The Link Between Fitness, Wellness, and Habit Change w/Jesse Carrajat
Welcome to Journey to the Sunnyside, the podcast where we have thoughtful conversations to explore the science of habits, uncover the secrets to mindful living, and of course, your own mindful drinking journey. This podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the number one alcohol moderation platform. And if you could benefit from drinking a bit less, head on over to sunnyside.co to get a free fifteen day trial. I'm your host, Mike Hardinbrook, published author, neuroscience enthusiast and habit change expert. In this episode, we're joined with Marie Fork veteran, Jesse Carajat.
Speaker 1:He's the founder of Ultom Fitness and host of the Sober Strength podcast. Jesse opens up about his journey for military service and corporate life to build a mission driven wellness platform. We explore how fitness and mental wellness work together to create sustainable habits, improve emotional resilience, and redefine what the word sober truly means. So whether you're looking to cut back on alcohol or simply build a healthier, more balanced lifestyle, tune in to discover how small, consistent steps in fitness and mindset can lead to big transformations.
Speaker 2:Today I have Jesse Karajat with us. Jesse, thanks
Speaker 3:for coming on. It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:I'm excited to get going here. And as usual, I always do some research beforehand. Listened to one of your podcasts and we share so many commonalities and I actually had to write them down. So of course we have our history with alcohol, and that could be an episode in itself. But we have three kids.
Speaker 2:Fatherhood's really important to us. We're both entrepreneurs. We're both lifelong fitness guys. And you're a veteran. You help veterans.
Speaker 2:And I grew up in a veteran home. So I hold a special place in my heart there. And then I just found out that you live in Colorado and I just moved here. So another welcome. Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was great to be here. I wish you want to keep going. What's your favorite food for breakfast? Do you like the Dallas Cowboys by any chance? This is my favorite team, but it seems like there's a lot of similarities process.
Speaker 3:Looking forward
Speaker 2:to it. Well, I'm a Chiefs fan. We don't see eye to eye there. So I guess that's where
Speaker 3:and I would only have an issue with the Chiefs fan if I see in the Super Bowl, which is a good problem to have. So it's all good.
Speaker 2:Sounds good. All right, let's get into your background, because you have a really interesting story. And the military in your service in the Marine Corps really shaped who you are today. So can you talk about how that kind of unfolded in relation with alcohol and your overall mental health? Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So without a doubt serving in the marines shaped me many ways in many very deep, impactful ways. But the way I'll answer that, I'll just answer it through like the through lines of mental health and addiction and substance abuse. I'll start with this. I was raised my parents divorced when I was young and my father served in the Marine Corps and so did my stepfather.
Speaker 3:So, so that was always there. If you examine both sides of my biological parents, families and look at the men in those families, every grandfather served in the Marines, uncles, my brother served in the United States Coast Guard. So like the seed of the military was always there and something I aspired to. However, my father, who dropped out of high school, he was born and raised in North Jersey in poverty, dropped out of high school and he was a sophomore, made something of himself just through like work ethic, had some bumpy road himself, but he always saw for me that he thought college was the best way forward for me. However, I started to get in quite a bit of trouble when I was, I would say, 15 years old.
Speaker 3:My first time I was arrested. And from the years of 15 to 19 was basically a series of just repetitive, destructive, drunken behavior. And there are some underlying mental health issues that I'm sure we'll dive into. But back to your question, what will wind up happening for me was because of my SAT scores, not my GPA, different things, but because of my SAT scores, I was able to get into quite a bit of colleges. I went to college.
Speaker 3:I gave it the old dry and I wound up getting kicked out in my first semester for same old shenanigans. There's this time it was drunk fighting. And I basically was kicked off campus. My father died that same exact semester. He died of AIDS, which he had acquired over a decade before from intravenous drugs.
Speaker 3:And all of that to say the combination of losing my father, who was my true north, despite flaws and his strengths, and also having that affinity for the Marine Corps. I think it was just something where I viewed joining the military as a redemptive opportunity for me. Was seeking as a 19 year old to make something of myself. And I was rudderless, right? I lost my dad and I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 3:And all my friends were freshmen in colleges and having, I'll say like a normal experience. And here I was getting booted out and losing my dad. So I joined the Marines and I think really to get to your question, it's like my experience in the Marines taught me a couple of things, but through the lens of what we're here to talk about. One is that no matter how strong a facade that maybe someone puts out or how masculine they may appear to be or assertive or confident. There can be underlying weaknesses and insecurities and mental health issues, And I saw that within the body of the Marine Corps, myself included.
Speaker 3:Right. But I also saw that, and I think this is key between both of the fathers that raised me. One of them, my father, who literally passed away from fallout of a drug addiction, even though it took a decade for him to get sick and eventually passed. But then the other and this is the house that I was raised in, which was with my biological mother and my stepfather, another Marine who struggled for decades with alcohol abuse. I can answer the question of how did the military shape you in so many different ways?
Speaker 3:Because there's, there's so many things that that teaches you. But one of the things was like appearing to be confident and having your together is not the same as actually doing so. Don't assume that people are healthy and well, just because of the way that they present themselves. And I certainly fall into that category because I was really good at hiding some of the challenges that were underneath the surface lurking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I couldn't agree more. The external doesn't always match the internal. You see it with married couples all the time. Oh, I thought they were so happy. And then all of a sudden, they're divorced.
Speaker 2:And you also have to be careful who you model your behaviors after, because you never really know what actually is going on. They might seem like they have it together, but at the same time, they might be way overindulging with alcohol, even though at the bar, they're sipping whiskey, they might be doing something very different at home. Or there's even times where my wife is like, how do you look and walk into this room so confident? And I'm like, I don't feel confident when I walk in all the time. So it definitely doesn't match up in every case and in many cases.
Speaker 2:So you went into the military. And I want to say real quick before we move into the questions, you no longer drink, correct?
Speaker 3:I do. I drink moderately.
Speaker 2:You do. Okay, then that's my mistake. So that's really a good one, because now we can get into how this applies to the audience if moderation is their goal. So let's move into it. And that is so you left the military, and you transitioned.
Speaker 2:And why don't you tell us a little bit about what that looked like? And what changes as far as your habits go, how those were modified in that transition?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Came back and I went to Rutgers university in Central Ish Jersey and moved towards an entry level kind of ambiguous corporate career. So I, what I want what I gained from the Marine Corps is just seeing tangibly the benefit of applying yourself discipline, work ethic, of course, gets a huge component, especially in the Marine Corps. And that served me really well details aside of how I wound up venturing through networking relationships and promotions on stacking promotions, moving into the healthcare sector.
Speaker 3:I did that intentionally. Wanted to serve in an area and apply myself in an area that I thought was altruistic and can benefit people. And I wound up moving up the career ladder, if you will. And I wound up working for a large medical group. And we were serving at the time it was 38 different states.
Speaker 3:And I found myself in an operations role, which was something I was really good at, because at the end of the day, operations is how do you be efficient? How do you be effective? How do you be disciplined? How do you stay on task? How do you organize and rally and lead people toward a common mission?
Speaker 3:But the issue I wound up having was I was so committed to that. And I was so intoxicated with my ambition and the still going back to that, that 19 year old who got kicked out of a school, there was a DUI in there and lost his dad. I've always had this. I don't know if it's an insecurity or what it can be healthy and unhealthy. But I've always been driven to make something of myself and to I think in deeper reflection and hindsight prove to myself that I have self worth.
Speaker 3:And I'd say that's a dangerous characteristic if you have unaddressed kind of mental health issues and substance reliance. And I found myself burned out trying to get promoted, prove that I'm worthy of the promotion, hit all the objective metrics and KPIs for my company. And also, and you brought this up earlier, we both are our dads of young children and have a spouse that we want to be sacrificial and selfless for. And I found myself in this unexpected kind of issue area or time in my life where I felt like I wasn't doing anything. Well, I was not showing up as best as I knew that it could as a spouse and a dad.
Speaker 3:And I felt as though, because I was carrying stress and I was carrying all of this urgency inside. I thought I wasn't showing up in my corporate career either. So when you do life day in and day out, like you're failing, even if it's subtle in every area and you don't find like any margin for yourself to even reflect, to pull up and to assess and to find like, you know, mindfulness or space for physical fitness. What have you, you can turn to familiar friends that are actually foes like alcohol to cope with that baseline of discomfort and anxiety. So any of questions about like, you know, what was the transition from military life to corporate life?
Speaker 3:But basically, military equipped me with tools to be successful. But because I still had these underlying unaddressed issues and insecurities underneath, eventually the objective success of my career advancement led to my emotional and spiritual decline.
Speaker 2:What do you think during that time was the most motivating for you to start looking at yourself and looking at your behaviors specifically around adjusting and not relying on alcohol as a crutch in your life? Was it because it sounds like there was a lot going on. You made a transition, you were climbing the ladder in your career, you were becoming a father. Was there one point that was the strongest in all of that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I think men and women were really good at self awareness and knowing where we're falling short. I think anyway, I had all these this vision of who I was going to become. I heard a great quote last week, actually, it's not about what we've achieved, it's who we're becoming. And I've always had this vision of this linear kind of path for me that my disciplines would get stronger physically, I would get stronger objectively, I would accomplish things career wise. But one of those visions for me was how I would show up as a father.
Speaker 3:I told you I lost my father when I was young, and I grew up in a household with essentially someone who had alcohol misuse for decades. And there's a whole not a whole bowl of action I have to untangle, but I just knew that I was just I just wasn't who I was meant to be and who wasn't what I was capable of. That awareness or that revelation was happening constantly throughout the day. Standing in the kitchen with your cell phone, checking emails while your daughter's repeating herself, asking for your attention. Not who I ever wanted to be.
Speaker 3:Right? Making excuses to work longer hours because I was uncomfortable closing my laptop because of the anxiety. And if you go deeper, because I felt like I was insecure and I wasn't performing. So I was working longing hours, not because it was necessary, but it was necessary for me to feel comfortable and better about the job I was doing, never feeling like fulfilled and satisfied. So I'm literally physically not showing up by being away working and then quite literally away traveling, right?
Speaker 3:Like just, I had to visit all different states, all different hospitals, but then not being where my sheet are in my own house, like not being present for my kids and then doing things like, you know, disappearing to the garage, impulsively to slug a 9% double IPA because I just want to turn off my rumination and my brain of all of this worry. And again, you stack days that turn into weeks that turn into months living like that. And you just have this acute awareness of how unhealthy you are. And what happened was it just snowballed to a point where I just had this look in the mirror moment, literally look in the mirror. I was back to back meetings all day.
Speaker 3:I was just like, man, this is not a happy life here. So I was living. And I went into the powder room next to my office and I looked in the mirror and I only use profanity for dramatic effect, but I looked in the mirror and I was like, who the fuck are you becoming? And, I didn't want to become that guy. So there you go.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Now it can snowball. It doesn't have to be this epiphany or rock bottom or major event for change to really take effect to really be noticed. Because I remember there was nothing for me that was drastic. I just remember one time I went for a hike and I heard these two guys, and they were older guys, and one guy goes, you don't smoke, so you'll be alright.
Speaker 2:You don't drink, so you'll be alright. And I was so ignorant to facts at that point. You didn't have Huberman talking about all this stuff back then. Thought, I get the smoking part, but what does it matter about the drinking? Because I really didn't even realize how damaging it was.
Speaker 2:And so then I started looking around at the effects. And then I started realizing, oh, this anxiety that I have is being caused by this. And then as a father, when I was about to have our first child, who's now 12, I was like, if I wake up in the middle of the night, what kind of state am I gonna be in? And I want that to be predictable. So it's like all these small things that starts to chip away.
Speaker 2:And you talk about something called sober strength. And I want to know what sober means to you and how that applies to somebody that wants to cut back on alcohol.
Speaker 3:I'm glad I'm glad you asked that. I mean, literally the name of my show is sober strength. And so what does sober mean? If you trace the definition of sober back as far as you can, or at least as far as Google will allow you to, The word emerged in the thirteen hundreds and alcohol. And we actually have a great episode that we went into on our show with Professor Edward Sling, learn about the history of alcohol culturally.
Speaker 3:How did it evolve into what it is today? Alcohol wasn't even nearly the same in terms of accessibility in the thirteen hundreds or how strong the drink was and even culturally how it was consumed. People just didn't have access to it. And when you did, it was like a two and half percent like mead or equivalent of like a wheat beer. Right?
Speaker 3:So the word sober today, I believe, and I think there's a lot out, a lot of people out there to believe this is directly connected to this very specific framework that is very ubiquitous that put it is put out by Alcoholics Anonymous. Sober means very specifically alcohol and very specifically completely abstinent. Right. But that's what it means today. But I think the word sober is broader and it's more it's just bigger in that and it could be more impactful for that because I think alcohol is just one substance that we can consume or ingest that can lead to unhealthy lives and shorter lives.
Speaker 3:And I think there's other substances and even digital consumption can hurt us. I think for starters, sober needs to mean more than that. It means take a look at your life. And do you have unhealthy relationships with anything that you're choosing to ingest with your eyes or your mouth? Right.
Speaker 3:So that's the first thing, how can sober mean more than just alcohol? Alcohol is the low hanging fruit in that it's just so culturally ubiquitous and the disastrous impact for chronic alcohol abusers is so just so much more dramatic when people are like really in the throes of alcohol misuse and addiction. And then the second thing in terms of sober goes, how do we unlock the abstinence piece so that people think like you're sober, you don't drink at all, because the actual definitions is as far back as you can trace for sober is simply more in the lines of moderation. I mean, literally there's a definition that is not intoxicated, but why do we have to attach alcohol to intoxication? It could mean anything.
Speaker 3:Of moderate in nature, temperate in nature, modest in nature. So I think being sober is just a healthy cue for anyone seeking to be free of chains of anything that we can be consuming that's making us less healthy and less present. Because what matters most in life, it's our relationships. It's love from person to person. It's building good communities.
Speaker 3:And it's our legacies, right? So big preach for you there. But for me, sober means healthy, moderate middle door relationships with everything. But my story is alcohol. That was the substance like so many other people that was dragging me down.
Speaker 3:And that was disabling me from living a life where I felt proud of who I was. And I felt present. I felt like I can give to other people and just felt content. Right. So it's like, how do we redefine sober to mean more than just alcohol?
Speaker 3:And also how do we give people permission to consume alcohol in a healthy way, but also teach them when it's no longer healthy and give them the tools to improve that relationship. And if that means no alcohol short term or long term, great. But I think there is a pathway forward where people can turn alcohol into any other thing where it doesn't have its teeth in you every single day and there's no labels that are permanent, so on and so forth. So sober to me, me just living a life of moderation in every asset of your life.
Speaker 2:Man, you're just you're speaking my language because I had another guest on, Nir Eyal, who wrote a book called Hooked, and he made a similar comment around sober doesn't necessarily mean abstinence. My wife and I were talking about this the other day, and I just didn't have a great definition to be able to give to her. And, but I really love what you're saying on this and that you've gone deeper into thinking about it. So how do you think we can be more productive on conversations around substance use, especially to reduce the stigma and provide more support?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think as many people as possible, especially in the public space and public arena, that can come forward and just admit that they struggle with some form of substance use, I think just reducing stigma. If you have more and more people saying that you suffer from something, then more and more people will also say that. Then eventually you can just remove the stigma. And what is the stigma?
Speaker 3:It's weakness. It's, you know, I can't do life without alcohol, therefore I'm weak. All of that is just negative talk. So I think more people being honest, frankly, one in ten people in America suffers from alcohol use disorder, go to Costco, wait in lines, look around, and look how many people are right there in the same boat. Right.
Speaker 3:So I think just more people and then speaking about it accurately, we have science for a reason and science changes. You mentioned Doctor. Huberman. There's many out there like him that are helping to reshape and redefine what we know about science. But I think talking about addiction the right way, using the right language, believing in and having faith in our medical community, that when they come out with something like alcohol use disorder, that it is real.
Speaker 3:It is true. It is a scale. So I think those two things just more ubiquity and people talking about it and speaking about it the right way. We'll just lower barriers for people, the people that really need to help to just raise their hand and say, Yep, I'm ready. I'm ready to take a look at this thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's so important these days. And luckily, that stigma is starting to drop and rapidly because people are realizing that they're not all that different than other people out there. This is a very common thing. When I went to go write my book, I hesitated. How's this going to look?
Speaker 2:Is it going to make me look weak? Even though it no longer was an issue, people have their judgments and you have to get past that. But then ultimately, I realized that the benefit outweighed my worries, which really weren't founded. I guess I can't control what people think, but I think that weakness and shame and thinking that you're different than anybody really is something we need to remove.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think people need to be vulnerable in their thinking. I don't know if you have this experience, but I have experienced knowing people who for decades had no issue with substance use in this case, alcohol. And then as they enter into like empty nester season, maybe, or they get into their sixties and seventies and develop a chronic abuse of alcohol. And so for that person to sit there in their thirties and forties and have this idea that this doesn't impact me.
Speaker 3:I think we need to be aware that life changes, circumstances, changes, traumatic events happen. Like there's many reasons why people can pick up something, a bad habit that's destructive later in life. So I think we all need to be aware that literally anybody is susceptible to a mental health issue first and then using substance of some kind to heal and cope with that mental health issue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you hit on the head there with there's basically there's normal and then there's problem, but anyone that's normal could move into problem. I think we saw that with the pandemic and people just who maybe never really would drink on a Tuesday afternoon, all of a sudden are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly. Exactly. We've seen that as a society, certainly in America. Right on.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. And I am a true believer that engaging with our listeners is the best way for us to have an incredible show. So if you have some feedback, if you have a guest that you think that would be amazing, or maybe you have your own story that you'd like to share, please email me at mike sunnyside dot co. I'd love
Speaker 2:to hear from you. Talk soon. You're the founder of Altum Fitness, and we're going to get into that in a little bit here, but you emphasize the connection between physical fitness and emotional health. So how do those things work together?
Speaker 3:Yeah, they completely work together. You have to look at the whole person. Physical fitness or lack thereof, perhaps first and foremost, and foundationally, could be a pink or red flag that somebody is suffering from emotional or mental health, right? So your your commitment to your physical fitness is often an indicator of your overall health, your deeper health, right? So with that said, it's like, how are they related?
Speaker 3:There are powerful effects of things like cardiovascular exercise on your brain chemistry. There are powerful mental health effects on having a good body composition not being obese, or should I say being lean and being muscular, like feeling good about yourself has a ripple effect in every other area of your life. And there are levers that everybody can pull every single day that are powerful tools. If you're trying to improve your mental health. Now they're not the end all to be all right.
Speaker 3:I think we all know somebody who looks like a 67 Mustang and drives like a '90 civic. Like we know people like that, right? No, no knock on Honda. I know they last for decades, but bad metaphor. But the point is like looking good is not is does not mean you're feeling good.
Speaker 3:However, if you're focusing on the right nutrition, the right fitness, and just being in a regimen, and having discipline, and checking that box and doing something hard every day and creating that win for yourself cumulatively over time, builds confidence, builds purpose, builds meaning. And if you focus on your physical fitness, in addition to other huge levers you can pull, like potentially therapy, potentially getting into a community, emphasizing relationships, like things we all know help you be more healthy emotionally. Fitness is a powerful tool, but it is not the only tool.
Speaker 2:It's not a thing about vanity or how it looks. It's just how it makes you feel. It's going incrementally in to something that you're committed and seeing long term results, which directly relates to so many other habits in your life, because you're not going to get one workout in and all of a sudden be fit in the same as if you're trying to change things around alcohol or other areas in your life. It's not going to happen overnight.
Speaker 3:Yeah, agreed. And for me and my wife, for the longest time, understood that. Like, when life has been challenging, like logistically, right? And having three kids and traveling and stuff like that, like your disciplines fall off, like things can just start to fall off around you. And for me, fitness has always been like the last man standing.
Speaker 3:And my wife would say, you slept for four and a half hours last night. Why are you going to wake up and now work out? And I said, Meg, you don't understand if this goes, that's all I got. Like, this is the last things that can go. It's like being in a house fire and it's like the last hose that I have.
Speaker 3:And you're telling me to just drop the hose and just be consumed. So point there is it can also provide you again with that sense of agency. If everything around you feels out of control, but you can just control waking up and going to the gym and doing your forty five minute plan workout or whatever it is that can give you that semblance of agency that is enough to help you push forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right there with you when we're traveling, we're nomad family a lot of the time, finally settling here in Colorado, but not always having a gym accessible makes it hard. It doesn't have to be these long workouts. In fact, I'm like a thirty minute in and out kind of guy. Like it's not ninety minutes or some of these crazy workouts, but you got to have that routine for me. I can't just back off from that.
Speaker 2:And so let's get into Ultom Fitness because I want to hear about this. How did this come about? And where are you today?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we had it came about before we had our first child. Had already just wanted to start a gym, a brick and mortar gym called Altum Fitness. Altum means deep. You can see it right here. There you go.
Speaker 3:Deep somewhere over there. But Altum is Latin for deep and the vision of the gym that I wanted to start again, brick and mortar was wanted to have just a badass gym with a rock climbing wall, high intensity training, typical like hypertrophy, bodybuilding section, massages, everything. Wanted to be a full gym, but also, and most importantly, I wanted to have connections with local therapists in the community. Cause it's always been my intention and my experience from my own experience, again, that I can look and look strong, feel strong, but you got to address the inner self and the inner soul. So the whole idea was how do you go deep in fitness and not stay surface level surface being the body deep, being emotional and mental health.
Speaker 3:I wanted to call it ultimate fitness. So the name was there. We had our first kid. We didn't think it was what we're planning for our first child. We didn't think it was the right timing to start a business while also having our first child.
Speaker 3:So we moved on and my career progressed and went on and on. And I just already shared how that ended. It didn't end well. I burned out and made an abrupt decision to pull up and basically disrupt my career in a huge way. I blew up my career.
Speaker 3:It's one thing for someone to just quietly say, Hey, I'm going to take a sabbatical and, I'll see you in a year. No, I came out and say, I'm done. And also I'm suffering from mental health. I have been, this isn't the path for me. I've been using alcohol chronically and I'm done.
Speaker 3:So I knew when I ended my career, I very intentionally had to, because of how toxic my ambition can get. I had to blow it up, which is what I did. So I blew up my career, but what I knew and what I wanted to do was take some time away, literally do nothing in terms of productivity around a career. And then when I came back and felt healthy and centered, I wanted to start a company. But this time, brick and mortar wasn't what I wanted to do, because what I wanted to do was reach as many people as possible who are waiting in the wings and not quite ready to step into a community or step into a brand or step into a show that helps them assess whether they're having an issue, particularly with alcohol, and they can get better.
Speaker 3:So I thought to reach more people, it would be more of an online presence. Right. So from their ultimate fitness from the start, it was always two things that I wanted to do. One was create a podcast, which I've done, and I'm incredibly like unexpectedly, pleasantly surprised and humbled to say that as of yesterday, I haven't checked today, but I was thirty second in the country in the health and fitness space in terms of podcasts, when it comes to downloads and lessons. And that's just a sign that we're talking about things that matter to people and they're engaged and hopefully telling other people.
Speaker 3:So that's been incredible. The other part of it is the Altum fitness app, which is out there right now. But essentially back to your question, like how can fitness be used in conjunction with other tools to get healthier and live longer lives? Because fitness is a big component of it because I'm dual certified of fitness because it matters to me and it matters to a lot of people. I thought that I can just provide an option for people by having a bunch of fitness programs and tools and countdown timers and videos and resources that if somebody doesn't quote, just want to heal up and fix their relationship with alcohol, and they also want to look at the whole picture and just get more fit whenever that means to them.
Speaker 3:Could be to run a five ks to get stronger, to look leaner, whatever. I wanted to be able to offer that tool for them as well, because I happen to think I know how to help them with that. So you have an app and then you have a podcast and that's Ultimate Fitness. And I hope anybody chooses to use either of those tools.
Speaker 2:That transition, what I'm hearing is basically you decided to take something that was even keel and providing and doing really well successfully and financially, but you wanted to transition into something that was mission.
Speaker 3:It was 100%. I was the company I worked for was the private equity space. And let's just say that their goals are not always what's best for the people they're meant to serve. And there was a huge cognitive dissonance every day where if I'm going to be working my butt off and applying myself at this level of intensity, how much better of a life looking back would it be to say that I helped people overcome something like alcohol, as opposed to deepening the pockets of the richest people in the country? And I'll stop there.
Speaker 2:I mean, I couldn't identify more because, you know, I come from a marketing technology background, I did the whole VC venture capital raises, build companies in the B2B space. And on the side, I wrote my first book. And as I'm doing that, I'm like, this brings me real fulfillment. And I started questioning, does really making businesses, having them use our technology to make more money, is that really fulfilling for me? And I got all my fulfillment from doing the mission driven things.
Speaker 2:And that's why I ended up linking up with Sunnyside. That's why I'm here on a microphone. That's why I help with our growth initiatives. That's why I do our master classes. And so like, I couldn't relate anymore to what you just said.
Speaker 2:I commend you for just going for it.
Speaker 3:Back at you. I didn't know that was your background. And I think that when people have lived on that side of the fence, they're particularly driven and motivated on our side of the fence now, which is altruism and helping people. So I commend you as well for making that jump.
Speaker 2:Unknown Yeah, take some of our entrepreneur creativity and see what we can do with 3five
Speaker 3:Exactly. That's what our country needs more mission driven entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2:One hundred percent. So I've heard you talk about control release cycle. Can you explain what that is?
Speaker 3:Yeah. If you've noticed in this conversation, I try to come up with metaphors to help me communicate. And one of the things that occurred to me when I was more in the depths of my challenges was if you picture a Venn diagrams that should age old two circles with interlap in the middle. Thanks for doing that. My life was spent on both extreme sides and never in the middle.
Speaker 3:And on one side, we can call that Venn diagram control. And on the other side, it's release. And in the middle is presence. Okay. And what I mean by that is control on the right side of the Venn diagram for anyone listening, right?
Speaker 3:What are the things that I do every day to try to desperately have agency in my life and control the outcome of my life? And that could be in the micro daily stuff. Do I want to have a good day today? Do I want to go to the gym? Do I want to drink alcohol today?
Speaker 3:But also in the macro, like really important stuff, like how much do I want in my savings account? Where would I like my career to end? Will I buy a vacation home on and on? Right. But like, if you're obsessing on those things, or I should say, orienting your life towards those things and physically what you do, you're seeking to control what is inevitably an uncontrollable outcome.
Speaker 3:Now you can, you can have agency and impact your life, but there are things that can happen today that can just throw all that away. Right. But there's this control area, which is where I was investing 100% of my focus baseline underneath it. Why anxiety? My life will not end well.
Speaker 3:I've seen the men in my life's life's not end well. That will be me. How do I desperately work my tail off every single day to avoid what will be inevitably in poor ending? Right? That's going real deep on you, but that's control.
Speaker 3:That's where I spent my time. The other side is release and release, or what are the things that I'm doing to escape this mind that God gave me right or wrong, good or bad, right? And release of the some of the terms I use, which are very important, I think for people to understand, like disassociation, how do I disconnect? Not physically, but how do I disconnect from my mind to turn it off because it's so burned out and so tore down from obsessing over control in my environment. So what I found was I was living this life chronically where I spent all of my energy trying to control things.
Speaker 3:And we equate that to like pride sometimes in 2024, like I'm a hard worker. I got up at five. I did my thing. I would do that. And to the point of literally like mental, emotional burnout every day, and then try to turn it off and have some semblance of joy or positivity, which alcohol can do in those first couple drinks.
Speaker 3:We both know that. But I would release and I would release by drinking, consuming sports, consuming music videos, standup comedy. All those things are like entertainment, but it's escape at the same time. And I was never in the middle and the middle is what is the most important. It's the sweet stuff in life.
Speaker 3:It's like what we're all here for. That presence is just like smelling the air around you, looking into your eyes of your spouse and literally seeing their eyes and realizing that you can see them and feeling love and giving love and just being present, Being unobstructed by any ambitions or fears. Like how do you just be where you are? I was never there. I couldn't do it.
Speaker 3:I couldn't find presence. So for me, it was like this, in summation, it's like all of this quitting my job, starting this, helping other people. I needed to heal and I needed to figure out how I can just live a life where like I am, where my feet are and I'm present. And I'm still on that journey. I'm getting better every day, Lord willing, but it's hard, especially if you allowed yourself to get to a place where I was, which was just completely driven by unhealthy motives.
Speaker 3:I would say,
Speaker 2:Oh, I love all that. Of course. So I'm thinking in terms of
Speaker 3:you have all
Speaker 2:this wisdom, have this program. But let's just say, for example, there's a world where you haven't yet created it. However, you still retain all the experience. You still have all the knowledge and the background that you've done. I say, I'm having a tough time cutting back.
Speaker 2:I'm drinking wine every night in the evening. I've tried this and this, and it's not working. What are some things that you would tell me if that was the problem I came
Speaker 3:up Yeah. So blocking and tackling in terms of like habit change, environmental change aside for one second, I think, speaking my own experience, I doubt that most people define their why. And that's just a phrase that is people understand, but to go a little bit deeper, ultim, right? Deeper. I heard once in the course of doing the show, one of my guests said your why should make you cry.
Speaker 3:Right? Your why should make you cry. So I think for someone to say, I want to drink less, it's not enough. Why? And then linger there.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, I just know that my, my, my health, my body's not healthy. Why does that matter to you? What do you mean healthy? What is healthy? Well, you know, healthy means just not putting bad things in my body and okay.
Speaker 3:Why? Because I want to live longer. Why? Because I have two little children. Why do you want to live longer for them?
Speaker 3:And I'm going through this exercise right now and I get emotional because that's my story. Right. But I think to just say, I want to drink less. It's not enough. So I think you have to spend a lot of time on your why and define it.
Speaker 3:And if you're willing, write it down because it can be something that you come back to, put it in a very conspicuous place so that it's a reminder for you. So I think getting really surgical on the why and what your motivations are to motivate you, but also to revisit your motivations. And then just to choose one habit, because it's what you and I are about in terms of our mission. It's like, okay, let's choose alcohol. You got to follow tried and true blocking and tackling on that.
Speaker 3:If you're able, right. If you don't live with five different people in a frat house, which is rare. Get the alcohol out of your house, because science will tell you that if it's physically there, you'll make an excuse to go find it when you need it. So remove the alcohol from your house. Something else.
Speaker 3:Accountability is not just powerful because it is. It's neurochemistry. When you know that someone else is going to ask you if you're going to do something because you shared out, you have a goal. Not wanting to fail for somebody else is more powerful than not wanting to fail for yourself, like it or not. So you need to tell someone now that could be your brother.
Speaker 3:That could be your spouse, if you're willing, but tell someone interpersonally. I'm not talking about going on in anonymity on a website and saying, I'm here and I shall go drinking. Not enough. Tell a human being and tell them to their, if you can to their face, if not to their ears on a phone, but share your struggles with somebody because it's therapeutic in itself to let go of that burden. But also, you know, especially if you ask them, Hey, I don't want to drink for thirty days.
Speaker 3:And I want you to text me every Saturday to ask me how I'm doing. That might be like, you might dread doing something like that, but guess what? It's a powerful motivator because you don't want to get that text on Saturday and write back. Oh yeah, I know I was all fired up on Monday, but Wednesday was a rough day. So I gave in and it's okay if that happens, but just telling someone is my point is powerful.
Speaker 3:Right? So get motivated by telling somebody. A third thing I would say that everybody should consider. And in this one isn't as necessary, at least in the first week is also jump into a community. And that's, that's a, that's a funny one.
Speaker 3:I don't say like it needs to be like, Hey, let's all gather at this time every week and talk about alcohol. You can start a community. And what that looks like is you can text and literally I've done this. You can text three friends. And I said, Hey guys, every Saturday, I'm going to run five miles at 6AM.
Speaker 3:And also I'm doing that because Friday nights are a triggering night for me and I usually drink alcohol. Right. And this is just an example I'm getting into specificity, but you could say, being there on Saturday with you guys is going hold me accountable to my goals. You don't have to RSVP. This is where my run starts.
Speaker 3:It's five miles. If you're there Saturday, great. If not, all good, man. But like you can create a community that's not necessarily totally structured towards your goal, but then invite that topic into it with some close friends and they can hold you accountable. That would be motivating for sure.
Speaker 3:And then just to pick another one, none of these are fitness related because we talked a little bit about how like fitness can support these things. But I think almost anyone would benefit at least once in their life, kind of pulling up from life and connecting with a therapist. And that could be a licensed clinical social worker, could be a psychologist, which of course is someone with a doctorate in that area. It could be anyone, as long as they have credentials, but like sit down and just allow someone like a third party. That's not in your like personal relationship circle to sit there and get to know you and just maybe pull out some blind spots because I promise you, I promise anyone listening, you do have blind spots and some of them could be contributing underlying to why it is that you're searching for a better relationship with alcohol or whatever substance.
Speaker 3:So I think those four are a damn good foundational start. And we can go on and on from there, but get the stuff out of your house. Tell some people, allow people to hold you accountable and address any underlying issues that could have got you where you are in the first place.
Speaker 2:Every single one of those I can attest to. And those are powerful, especially starting with your first point as to your why. And I also thought that one of the easiest ways was the community side around picking your own group. I've said it before on the podcast that I started just committing to going mountain biking early in the morning at five and 6AM with a group. I just wasn't allowed to do the things that I wanted to do as far as drinking goes when I committed to those things.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Well said, man, my, my father, like I said, he wasn't very educated, but I think he was smart. To this day he still had these little sayings that I'm like, dang it. Like, how did you know that?
Speaker 3:And one of them, and I'll say it in his North Jersey accent, but one of them was, at the end of the day, you all your friends are, you all your friends are. So choose wisely. And man, like, couldn't be more true, right? Like, you know, surround yourself with positive people seeking positive things, and that's always going to be health. And it'll elevate you and hopefully you can elevate them as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. So I think this is a good place to end it because you gave everyone here listening for actionable pieces of advice that make a huge impact on moving forward. But before we go, why don't you talk a little bit about any projects, anything that you're working on currently that has you excited?
Speaker 3:Hey, the the Sobershrength podcast is it's the thing I'm most excited about. It's growing exponentially. We're, we're starting to have some really great people reach out to come on the show and share their story. So just continuing to get better and better, you know, Stephen Covey seven effective habits, right? He says sharpen the saw.
Speaker 3:You should always be sharpening the saw. So always trying to get better. By better, I just mean, being a better interviewer, asking good questions, drawing out good stories that motivate and inspire people. So that show is great. I'm I'm actually this week for the first time because the weekend is such a triggering time for people.
Speaker 3:I'm going get into like a Friday motivation where I just, you know, audio only just come on and just share maybe some stoicism or some type of quote and just unpack and just motivate people and send them into the weekend to, to have a healthy weekend and to crush their goals. So looking forward to evolving the podcast in that way. And then on the app side of things, it's an added benefit if people want to go down that road to use our programming to get more fit, but just excited to continue to add programs in there and listen to the users and just cater to those people who are trying to get more physically fit in addition to their mental, emotional fitness. So all that to say, man, it's just, I'm just so grateful that we're reaching people and making a difference in their lives. Cause it's quite literally why, you know, everything why I'm doing what I'm doing.
Speaker 3:It's been great.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm excited for you. So thank you so much for coming on here, sharing your wisdom, sharing openly your story. And it's really exciting to hear what you got next. So thanks a lot, Josh.
Speaker 3:It's great to be here, and thank you for having me. It was an honor.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to Journey to the Sunnyside. And if you enjoyed this episode, the best way you can show your support is by going on whatever platform you're listening on and giving us an honest review. This is gonna help others find us. And to be honest, it would mean the world to me. So if you can do that for me, I'd appreciate it, and thanks again for listening.
Speaker 1:This podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the number one alcohol moderation platform, having helped hundreds of thousands of people cut out more than 13,000,000 drinks since 2020. And in fact, an independent study showed that Sunnyside reduced alcohol consumption by an average of 30% in ninety days. And as one of our members shared, Sunnyside helps me stay mindful of my drinking habits. It's not super restrictive, so if I'm craving a glass of wine with dinner, I just track it and I move on with my week. If you could benefit from drinking a bit less and being more mindful of when and how much you drink, head on over to sunnyside.co to get a free fifteen day trial.
Speaker 1:You'll get access to everything that we offer, including tracking and planning tools, coaching from our experts, a vibrant community of people just like you, and the motivation and advice to stay on track with your health goals, all with no pressure to quit. That's sunnyside.co.
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