It's just doing it now. I I would prefer to have done it a different time. I'd love to just procrastinate and push it off until tomorrow. [sighs] But you know what? A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. So, where have I been stoic? Where have I been displaying this? And where have I failed? The stoic practice isn't a destination. It's a daily discipline. And Marcus Aurelius knew that. He wrote the same reminders to himself over and over. Not because he'd forgotten them, but because the human mind forgets them constantly under pressure. Think about it. When we're under pressure, we forget this. All of our best intentions go out the window. We react instead of respond. If you listened to one of my uh previous two episodes, possibly yesterday's one when I was talking about die with zero, you you would have heard me reference this recent episode I had where uh I tried to get my family visas for the UK only to real I'm sorry I we were about to go to the UK only at the last minute for me to realize that my Colombian citizen family, my wife, my daughter, my stepdaughter required UK visas. Whereas 2 years earlier they did not require UK visas. I didn't think they needed it this time, but only to realize at the last minute they did. And the result was we had to cancel our flight. We had to cancel plans. It was a mess. My mother was uh had flown over from Australia to the UK waiting for us to fly from Colombia to meet her in the UK only for me to have to call her and say, "I messed up. I uh we're not going to get the visas in time to come and see you. my mom has to return to Australia and we're going to miss her on this trip. There were tears. There was disappointment. And if you want to I'm not sure that you would want to, but if you'd if you'd care to uh hear the full story behind that, you can just listen to the previous episode that I recorded uh which was called Die with Zero. Now that was it felt stressful for me. I had to change hotels. I had to call my mom. My mom was upset. I had to change flights. It was it was all a big mess, right? And I felt the old pull. Now, not for alcohol, cuz I haven't drunk alcohol since 2010. But I felt the pull for reaction and for blame and for the release of just losing it. And candidly, internally, I was cursing the UK government bureaucracy because I wanted to get the visa within 24, 48 hours. And I realized it was going to take 5 days. And I couldn't understand why it was going to take 5 days. And the UK government wanted the proof of the birth birth certificate of my daughter and they wanted that translated into English. And then they wanted to make sure that that to to prove that my wife could fund her her uh her trip and wanted to make sure that I could fund their trip. And oh my goodness, me the paperwork that was required. But I didn't lose it. Internally, thinking wise, I was somewhat losing it, but I didn't lose it demonstrabably on the outside. Not because I'm naturally calm, but because I've spent 16 years building the discipline that stoicism describes, the alcohol-free version of that discipline. And Marcus Aurelius wrote this, "You have power over your mind, not outside events." realize this and you will find strength. Now, that is not a motivational poster or something that you'd, you know, frame and put it on your bathroom wall. That's a man reminding himself that his response is the only thing he owns. Despite being on campaign in a war, exhausted, surrounded by chaos, it is his response that he owns. in Atlanta. Uh, and I referenced this in in the past episode as well. So, for those who were listening who listening to both episodes, apologies for repeating myself, but in Atlanta in April, I took my father, my 81-year-old father Ron, to one of our alcohol-free lifestyle events. There were 55 clients there. We were there for two or three days listening to speakers and engaging with each other, going out to dinners, having a wonderful time. and my father Ron sat in the room and watched transformed executives, founders and fathers and mothers who were all who had all come to us and our organization at some point or another tired, irritable, stressed, rock bottom, drinking too much, marital strain, poor performance, bad sleep, all of that. only to then learn how to release alcohol in the simplest way to make new friends, make new allies, and love living alcohol-free, not being sober, not being in recovery, not doing 12 steps, not surrendering to a higher power. We don't do any of that at alcohol-free lifestyle. We empower our members to choose loving an alcohol-free lifestyle. And my father sat in that room and he watched people transformed, men and women who had been white knuckling their way through life. using alcohol to manage what stoicism was designed to handle. And there were there were times there where my dad sat quietly there. That's a stoic moment. Not dramatic, not loud, just sitting there in silence observing. My daughter is uh almost 6 months old. Her name is Isabella. And every morning I'm with her. I get up and I prepare to go to the to the gym. I put my clothes on. I pack my backpack and I and I walk to the gym. But before I go, every morning I go and I spend at least 5 minutes with her. It doesn't sound like a lot, 5 minutes. But I do it. I come back later on and I spend hours with her. But in the morning, 5 minutes. as I'm somewhat in a rush, I'm somewhat packing, I'm somewhat on a schedule, I go and I just spend five minutes with her every morning fully there and I'm not managing a hangover and I'm not half present. There's a line in meditations by Marcus Aurelius which is confine yourself to the present. Confine yourself to the present. That is the whole thing. That's what alcohol steals and what living alcohol-f free returns the present. Now, this is where I want to speak directly to you if you have not taken action yet on anything on the biggest issue in your life. More specifically, if you're listening on the Alcohol-Free Lifestyle Podcast, I'm speaking to you if you haven't taken action yet on finally living alcohol-f free. I'm going to read you some lines from meditations written 2,000 years ago by the then most powerful man on earth, and I want you to notice how precisely they describe what's happening inside you right now, possibly. Okay, so here's one of the quotes. Again, I'm if you're watching on the YouTube channel, I'm holding up the book here, okay? And if you're listening on the audio, uh you can go and watch the YouTube video version of this uh version if you like over on our YouTube channel, which is at Alcohol-Free Lifestyle or on the James Swanic YouTube channel. He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe. If you are drinking any amount of alcohol right now, you are not living in harmony with yourself. I submit. I submit you know it. Your partner knows it. Your kids feel it. Even if they can't name it. There's a version of you that you sense, the calmer one, the more decisive one, the one who walks into a room and leads instead of manages. And you are not fully living as that person. that gap, that dissonance. That's what this quote is about. Let me say the quote again. He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe. Here's another quote. The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are. My invitation to you, the listener right now is or the viewer on YouTube, look things in the face and know them for what they are. Not what you've told yourself, not what you've rationalized over years of functioning fine. I'm just doing fine and inverted commas here, but what they actually are. The drinking is not helping you unwind. Because we now know through studies of the human brain that alcohol spikes cortisol, which is our stress hormone, by 30 to 40% the following morning. Think about that. Cortisol rises 30 to 40% the morning after you drink. That's chemically creating the anxiety that you are drinking to escape. You are creating the anxiety that you choose to drink to try to escape from. It's chemically creating the anxiety you are drinking to escape. Look that in the face and know it for what it is. Another quote from Marcus Aurelius's meditations. Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. B1. I like that. If you've been thinking about releasing alcohol from your life for 6 months or longer, maybe you have been listening to this podcast for some time, maybe you've been following me on social media, telling yourself that you'll sort it out when things calm down. This is the line, okay, from Marcus Aurelius. Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one. My invitation to you is waste no more time. Marcus Aurelius wasn't writing that for weak men and women. He was writing it for himself. The emperor of Rome, a man with every reason to defer, every excuse available, every comfort in the world at his disposal. And he wrote, "Be one. Not tomorrow, not after the next quarter, not when the kids are older. Now I have an invitation for you. I'll offer it to you twice before I finish this episode. If you knew, if you really knew that your time was finite, that your children are watching right now, that the version of you capable of leading your family with calm and presence is only 90 days away, which is the duration of our original flagship project 90day stop drinking process. What would you do differently right now today? My invitation to you is to text someone on my team. His name is Kai. K A I wonderful man. He's British. He is a real human being. I'm going to give you a number right now where you can text him and just open the conversation about what's possible for you specifically how we might be able to support you to finally release alcohol and love living alcohol-f free with professional support with neuroscience coaches in an incredible community of people who are going to support you. Here's the number. the text kayak. If you're in the US, you don't need the plus one. If you're outside the US, you do. Here's the number. 361 321 7764. That is Kai's cell phone number. If you want to hear it again, just press the back 15 seconds button on your Spotify or just go back 15 seconds here on the YouTube. I'll also put uh Kai's number in the description of this podcast on Spotify and on Apple podcast and I'll put it in the u I'll put it as a pinned comment here in the YouTube video if you are watching. But if you text Kai your name, your number, tell him you were listening to this episode and that you'd like to explore quitting alcohol, reducing alcohol with our help in our 90-day program and you're a business owner, executive, high achiever, retiree, you're in your 40s, 50s or 60s, then text Kai at that number. Again, real human, no AI, no bots, no script, just a conversation about what's possible for you. So, another quote from Michael Aurelius. It never ceases to amaze me. We all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own. Oh, that's interesting. It never ceases to amaze me. We all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own. Hm. Here's how I think that relates to this particular situation, especially for those who are wanting to release alcohol finally from their life. You're not taking action because of what other people will think. What what will my colleagues think? What will my drinking friends think? What will my friends and family think? What does it say about me if I need a program? What does it say about me if I have to pay money to go and join a program? I should just be able to quit for free. I should just be able to do this on my own. And I should should should should. If you could have quit drinking on your own, you would have. You haven't, so you can't. But stop worrying and caring about the opinion of other people. There's a gentleman I met who calls it goop. Go O P. The good opinion of other people. Why are you worrying about goop? Stop worrying about goop. The good opinion of other people. Who cares what your colleagues think, what your drinking friends think, what your friends think, what your colleagues think. You're worried that people think, "Oh, you're an alcoholic. You must be an alcoholic. She's an alcoholic." Rubbish. They're too busy thinking about themselves. Stop thinking about what other people will think. Marcus Aurelius saw this pattern in himself. He wrote it down 2,000 years ago. You love yourself. I know you do. You want to be better. I know you do because we all do. But you are handing the decision to imaginary critics who aren't even watching. You're so scared what other people are going to think that you are handing your power to these imaginary people. Imaginary critics who aren't even watching. Take action. Stop worrying about what other people are going to think and do it for yourself, for your husband, for your wife, for your family. Another quote from Marcus Aurelius's meditations. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. A lot of people argue that this is the most famous line from meditations. The reason is is that the thing that you're afraid of, the discomfort of the identity shift that will take place if you become an alcohol-free living person. The social awkwardness, the fear that you can't do it, that is not the obstacle to your better life. That is the way to your better life. The obstacle is the way. Ryan Holiday famously wrote that book. I actually interviewed Ryan Holiday on the James Swanic show many years ago, 2014. Wow. Has it been 12 years? It has been. The thing you're afraid of, the discomfort of releasing alcohol, the social awkwardness of sharing with people that you are now alcohol-f free, the fear that you can't do it, that is not the obstacle. That is the way to your better life. Every man and woman in our program hit that wall. Every single one of them, the ones who became unrecognizable to their families, to themselves, are the ones who walked through it. Anyway, my invitation to you is get over yourself. Take the action. Stop worrying what other people think. It's okay to have fear as to whether you can do it. But even if you're 75% sure, just borrow that remaining 25% from me because I know that we have a system and a process and a power powerful community and amazing coaches who will support you. Now again, Marcus Aurelius didn't write meditations to be published. He wrote it because leadership is lonely. Because being the most powerful man in the world didn't make the internal work any easier. Because every morning he he had to choose again who he was going to be that day. And he chose discipline over comfort, presence over escape, response over reaction. And we talk about that a lot in Project 90. How to respond versus react. Stop reacting, start responding. And response lives in that half second, half minute, 5 seconds moment between when you are reactive and frustrated and the cortisol is rising and you just want to lash out and when you don't and then you pause and then you respond. You really want to swear but you respond. That's choosing discipline over comfort, presence over escape. And I'm inviting you now to make that same choice. Not because alcohol has destroyed your life because maybe it hasn't. Maybe it hasn't destroyed it. But maybe you're dying a death by a thousand cuts. Few pounds that you don't want here. A little irritation with your wife or husband there. Your kids who are grown now don't call you. And then you're not as present with them. Maybe you're not rock bottom, but you're headed that way. Maybe it won't come for a few more years, but it's coming. I talked about the drift in an earlier episode talking about the book Outwitting the Devil by the author Napoleon Hill. We talked about the drift. And if you go back a few episodes, if you haven't listened to that, then I invite you to do so. The name of the episode is 98% of people are drifting. Are you one of them? In that book, I do a review of the book. I'm so sorry. in that podcast episode and on that YouTube video. Again, if you go back on YouTube and wa and watch it, I do a review of that book, Outwitting the Devil. It was published in 1938. I'm so sorry. It was written in 1938, but it was only published in 2011, 70 years later. His publisher refused to release it because it was so controversial. Wonderful book. talks about the drift, how we just drift into mediocrity. We accept the comfort of our mediocrity and we continue to drift into further mediocrity. And again, maybe alcohol has not destroyed your life, I'm inviting you, if it's compromising your life, your health, your wealth, your love, your happiness, your relationship, take action. Get support. Do not try to do this on your own. It is a statistically ineffective strategy. I've seen it thousands of times. The most ineffective strategy is willpower. And yet, we all think we should be able to solve it on our own because we're all high achievers. We're business owners. We're entrepreneurs. We're executives. We've succeeded in many areas of life. And our social circle think that we've succeeded. And we've got a nice car. We got a nice home. And we're doing pretty well except for this thing. You're a leader, but this alcohol is getting in the way of you leading. You are the Marcus Aurelius of your household. Whether you feel like it or not, your family is watching how you respond to chaos, how you show up on a Tuesday night, whether you're present or managing, whether you lead or drift into mediocrity. Like Napoleon Hill spoke about in the book Outwitting the Devil. Stoicism is not about suppressing emotion. It's about building the inner architecture that makes you reliable, trustworthy, calm in the storm. I was calm in the storm of this UK visa issue that we had last week. In fact, my wife Lara praised me uh in fact praised me to our relationship coach that we meet with every two weeks on a virtual call was saying I was really impressed by James and the way he handled the UK visa thing. There was so many things going on. It was a mess. And every time I spoke to him about he was calm. Now, truthfully, I wasn't that calm. Under the surface, I was I was somewhat freaking out. But on the surface, I was calm. I was calm in the storm. And my wife noticed that. She appreciated that. She admired that about me. I was the rock in the storm. I was the oak tree with squirrels running around at the base of the oak tree in that moment. Your family doesn't need you to be perfect. They need you to be present though. And presence, real presence, the kind that builds memory dividends as the author Bill Perkins talks about in the book Die with Zero. The kind that makes your father go quiet with pride as what happened with my father in Atlanta recently. That is on the other side of this decision for you to release alcohol. I've been where you are. March 11th, 2010, 16 years ago, Austin, Texas. Mild hangover, sitting in an IHOP in International House of Pancakes. I looked out the window and I made a decision. My decision was I was going to stop drinking for 30 days. It's now been 16 years. I made that decision not because I was broken, but because I wanted to be the man that I sensed I could be. That's stoicism. It's not dramatic. It's not loud. It's just a decision or a choice. A powerful choice made in private, kept in practice, one day at a time. Marcus Aurelius wrote one more line I want to leave you with. Here it is. You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think. I don't think that's morbid. I find it clarifying. I'll repeat the quote. You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think. If you knew, if you really knew that your time was finite, that your children are watching right now, that the version of you capable of leading this family with calm and presence is just 90 days away, what would you do differently today? Few minutes ago, I said I was going to give you Kai's number twice on this call. Here's the second and final time. Text Kai if you'd like to explore working with us. If you'd like to explore meeting me, working with me, and my team of coaches to finally love living alcohol-f free, not being sober, not being in recovery, but being in a incredibly supportive community of business owners, entrepreneurs, executives, high achievers, attorneys, doctors, retirees, executives, amazing people, all successful except for alcohol, and all quietly conquering alcohol's grip on them. If you'd like to speak with a real human being about this and explore what that might look like, then text Kai at this number 361 321 7764. Again, he is a real human being. We don't do AI or bots or automated messages here where we're pretending to be someone else. Takes Kai. He's a real human. A University of Washington study in 2023 found a 98% reduction in alcohol consumption after 90 days in our project 90 program. So they put hundreds of study participants through this scientific study at the University of Washington. It was led by Professor Christopher Barnes. And what they found was a 98% reduction in alcohol consumption from those people who went through our 90-day stop drinking process. We don't do willpower. We use neuroscience. It's the same neuroplasticity that Marcus Aurelius was describing just in a different language 2,000 years ago. Your brain can rewire. Your family is worth it. Waste no more time. Text Kai. One more time for good measures. 361- 321-7764. Thank you so much for listening. Really appreciate it. If you feel like you got value from this, will you please do me a huge favor and hit the subscribe button so you're notified about the next episode? Do me a favor as well if it speaks to you. If you're watching on YouTube, would you go ahead and leave a comment down in the comments section down below? I will respond. I promise you. If you're the first person to comment, take a risk. Just comment. Just say, "Hey, I enjoyed this." If you did, of course, or hey, I didn't enjoy this if you didn't. Of course, honesty is the best policy. Please do subscribe to the channel if you're on YouTube. Watch this. And please do share this with someone else. Again, this is not a individual [music] singleminded vision of life here. This is sharing. We can make breakthroughs together. So, please do share it. Just click the share button now and send it as a WhatsApp or a text or an email to someone you know that might appreciate meditations, that might appreciate Maros Aurelius, that might love the movie Gladiator, that might be looking to quit drinking. If you feel like this could help, please go ahead and send it to them. Just a reminder, the James Swanic Show is relaunching. You might be listening to this on the James Swanic Show. I started in 2012, I think, and I've had a 7-year hiatus, but the James Swanic Show is back. If you go over to the James Swanic show in Apple podcast and Spotify, you'll find it there. Please do subscribe. You'll see new episodes coming. You might be listening to this on the Alcohol-Free Lifestyle Podcast. So, there are two podcasts, the Alcohol-Free Lifestyle Podcast and the James Swanic Show podcast. There are two YouTube channels, the Alcohol-Free Lifestyle YouTube channel and the James Swanic YouTube channel. Please go over there, subscribe, look around, look at some content, tell me what you feel, [music] tell me how you think. I would love to hear from you. If you want to email me with a suggestion on something you'd like me to talk about, you can email me at james@alcoholfrelifefestyle.com. Thank you so much for listening. I'm James Swanik. I'll catch you on the next one.