Edmond Chan

How can we live better?

Motivation

No alcohol for a month – here’s what I found

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I wrote the below in August 2019 but it’s been in draft until now. I thought about it again now I’m basically dry until the baby arrives.

I’ve never done a period off booze. Not that I’m a heavy drinker or ever have been. I’ve enjoyed social drinking and good binge session for more than 2 decades now and never felt the need to do a dry January.

In recent years, I’ve enjoyed boozing less and less. I still love the taste of craft beer and good wine, but my hangovers are getting longer and longer. Sometimes they last until the third day. 

It isn’t always throbbing headaches. It’s also a feeling of not being too sharp and slightly foggy-headed. I’ve toyed with the idea of would my life improve greatly if I just gave it up.

At the end of July, I went to a craft beer place with one of my best mates and some of his mates from Sussex, and one or three turned into 6 or 7 strong ones, and before I knew it, I couldn’t remember how I got home. I haven’t been like this for a long, long time.

I decided to stop drinking any alcohol for the month of August. I’ve heard about One Year No Beer, where you sign up for a year-long challenge to not drink any alcohol. Testimonials rave as to the benefits of clarity and clear-headedness. A year was a bit too long for me and my Dad was surprisingly sceptical about me giving up booze. His main reason was that he didn’t want me to beat myself up if I ended up having a drink. Surely, it isn’t that hard to give up drinking? I’m not an addict. I don’t drink on weekdays and I generally steer clear of getting drunk these days. 

People who give up alcohol generally report vague words like: “more clarity”, “more energy”. It’s all very vague. For me, the thing I’ve noticed the most is that I feel like I have a To-Do list that I just want to keep adding to and I have this urge to consistently smash my to list. I suddenly want to get things done that I would normally put off such as emptying the vacuum cleaner. I get up early on Saturdays and Sundays and go swimming. I just feel ‘on it’. Sharper and more mentally agile. My aggression levels are up a bit (not that I’m shouting at people) but more that I push harder in the gym and better shrug off things that would normally give me anxiety.

I’m also sleeping better. I’m starting to feel tired around 10pm and actively yawning. My eyes start to feel heavy and the pillow on my face is a welcome relief. I don’t sleep all the way through unbroken but this is a serious improvement on my normal sleeping patterns. 

Could this be down to something other than not drinking? Quite possibly. I’ve also been exercising a lot. Lots of cardio and lots of weights. That could be raising my testosterone levels. But it could be down to no alcohol. Alcohol increases oestrogen, so it makes sense for the opposite to reduce oestrogen and therefore increase testosterone. My sleep is also better quality and for longer which also has a direct positive effect on testosterone.

I also like the feeling of exerting self-discipline. Not cracking when I would normally fancy a beer, particularly on weekends or at social events. It’s been fortunate to coincide the dry month with a month where I have very little in the calendar in terms of socials. If it had been a month full of 40th birthday celebrations, then it might have been a bit more of a struggle. Peer group pressure is a powerful thing even if wielded with subtlety. I find that there’s even self-peer group pressure, as you don’t want to be the party-pooper. 

Do I miss alcohol? Not for the first weekends. I still love the taste of craft beer and good wine. And I still like feeling tipsy and drunk (but not too drunk). That first drink after the break will be interesting. I wonder what I’ll like and dislike about it.

So back to today! How did the rest of August go? By the end of the month, I was gagging for a beer or three. Particularly on some of the blazingly hot and sunny Bank Holiday weekends, when all I wanted to do was have an ice-cold beer. The last weekend fell on the 31st Aug, and it would have been easy to capitulate but I resisted, just to get the full calendar month.

I’m doing it again at the moment as the due date for baby Chan is Boxing Day, and I don’t want to be a bit pissed if suddenly labour comes on. It’s been two weeks without a beer (bar a couple of afternoon glasses of wine last Saturday in the pub). And I’m starting to feel similar effects to what I felt in August: feeling more ‘on it’ and more ‘getting shit done’ and it’s probably no coincidence that I went swimming this morning and about to go for a run.

Give it a go. Commit to a month without booze and see what the effects are. If you’re a social drinker, I’m sure you’ll feel the positive effects!

4 speeches to put fire in your belly and put hairs on your chest

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These speeches will make you stand a little taller, with your chin held up, with your chest puffed that bit further out. And put fire in your belly and hairs on your chest.

I watch these whenever I need inspiration and some courage. Hopefully, they give you some too!

Al Pacino’s speech in Scent of a Woman (1992)

If you haven’t seen this film yet, then watch it before this humdinger of an ending speech.

For a very useful transcipt of the Pacino’s barnstorming speech, see this link from American Rhetoric.

Arnie’s 6 Rules of Success

Arnie is the man. Plain and simple. Champion bodybuilder, self-made millionaire businessman, blockbuster A-list acting legend, Governor of California, all-round great guy. Listen to this.

Rocky’s speech to his son in Rocky Balboa (2006)

Every Rocky film (except Rocky V of course) has made me cry. Floods of tears. The final struggle of the training sessions. The punishment Rocky inevitably takes in the ring. And then the beyond-rousing comeback of pure heart that is Rocky. I’m left a sobbing mess of heaving tears.

This scene always gets me.

Here’s a useful transcript of the speech.

Al Pacino’s Game of Inches speech in Any Given Sunday (1999)

For raw aggression, and channelling that aggression into a common goal of victory, this speech has no rivals:

Here’s a very useful transcript of the speech as well.

Hope you enjoyed this post. Let me know what your favourite movie speeches are in the comments below!

What’s really holding you back? Truly?

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If we start from the position that we all have potential, then why is there a gap between where your potential self is and where you are at the moment?

How big is that gap? What is your true potential? It might be that your true potential is way more than you think it is. In which case, the gap is even bigger than you know.

Step one is where you are now.

Step two is looking at where you think your potential is. So this might be being a writer or being an artist.

Step three is discovering where your true potential might be (and you would need help from outside to discover this). This might be being a rocket scientist, climbing the world’s highest and most difficult mountains.

Step four is addressing how to bridge that gap and narrow it as much as possible.

Do you think that you can achieve step two and step three?

If you don’t think you can, then something is holding you back.

It’s a mindset thing for sure.

A great example of opening up your mindset and horizons is what learning how to swim has done for me. Even after my first lesson, when I couldn’t really even finish a length of the pool, I was looking up scuba diving holidays. Now after three lessons, I’m thinking about taking up wild swimming in rivers and taking up surfing. This is all stuff that I’ve dreamed about doing but thought it was pure fantasy. Those are the sort of things that I come up with when asking myself “What’s on my bucket list? What would I love to do?” And now it’s all possible. My horizons and possibilities with regards to swimming and watersports have expanded.

Now if I asked myself about step 3 (discovering where your true potential might be), what’s possible with my swimming? What couldn’t I even contemplate or imagine before that first swimming lesson? Swimming the Channel or swimming the Hellespont? I wouldn’t have dared dream about that a month ago. Now it’s possible. Maybe not likely, but possible. Hold on, why isn’t that likely? Maybe I’ll think differently after I master the freestyle stroke. Imagine once I get to 1,000m without stopping, maybe my horizons with regards to swimming will be so far from what I can imagine now? Maybe swimming the length of the Thames? Who knows!

So what was holding me back?

Why has it taken me until I’m 39 to finally address my terrible swimming and do something about it? In my head, I told myself that it was because of my eyes that I couldn’t swim because of my poor eyesight. I’m a minus 4.0 in my left eye and a minus 0.75 in my right eye. This means that I can’t really see anything without contact lenses or glasses. And glasses or contacts don’t work in the pool. That’s what I told myself and that’s why I couldn’t go swimming to learn in the past 10, 15 or 20 years.

This was probably bullshit. Stuff I told myself so that I wouldn’t have to do it. Now that I’m 39 and thinking about having kids soon, I think it’s really important that I learn to swim. Just in case I ever need to and to teach my kids and just for the sheer joy of being good at a fundamental human skill.

The solution was ridiculously easy. I just googled ‘prescription goggles’ and it was SO cheap and easy. £15 for prescription goggles. Now swimming is something that I look forward to.

How easy was that?

What’s something that you want to do and what’s holding you back?

How can you break through? Maybe it’s that you want to be a singer. So how about taking a singing lesson. £100 for 5 lessons from a professional singing teacher. Or maybe you want to be an artist. Go on a short course at a decent art school. I did one for about £350 for 10 x 2 hour lessons at Chelsea School of Art. At the very least, it’s fun and you’ll find out whether it’s something you want to pursue. Let me know what you want to do in the comments below!

Discovering Mel Robbins: a summary of her message and her 5 Second Rule

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I recently discovered Mel Robbins on Instagram. She puts out great Instagram content such as:

I thought at first that she was Tony Robbins’s wife. But she’s not. Imagine those guys as a motivational power couple!

I’ve watched her great TEDx talk:

and her interview on Lewis Howes’s podcast:

Here is my summary of her message.

  • There is a gap between what you know you should do and actually doing that.
  • Motivation is not enough. Most of the time you won’t feel motivated to do what you don’t want to do.
  • The way around this is to make use of your basal ganglia which manages habit and unconscious action. eg for an example of unconscious action, think about when you put on your trousers in the morning. You just do it and if you thought now about which leg you put in first, you would have no idea!
  • To activate the basal ganglia, don’t let your prefrontal cortex and natural desire for comfort to hijack you. Instead use the 5 second rule.
  • Whenever you are going to procrastinate, you just count backwards from 5 and by 1 you’ve started doing what you’re wanted to do but were too lazy/scared to do. Eg if you want to start getting out of bed, you can’t just say ‘I’m going to start getting out of bed early’, because in all likelihood, if that’s not your habit, then you’re not going to do that. If instead you count down from 5 to 1 as you’re deciding to get out of bed as soon as you first wake up, then you’re more likely to get up.
  • Nobody is coming to save you. Don’t wait for that raise, starting that podcast, starting that business etc. Nobody is going to magically come and do this for you. You need to do this yourself. Help yourself.

External Links

These 11 things can make you the most positive person you’ve ever met

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I took a Strengths Finder test a few years ago and it said that my number one strength was positivity.

My number one strength! I couldn’t fucking believe it.

I wasn’t very happy about this because it’s a bit lame really. Definitely not as cool or impressive as say your number one strength being ‘Strategy’. (That did actually come up as my fifth best strength.)

Here’s the results I got:

how to be more positive
Gallup Strengths Finder results

When someone asks you what your strengths are, you don’t really want to say positivity because what does that even mean?!

Recently though, I’ve started to think differently about this.

It comes up again and again. People often remark that I’m ‘always so positive’ or that I’m the ‘most positive person they’ve ever met’.

So maybe I’m in the 98th percentile for positivity. That’s pretty good right?

Maybe you can’t change your nature so maybe it’s time to embrace it.

I started thinking that maybe this is something I can help people with. Maybe I could teach you how to be more positive.

So here goes:

1. Know that you can always change your mental state

You might have woken up to an argument with your partner and you might have left the house in a bad mood. You can’t shake it off on your commute and you’re still fuming about it at work.

When you’re in a bad mood, the stress hormone cortisol is pumping through your system and it’s affecting your ability to concentrate and be creative.

At its worst, this feeling can last for the whole day.

Think about the craziness of that. A whole day ruined because of an argument.

Now let’s rewind.

Assuming that you weren’t able to resolve the argument before you left the house, you have to find a way to shake off that bad mood as soon as possible.

If you can’t, then you’re not in control of your emotions. Your emotions are controlling you.

Compartmentalise. Try to put it to one side. Your home’s side. Your domestic side.

Or choose to view the argument in a different way.

Look at it from a more positive point of view. The argument has raised important points that it’s better that they’ve been raised rather than allowed to fester. That realisation is where progress comes from. Or that it’s going to be resolved soon and your relationship will be the stronger for it.

You’re in control of your thoughts and your emotions. Don’t be a slave to your emotions. Control them instead.

2. Know how to whip yourself up into a higher energy state

Energy and your mental state are very closely related.

Think about it. When you’re feeling sluggish and low-energy, do you feel positive or negative?

You could be faced with the same situation, but if you come into it with high energy, you’re more likely to feel positively about that particular situation.

On the flip side, if you come into that same situation feeling groggy, then you’re less likely to feel positive about that situation.

Look at how boxers or MMA fighters come into the arena. They’re jogging on the spot. They’re throwing out combinations of punches. They’re jabbing the air. They’re tapping themselves in the face. Whipping themselves up into a higher state of energy, readying themselves for the fray ahead.

Or look at Tony Robbins before he comes on stage. He’s jumping on a trampoline, breathing deeply, big smile on his face, geeing himself up just like a boxer does. And it works.

In the mornings, try going for a short jog with a sprint finish or go to the gym and lift some heavy weights. Or if you don’t have time, simply get on the floor by your bed and do push ups until fatigue. Then sing loud along to your favourite song.

You can control your energy levels. Try the tips above.

3. Think about why you’re a lucky bastard

If you think you’ve had a bad day, try this exercise. It’s pretty similar to Gratitude.

I use this on my wife when she’s down.

So for example, in the heat of summer, our flat is super hot. It’s around 31 degrees right now. Now we could moan about this, and say how bad our lives are right now.

But I always say, stop being a moaner. At least we’re not in Iraq right now fighting wars in 50 degree heat, with 100lbs of kit and no water. Compared to that, we’re pretty goddamn lucky.

Or I think about how lucky I am to have two legs, a good brain, all my senses intact, some skills and knowledge, how lucky I was to have great parents and a great sister who cared for me and gave me a great education or how lucky I am to have a great wife who looks after me and loves me, or to have great friends who I’ve known all my life, or have a good job or to have the ability to travel and to be free of mental and physical illness.

Think about why you’re a lucky bastard and do this exercise every day and whenever you’re down.

Start from the beginning:

You’re lucky that:

  • You’re alive!
  • You have a roof over your head
  • You’ve got friends (hopefully)
  • You’ve got a family
  • You have some money
  • You have food
  • You live in a free society (hopefully)
  • You have a working mind

You carry on. After about ten items you’re lucky for, you’ll start to feel really good about yourself and your situation. Repeat daily.

4. Improve your self talk

I hear so much bad self talk every single day.

A colleague might say ‘I can’t do that. I’m not good enough.’

My wife might say that she’s ‘feeling fat’.

And these are just the words they say out loud. To another person.

Can you imagine what they say to themselves in their own heads?

Why are they so harsh on themselves?

Now you might say that maybe what they’re saying is true. But I can tell you that it’s never really true.

Language is so important and the words you use can have good and bad effects on you and the people around you.

Let’s go back to the previous examples:

My colleague could have said, ‘I’m not sure that I could do that yet but I’m sure I could learn.’

Doesn’t that sound more positive? Do you think my colleague would be more upbeat after saying that than the words ‘I can’t do that. I’m not good enough’?

Start reframing the way you talk to yourself.

Instead of ‘I can never lose weight because I’m destined to be a fattie’ why not reframe it and say ‘I’ve never found it easy to lose weight but this time I’m going to follow a new eating and exercise plan and I’m going to lose weight.’

Instead of saying ‘I can’t learn a new coding language because I’m not clever enough’ say ‘I will find the right training programme that will fit the way that I learn best and I will learn whatever I put my mind to’.

Improve your self talk now. Whenever you catch yourself giving yourself bad self talk, stop and reframe.

Talk to yourself the way that you’d give encouragement to your best friend or your child.

You wouldn’t crush them would you? Of course not; you’d motivate and uplift.

Do the same for yourself.

5. Know that you could learn whatever it is you put your mind to

I suppose this is actually a form of confidence but I do feel that I could learn anything that I put my mind to.

Now that might not be objectively true because maybe quantum physics is actually beyond me. But I do believe that if I worked on it for 100 hours and got the best teachers and they found a way that I could relate to the material best, then I could have a decent grasp of the subject.

Rightly or wrongly, that’s my belief.

This is also known as a Growth Mindset, first coined by Carol Dweck.

She contrasts a fixed vs a growth mindset.

A fixed mindset is where a person believes that their abilities and personalities are largely ‘fixed’ and unchanging. Those are just the cards that you’ve been dealt. When you succeed, you attribute that success to your innate abilities and when you fail, you attribute that failure to your innate lack of abilities. Failure is seen as a reflection of your fixed abilities. Think of the person who believes they lack artistic talent. ‘I can’t draw. Never been good at it. Never will be.’

A growth mindset on the other hand believes that abilities are not fixed. They can grow or recede. They might be bad at drawing but faced with needing to become better at drawing, they will find a course and learn how to become better at drawing. They will believe that their drawing ability can improve.

Which do you think will make you more positive?

Growth mindset of course.

Imagine your life with a growth mindset.

You’d be planning a trip to Spain and with 4 weeks to go, you might buy a beginner’s guide to Spanish, because you’d be confident in your ability to learn some Spanish.

You might not be a good swimmer but one day you decide to learn once and for all.

A growth mindset just opens up possibilities and horizons for you. Isn’t that better than walking round with a fixed mindset all the time?

To move from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset isn’t easy but the best way is to look at people you know who you know didn’t have that much talent in a particular field but still became good at it.

Okay not Tiger Woods as you might think he has innate God-given talents (even though he has practiced for tens of thousands of hours since he was 18 months old).

I knew a guy at university had never played golf before university. But he fell in love with the game and all his friends played golf. He decided that he wouldn’t settle for being an average golfer. He took serious lessons and he practiced diligently. In two years, he was down to a six handicap. (That’s really good by the way)

When you think about people like my golfer friend, that’s when you realise that maybe abilities aren’t so fixed after all.

Take inspiration from his example and go after what you want.

Here’s a great article from Brainpickings about the difference in the two mindsets.

6. Know that you can always change your situation

Okay maybe not if you’re in prison.

However, assuming you’re not in prison, you can always change your situation.

Not enjoying your job? Change your job.

In a relationship you’re unhappy in? Leave that relationship.

Not that easy you say? Why isn’t it?

When did you become so helpless?

It’s like the story of the elephant and the rope.

A guy walked past an elephant in a circus and was amazed that this huge creature was held by a small rope on one of its rear legs attached to a tiny pole in the ground. He wondered why the elephant didn’t just walk off effortlessly pulling the rope and pole out of the ground.

He asked a circus worker why this was the case.

The circus worker replied that the same rope had been around the elephant since he was a very small baby elephant. At that age, the rope was enough to keep him from escaping. After trying a few times, he realised that he couldn’t break free of the rope. So he stopped trying. Even now, as an adult elephant and now easily strong enough to break free of a hundred ropes, he doesn’t believe he can, so he doesn’t even try.

Sad story eh?

Now let’s go back to the earlier examples.

Don’t think you can change your job? What’s your invisible ‘rope’? Is it really that hard to change your job? Pull out the figurative rope and pole. Look for new jobs and apply to them. Put enough effort into it and you’ll find a great new job.

Can’t leave your relationship? Do the right thing and have a conversation with your partner. Tell them you’re not happy at the moment and tell them how you feel. You’ll either improve your relationships or you’ll end the relationship (or maybe they will).

Know that you can always change your situation.

7. Enjoy being around people. Enjoy your fellow man.

I love being social. I can’t be social all the time – like most people, I need time to myself. But on the whole, I like to be around people.

Be happy to see people you know. Give people hugs, greet them with a big smile and tell them it’s great to see them again. Ask how things are. Give them a gentle tease if they can take it.

Organise dinners, parties, BBQs, reunions, poker nights, booze ups, anything. Be a giver not a taker.

8. Surround yourself with positive people

And if you can’t find them, find them online.

I mean on podcasts or on YouTube.

Check out this guy called Charlie Houpert who has a channel called Charisma on Command where he dissects and teaches you how to have much stronger interpersonal skills.

Or Tony Robbins. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.

Or Casey Neistat.

Or Jocko Willink.

9. Eliminate or minimise negative people

The mirror of the previous point. You know someone who is generally negative about stuff. Just cut them out. Energy is a precious thing. Don’t let someone always keep sapping your energy. You’ve worked hard to raise your positivity and your energy levels. Why should the same people bring you down.

Cut them out. Or if you can’t because maybe they’re your family, then tell them not to be so depressing. If that doesn’t work, then maybe you need to see them less. It might sound harsh but if you don’t then you will feel way less energetic and less positive than if you did cut them out.

10. Know how your body affects your mental state, both positively and negatively

I’ve written earlier blog posts on how your body affects your mind.

We saw from Amy Cuddy how great posture can affect your confidence levels. Think about the dominant pose before an interview. How posing with your arms aloft and chest puffed out can increase testosterone in your body. Testosterone, amongst many other things, is the confidence and dominance hormone.

Conversely, we know from Cuddy also that if you huddle up with your shoulders rounded and slightly stooped that you lose that feeling of dominance and you become more fearful.

11. Consume mostly uplifting and positive content

If you read the Daily Mail (Daily Hate), watched only the BBC news channel, listened to old Radiohead and emo, do you think you’d be feeling positive after all that?

Of course not.

What about if you woke up and listened to the overture of The Marriage of Figaro or the overture to Tannhauser?

Then you read a few pages of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Then you watched an animated book review on FightingMediocrity’s Youtube channel.

Then you read the front page of the Financial Times.

Then you listened to a quality podcast like Jocko Willink’s.

How do you think you’d feel after that quality content binge? A bit better than the previous diet of negativity, right?

Your turn

Hopefully, you’ve learned some useful tips on how to be more positive. Start putting these into action today and let me know how you got on!