Today we learn from Jeff Wickersham about the influence his mom’s passing had on his negative attitude and his change in career from corporate to mindfulness gym owner. He’s a coach, author, and podcaster helping people realize their potential and he’s full of great tips on today’s show.
Today we learn from Jeff Wickersham about the influence his mom’s passing had on his negative attitude and his change in career from corporate to mindfulness gym owner. He’s a coach, author, and podcaster helping people realize their potential and he’s full of great tips on today’s show.
Molly's Links:
Instagram: @mollyatthisage
Work with Molly: www.mollysider.com
Jeff's Links:
Website: www.themorningfire.com
Podcast: Your Hidden Edge
Have you been feeling unmotivated or are you struggling to find the time to fit exercise into your schedule? Are you regularly setting yourself up to have successful days? Do you even know what that means? How many times did you press the snooze button this morning? For me, it's usually at least once, but today it was zero times because I learned from today's guest.
The benefits of deleting that button.
Welcome to I am this age, the podcast proving it's never too late. You're never too old. So go do that thing. You're always talking about I'm Molly cider, a certified professional life coach and real life change maker in my forties.
Jeff Wickersham is here today to talk about his big life change from working the grind to creating his dream job, where he gets to educate and coach people on how to set themselves up to be physically and mentally fit. He shares how his mother's passing, allowed him to rethink his career and how that led to a whole new purpose mentality and to sobriety.
And the best part. Well, he's a coach educator and podcaster, so of course, he's going to share tips on how we can all do it too. So get out of bed and throw on your sneakers because this episode is one you'll want to be moving for.
But Hey, real quick, before we get started, if you enjoy what you're discovering about yourself here, and you want to feel like you're part of this community. Go ahead and follow me on Instagram. So you'll never miss a moment or an opportunity to interact directly with me. I'm over there at Molly at this age.
Like I am this age. But Molly at this age. See you over there. Okay. Now onto the episode.
Jeff Wickersham age 47 years young. I am the founder and proud owner of Morning Fire Coaching. I am a mental toughness P performance coach, and I guide help. Train clients to intentionally step into the best version of themselves with more energy, more focus, more time, and more abundance in their lives.
Awesome. Thanks for coming, Jeff.
So age 40 in my opinion, is a pivotal age, which is the reason I started this podcast. I think that there's so much pressure to have everything kind of figured out and settled in by the time we reach 40. It's the age we often think will finally be able to slow down, but often what people approaching 40 or who are in their forties discover is that that's not happening.
They haven't figured it all out yet. They haven't gotten to the place that they thought they'd be at this age. And it's a really, really hard time, I think, in a person's life. Your mom passed away when you were 40. She had battled breast cancer for 17 years and you were really close with her. What did her struggle with cancer and her passing teach you about yourself and where you were at at your life at that time?
Great question. I would say her struggle taught me about positivity and positive energy because I was voted biggest complainer in my senior class, like senior year on the male side. So if you see me now as this positive force, this beacon of hope of, of change, and, and that can-do attitude. It did not start out that way.
And I think that's so important to share with people because so many times people see somebody and they're like, they were just wired that way. I, I, I wasn't right. And it, it was further evidence of that was a fraternity brother who was in one of my coaching programs said In college you were, you were a little bit of a downer.
Like so, so it was that way. But when my mom got sick, I remember she had a double mastectomy and I had to, I went to the hospital to see her and I had to feed her. And at that point I just remember that experience and, okay, I need to be positive, I need to be uplifting, I need to be different. And many times pain compels us to change in life, right?
So her struggle definitely learned about positive energy. My dad, they, his first name's Paul, they kind of call him positive Paul because he was the same way and, and I was around it. So that definitely sparked. Curiosity and then the development of positivity and, and how energy is such a force, her passing the finality of it.
And that void that was so deep and searing and painful, it really caused me to ask deep questions about what do I truly want? And I feel like so many people know exactly what they don't want. But they'd never asked themselves, what do I want in life? Like, truly want you get one opportunity. What do you want?
And in those days, after her passing part of the morning process was, I had always felt this itch on the back of my neck that I just couldn't scratch. I always felt like a scorn peg in a round hole in corporate America. And I, I, I just knew there was more. And her passing gave me that courage. It gave me that fire to say, you know, Time is so precious.
What are you waiting for? It's time to make a leap.
Yeah, uh, that makes so much sense. And of course, like you said, we make our biggest changes when we're often, when we're hurting the most. So you started to question your career in corporate. What sort of doubts were you having and. What were you thinking about doing? Or what were you, what did you discover that you wanted?
I asked myself the question, am I excited to get up and do what I'm doing every single day?
Mm.
And the answer was no. So I said to myself, okay, what, what do you truly enjoy doing? When I came with that question, the answer was like, exercise and the physicality. Right? Pushing yourself physically. My mother, late mother was a school teacher for 30 plus years, but she also taught aerobics, step aerobics in like the eighties and nineties, right?
So fitness was always a part of who I was, as well as it was a part of who I was growing up. I was a terribly shy, introverted kid, but sports allowed. To get outta my shell because I excelled in them. So I, as I questioned, Hey, what, what do I truly love? It was exercise. It was fitness. So as things kind of turned out in corporate America, I was asked to make a decision.
Either relocate my family, I've got two young sons that wasn't happening, or stay on for a while, and then at a certain moment in time you'd be let go. So that gave me the runway to say to my wife, okay, I'm gonna open up a. Locally in between a CrossFit box and a local Y M C A. She said I was crazy. And, and that's, that's okay, right?
But here was the plan. And then, you know, I, I went through that process of, of leaving corporate America and jumping out on my own.
I don't know about you, but when I'm starting a new project like this podcast, for instance, it takes me a lot of time research, building up confidence and letting go of perfectionism. Before I'm able to launch it's a process and it's not a short one. It doesn't matter who you are. There are always mental blocks to overcome. So I wanted to know what Jeff was feeling when he found out his position was going to be eliminated. What doubts he had about changing careers and becoming an entrepreneur and how long it took to get up and running.
So, I took that as a sign from the universe and kind of leaned in and was like, okay. I was already questioning my, my why, what do I truly want to do?
Now here's that second foot to drop and it's, it's time to, to kick me out off the, off the cliff and, and go. So I had some time to build up and ramp, but I remember I ended my corporate. The two days before Christmas and we were opening the gym the day after New Year. So like it was, it was like hair on fire, sprinting towards the lake.
My wife's like, how are we gonna do this? I'm like, it's gonna happen now. We had built out the gym space prior to that, but we had a lot of work to do in that in between. And did I feel ready? Absolutely not. I think that's such a big misconception is everybody has a twinge of self-doubt. Right? I had Evan Carmichael on my, my podcast, I've had him on twice, and I don't know if you know Evan, but he's huge in the personal development space.
He's got 3.5 million subscribers on YouTube. I mean, he's friends with Brendan Bouchard, Tony Robbins, all of them. And he said, I still suffer from a lack of self. So I think that's such a powerful thing and I really want your listeners to take that in. Even the best, the people you look up to are all thinking they're not ready or they're suffering from a little lack of self-belief.
So I love how. You're talking to yourself and and perspective is so, so important. Positive self-talk is so important, and that's something I've learned from my journey from starting the gym and then pivoting into mental toughness mindset, peak performance coaching, because that is the true game and that is the difference maker.
How do you handle fear like that?
One I I fill myself with positive self.
Hmm.
that's from affirmations. When I wake up, it's from, you know, I listen to YouTube, motivational. It could be Les Brown, Jim Rome, Tony Robbins, while I'm working out, while I'm in the shower, while I'm cooking breakfast, like I fill. My mind with positivity. And there's that, that old story of, you know, this, this young, uh, I think it's Native American Indian boy comes to the the Wiseman and says, you know, there's two voices.
I hear the, the positive wolf and the negative wolf. And he says, who's gonna win? And the old Wiseman says, whoever you feed the most. So we need to feed that positivity. It's so, so important to do that. So by doing that all morning long, That's what I do. I would say 90, 95, 90 8% of people check their phones, check email, check text messages, their LA negativity seep in.
Once it's there, it grabs hold. There's something called the negativity principle. It amplifies any negative emotion, eight to nine to 10 times more than the positive emotion. Why we still have that caveman part of our brain, right? It thinks that negative is a saber two tiger ray to kill us. So that's why I.
You know, my life and and my clients' lives, no distractions. When you wake up in the morning, stack wins, feed your mind positivity. You're much more likely to step into fear when you have that positive outlook. The other thing, great thing to ask yourself is when you're feeling fear, what is the worst thing that can happen? Many times when you ask yourself that question, maybe it's reaching out to a new prospect. And worst thing that could happen is they say, no. Okay. You miss a hundred percent of the shots you don't take. It's gonna be no anyway. So you can start to get through that fear and that emotion that you're feeling in the moment.
I would also say, you know, one of the things I love to do is change your. That could be doing some pushups, air squats, jumping jacks going, just going for a one minute walk. Changing your physical state is like the base layer in the pyramid. Then you, then that changes your mental state and all of a sudden you don't feel that fear.
Right? There's the superman pose. I don't know if you've heard this, but you do it, you know, hands on the side standing like Superman. You do that for two minutes. Your testosterone, your courage vitamin goes up 17% and your cortisol levels. Fear drops 23%. So there's these little think yes, there's,
I've never heard this.
it's amazing.
I'm gonna do it later.
Yes, I highly reco. Like anytime you go through a stressful, fearful, go superman pose and all of a sudden your body's flooded with testosterone, cortisol's lessened you. You've got that courage in you and you move forward. It's crazy powerful. And that's. The amazing thing about life and, and what we can do, there's these subtle little shifts that we can do as human beings that will get us past fear, that will have us act with more courage.
So, long, long-winded answer, but I, you can tell I'm pretty passionate about it.
No, it was great. And as you were talking, I'm like, I can't imagine you as like a Debbie Downer. Negative. You know what, let's get, find a better phrase than Debbie Downer.
Denny downer, Dave downer. You know what? Let's not genderize anymore. All right. Back to the question.
So how long did that take for you to, to be this person, this positive like mindfulness person and what do you think that old version of you would think if. you were talking to him about everything you just told us.
Great question and, and it's funny, my wife and I joke around about old Jeff versus New Jeff, so obviously the positivity started. The spark was there when my mom got sick, but really then the journey. And, and the, the, the rocket fuel was added when I opened up my own business and I, I needed to uplevel what I was doing as a human being, what I was doing as a husband, what I was doing as a father, what I was doing as a leader. I still had those traits that kind of are programmed into us by society, right? I was hanging out with Mighty buddies drinking late at night. I was, you know, doing things that I, I really weren't congruent with my values and who I wanted to operate on a daily basis. And I still remember one Saturday morning, I had spent Friday night playing cards with the guys up till two in the morning, and I was going to coach a fitness class at 8:00 AM and my wife, you know, I went in to kiss her and she says, wow, you, you like smell of. And she said, how are you going to go teach a class about fitness and wellness? And you're, and it was a very powerful truth pill that I took. And I still remember that conversation. It was like, okay, wait a second. I need to start developing as a human being. And so many times we're, we're just stuck, we're programmed in that matrix.
And you know, at that point, around that time, it was like, you are gonna take the blue pill or the red pill. Well, I went down that personal development rabbit hole and now, Once I've uncovered a piece of my potential, it's a never-ending quest to get better every day. It's exhausting sometimes, right? You said, Molly, like we're expected at 40 to have it figured out. I always say I, the more I learn, the less I learn, right? The more I have to unlearn about what has happened in my past and it's just this journey. And so many times when we get curious and we, we build things start happening in our life. We've always wanted to happen. One of the greatest gifts I've ever been given is being a dad.
My son, Jackson's 14, Carter's 12. One of the things I do every day is learn to be able to teach them and give them the gifts, the strategies, the tactics that I didn't have growing up. No fault to my mom and my dad. I just didn't have them. And these things are game changers and they're getting them at some, a young, such a young age, you know, that really sparks me to, to be positive, be that force and, and really the leader of, of the family.
That's awesome. What a great motivator.
I don't know about you, but when I think of a gym, I think of a bunch of people running on treadmills and lifting weights with earbuds in their ears. I think of the smell of worn in rubber, mixed with stale sweat. I don't think of a bunch of people concerned with their thoughts and feelings around why they're lifting weights. I don't think of mindfulness.
This is my bad. And so I wondered how and why Jeff decided to combine the two.
So just to course correct, it was phy all physical first, right? So it was all physical first, but I was starting to sprinkle in. I had a a, a, a friend who was a teacher at a local school district. He started doing some mindfulness classes. I really got into meditation and. it organically grew from just all focusing on the physical to, okay, what's the mental battle you face?
I face, everybody faces that six inches in between our ears. And it came through my own frustration as a gym owner because I would run Facebook ads in the local area. People would fill out a 10 question application, I'd call, text, video, email, and like 70% of people wouldn't even. And I'm thinking, well, why is that?
You took some, some time to fill out what you want, what you've struggled with. It's all self-doubt, right? It's all, I just can't do this. Right? So that's when I really leaned into the mindset piece, the mental toughness. Hey, our habits drive 90 to 95% of what we do on a basis if we're not changing those. Good luck in getting different results in your life. So that's where it kind of organically shifted. And then obviously covid happened. We had to go virtual overnight and then that was just, okay, I'm leaning fully in. I wrote my book at that time and I leaned fully into, you know, the mental toughness mindset, peak performance arena, open the gym back up a year later.
Just wasn't the same. I knew my. Where I wanted to be had shifted full fully, so it was time to to shut that down and leave that business.
That's hard. That's a journey.
All right but the real question we're all waiting to hear is how do we stay motivated to be active am i right
It started back then and it's the same now. Three pillars of what I love to bring to any coaching arrangement, whether it's physical, mental clients today, energy. If you don't operate with peak energy, good luck at getting the results. You truly want it. It's energy, the vibration we operate. Energy is so, so important.
So bookending your days, figuring out what that last 30 minutes looks like, what that first 30 minutes looks like, stacking winds to get your energy up right when you wake up. Powerful piece to the puzzle. So energy's number one, accountability's Number two, having daily accountability of what you're doing.
We get to be adults. And we're like, all right, go ahead. Good luck in life. There's no, or little accountability that we have. Having somebody else expecting you to do something, being accountable to somebody else is so, so important. Your game, your game raises when you have somebody else expecting you to do something.
So accountability is the second pillar, second value, and then third is consistency. Just having this unwavering standard of, I'm gonna be co. No matter what, I don't know when I'll get there. And that's part of the reasons why so many people aren't consistent because I won it now, or when is it gonna happen?
I need to know. So it just, it might take 30 years, you never know. But if you have that standard and that consistency day in and day out, it breeds confidence. You talked about fear before. If you're consistent day in and day, You're pretty powerful and that fear lessen over time because you, you walk differently, you've got a different aura about you, your energy is, is different.
So energy, accountability, consistency, three values that that I bring to each and every coaching.
Okay. The accountability piece I'm all about, but what does he mean by energy and consistency?
Bookending your days. You can't control a lot of the chaos that happens throughout your day. You can control that last 30 minutes, that first 30 minutes of your your day. So always love to start at night. Getting a great night's sleep.
So, so important. Three nights ago, for about two nights, I struggled. I woke up at three 30, had something on my mind. I, I toss and turned. Didn't get a good night's sleep. I was, last night at dinner, my wife's trying to ask me questions and I'm like, literally, I mean, I haven't had a sip of alcohol in 15 months.
I said, literally, I feel like I'm drunk because I didn't sleep well. My, my mental strength is, is not there. So preparing for a good night's sleep, that's how your, your, your brain flushes out toxins, your body does as well. Preparing for a good night's sleep and so many people aren't intentional as far as winding down.
Having a digital sunset, getting away from that blue light, preparing a stack winds the night before where everything's out and ready so you can get these quick wins and feel this energy. So at night, preparing for success in the morning is, is so important.
So like, what does that look like for you?
Nine o'clock digital sunset. So not checking my phone. Tv, I'm typically in bed by that time. I'm reading maybe journal a little bit. I've got everything prepared for the morning, so my clothes that I'm gonna get in are underneath my phone. I've got my gratitude journal. Notes to my kids ready to write.
I read a passage of the Bible, the water's out ready in a cabinet where the cats can't get to it. Like everything is prepared the night before. Because what I, I want and what I coach my clients on is I want to eliminate any resistance to you getting the work done the next morning.
Yeah.
So by preparing for success the night before you, you are future pacing, Hey, I'm gonna stack these wins and I'm gonna feel great.
Plus, when you think about that, when you get it all prepared, the mind kind of has this calming sensation. The mind is thinking about, okay, we're gonna stack these wins. We're gonna feel great. The next day when you wake up, Hey, no snooze button, I mean you. You hit that eight minutes of bad sleep.
You're basically saying that eight minutes of bad sleep is more important than your hopes, dreams, desires that you want in.
Why is a snooze button even available? Think about it.
this morning.
Think about this, Molly. So important. That snooze is the biggest button on your phone.
The stop is small. Down underneath, do you know you can eliminate the snooze button and only have stop.
You can go into the alarm. It's the third option on the iPhone, and eliminate the snooze button. Then you have one. Get up or hit the stop button. 📍
Hmm. I didn't know that.
Yes. Not many people do. Why is snooze? Like it's, it's almost like we're in the matrix and they want us to hit that snooze button. You're attracted to it. It's the biggest thing. Why?
Yeah, I don't know. I never thought about this.
And then getting up, not checking your phone. No, no distractions and it, that is probably one of the most difficult things for people to conquer and get past because they're so habitually to checking their phone in bed. But if you check that phone, you get a text that might be a little negative, you treat that negativity principle, all of a sudden you're down that route of not having a good day.
So no distractions when you wake. And then
just a waste of time. Like I do that all the time. I press, I do all the bad things, I press snooze and um, I often look at my phone like, roll over and turn my phone on and I look at social media and it's not even necessarily a negative thing. It's such a time suck that I'm like, I was supposed to be up.
20 minutes ago, and here I am on social media. What am I doing?
Yep. Yep. So true. And people are like, how do you get. Like sometimes they, they feel like I'm the army ad, like I get in before 9:00 AM what most people get in in a full day because I am stacking wins. I'm focused, I wanna get this energy, so not hitting the snooze button. Zero distractions. Then I'm stacking winds full glass of water when I wake up in the morning. Longest stretch of the day. We go without water when we sleep. So we are dehydrated human body, 60. Made of water, human mind, 73 to 80%. You get varying statistics there. Getting a full glass of water, hydrates the system, all of a sudden you're starting to wake up. All of a sudden, that energy that I was speaking about, wait a second, I didn't need caffeine.
I'm starting to, to wake up after a glass of water, I'm moving. The body doesn't need to be terribly complex. I love to say to people, Hey, make it so simple, so easy. It's laughable when you start out. Why the mind's gonna agree to. you say, all right, I'm gonna start tomorrow doing a hundred burpees. The mine is going to throw up so many objections.
It's gonna put up so much resistance in the process. No. Go for a walk for a minute. Do 10 air squats, do 10 jumping jacks. Do something so easy and laughable that you can get it done. So you've gotten water, you've gotten a little bit of movement. Then me, And that can be as simple as breathing. I love to breathe with my clients before we get on a call where we breathe in through the nose.
Six count in two second holds seven seconds out. You do that three, four times. There's 45, 60 seconds of meditation, of breathing. I've meditated, I think today was 1,905 straight days, at least 10 minutes.
Wow.
I still use guided meditation to this day. I still practice it, you know, the, the breathing technique throughout the day.
But you're, you're, you're getting some water, you're getting some movement. All of a sudden you give your, your mind a little bit of space, and that's so important as, as we, we live in this never ending go, go, go culture, right? I mean, I, I heard something the other day that said, We get more stimuli in one week, that social media news, text, email, than our ancestors did in their entire lifetime. So it's no wonder why we feel overwhelmed, anxious, stressed, just to the max is because we are getting bombarded. It's so important to take that time and breathe. So that's your third win. You're already feeling pretty darn good. You could do those pretty simply, pretty easily in less than five minutes. Okay. I got three wins. I love the gratitude journal. Write down things I'm, I'm grateful for Love to write Post-it notes to my son. So my, my late mother probably had every color of post-it notes known to to man, and she always put 'em everywhere. So I, I have an envelope for both my sons and I. A personal development node. I write good luck in a game, a test where I just love you and I put it out in front of their doors every morning because I think what better token of love to show them to then for them to know that, hey, dad was up. He was thinking about me. My one son has 'em all over his door.
My other son has shoe boxes fold of these notes that I've written them for the past four or five years. So, Doing that, that piece reading a little bit, and then you've stacked 5, 6, 7 wins. You feel more energized than you've ever been. And it happens overnight. And I've had clients that say, I can't believe the difference I feel from an energy focus grounded perspective after one day of this.
And I said it. That's, that's how quick it can change. So your,
course that creates consistency.
Correct, correct. And then, then we add in the consistency, like track things. I love Insight timer from a meditation perspective because it tracks how many consecutive days I've done it. Now I see. All right. You know, I just hit 1,900. I sent my wife a text.
I'm like another milestone. Next is 2000 straight days.
Yeah.
Right. That consistency is just so important. And how do you be more consistent? You gotta track what you're doing. Then it, it kind of becomes a game and you're like, okay, how far can I, I take this number?
Yeah. And of course, Being gentle with yourself. If you don't do it for a day, you're not a failure. You can just start again tomorrow. I think that's important too.
You can, although the meditation I've told my wife I need to be incapacitated in the hospital, you still better put those airbus on and let help me meditate because I no matter, like I bet, but I gave you a couple other things I. Say when you're traveling or on a vacation. Three things. Water movement, meditation.
Those are my standards. I do every single day. I do not waiver from them. The others can be nice to haves, but if you can break it down and simplify it to under five minutes, like I said, you can absolutely do that regardless of you know what you're, what you're doing in life.
What is sort of the average age of your clients? Are they older or younger?
They're, they're really in between their thirties and 55, kind of in that, that age range. I think once you get into your thirties, you've had some experience in life. Maybe you've worked or tried to. Get to a different level and you're stuck and you feel just a, a, a little uneasy. You don't know why you aren't getting there.
So you're up for trying something new. And then, you know, to, to your point, once you reach 40 people say you, air quotes should figure it out.
Mm-hmm.
People don't have it figured out and they're like, I need to change something. I, I, I, I feel like I'm gonna self-destruct or self-sabotage myself and I don't wanna do. What's, what's the option there? So I, I would say 30 to 55 are my typical, typical age range,
Do you ever work with anybody or encounter people who are like, resistant to this?
Yeah, I, I would say that's the big challenge is so many, many more people are on that resistant side that. Like they've heard the, the adage, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Well, that's just, it's, it's not the case. Right? They're, they're so
it's ageist.
r Right, right. Like they're so programmed into, you know, these beliefs and patterns that, that are out there.
I always get a commitment from the people that I work with that you're gonna gimme your full attention and you're gonna be committed if, if you can't do. I don't, I, I mean, unless I'm at your house physically every day waking up with you, you, you've gotta want it. And if you, if you don't, I, I can't work.
I'm not gonna work with you. I'm not willing, unless you have that growth, growth centered mindset. So that's, you know, one of the kind of elimination criteria I use is, is if you're gonna be negative. If you're gonna say you can't do this, or you're gonna have one foot in the boat, one foot on the island, not burn the boats and go all in.
No wonder why you're at where you're at, right? And many times when you have that discussion, all of a sudden the light bulb goes off and they're like, yeah, you know what? You're right. All right, I'm committed. Okay, sign this commitment form, get it over to me. And then, then they're in, and I say, just gimme a week.
You gimme a week. And it, it typically happens over overnight when the first time you implement what I do from a habit and ritual perspective, they're like, I, I'm a. Right, and, and then they're in from, from that perspective.
Wow.
I like to call my life, my learning journey. I'm always saying like, I'm just gathering information. How does that idea resonate with you as you think about all the things that you've done in the past, like seven or eight years?
Oh, it, it rings true. I, I think life is such a learning journey, and if we have that perspective, all of a sudden it becomes this amazing gift. And, and so many times we're focused on the result we miss the present day. We miss the present moment. We miss this conversation that, that we're having where we can get goosebumps talking about stuff that that matters, right?
And so many. Are missing those opportunities. Right? And we can constantly learn. We can constantly grow. And when you do that, you get better. You feel progress. I talked about how anxiety, stress, depression, overwhelm at all time highs. It's because people are playing defense. They're on their heels. They're just letting life throw punches at them.
They're not fighting back. They're not saying, I'm gonna do something different. When you get that, Learning bug and you get that curiosity stoked and that fire burning all of a sudden it's like, okay, what can I learn today to apply? I mentioned before, I, I learn with the thought process to teach my clients and my sons.
Based upon what I'm reading. I keep notes in my phone of little quotes I hear, or little, you know, tactics that I learn and then, then I try 'em out on myself, and then I can guide my clients and, and guide my sons and, and wife in the same manner.
I love that.
Don't worry. I'm not about to let him leave without digging a little deeper into his journey of choosing to be sober. Because if you're anything like me, you've at least thought about it at some point.
So I was probably pretty typical of the high school senior, right. And, and college fraternity guy. Like I abused alcohol at, you know, my after sports were done my senior year and then into college and then, A lot of times in my twenties and, and then even into to my thirties, and I was decreasing the partying on the weekends, but I was still doing it eight, seven years ago, six years ago.
Uh, it got a little bit more infrequent, and then I went through like a 90 day and a hundred day. alcohol to start the year, a couple years prior to saying, you know what, I'm done with it. And then I went back to having some drinks and it wasn't as, as prevalent, but I, I just, it got me to asking the question, and I think we don't ask ourselves questions enough in life.
And I, I said, is it serving me any purpose? I am 47 years young. I'll be 48 in a month. I'm in the best shape physically than I've ever been in my life. Well, I started down the science route. Your body, your cells, body regenerate every six to nine months. My cells in my body, even though I was working out doing these things, had alcohol in them for 28 years. Okay? It's no wonder why I wasn't getting the results I wanted. It's time to make a shift. My boys were 13 and 11 at the time. It's time to show them. That there's a different option. A lot of the stupid painful things I did was when I had alcohol in my system, so I just chose to move forward with it. Last New Year's, and I didn't tell my wife.
I was training for the David Goggins, my second David Goggins run. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but you, you, uh, he's done it now three years. This will be his fourth year where you run four miles every four hours for 48 hours.
Oh,
it's basically the equivalent of almost two marathons. You start 11:00 PM Friday night, 3:00 AM 7:00 AM all the way to 7:00 PM on Sunday night.
So I was training for my second run there, so that was my excuse not to have alcohol. And then I told my wife on Valentine's Day, I said, you know what? I'm done. I'm not having a sip this year. And she was quite candid. She said, I like you better when you don't drink. I said, okay, there's, there's another reason not to do it.
Right. So and it also, Was it not serving me, but I knew even if I had a glass of wine the next day, I wasn't mentally sharp, I wasn't clear. I didn't have that energy. I didn't have that, that tenacious spirit. And I said, why don't I try this out for a year? I did it and I doubled down this year. Cuz I'm like, I feel so much growth in my life.
I feel so much better. Why putting that into my body? So that, that's a little backstory.
It's always interesting to hear people's journey with alcohol, especially like a non-traditional, like dependency on alcoholic, you're not necessarily an alcoholic, but you drink a lot. I. It used to be in the wine industry, so I know how that works.
Yeah, no, I, I always, I always love to. To your point, like, I wasn't going to rehab or I wasn't an alcohol, but I, I, I, I love this line. Like alcohol wasn't a big enough problem, but it was enough to hold me back
Yeah.
powerful. There's, there's so many people that are in that social drinking circle.
Yeah, you don't need rehab, but it absolutely is holding your life back.
That's such a good way to look at it.
We've arrived at my favorite part where i ask the guests to reintroduce themselves as their actual identity because we are not our successes failures or titles here's what jeff said
So I'm am authentic, vulnerable, loving. Emotional and caring. Those would be the, the five things I would describe. And I had mentioned just on that, that call with a client that says, I need to get back to, to being round with you. Next thing you know, we were talking and we were in tears together, man to man because it was, we were talking about our kids.
But like that, that's, we need to have those deep conversations. So that's why I kind of zeroed in on those five.
Yeah. I love that. That's perfect. Thank you.
Well, if that didn't motivate you to quit pressing snooze, I don't know what will, I think we've all learned a little bit about how to stay focused, motivated, and energized. If you want to get in touch with Jeff or buy his book, you'll find all his links in the show notes.
And if you're loving this podcast, please share an episode or two with two people you love and think might learn something like you have. The more we grow, the more we can help you grow.
Thank you to David Ben prod. For sound engineering, Dan Devin for music, David Harper for the artwork. I am. This age is produced by jellyfish industries. I'm Molly cider. Thanks for listening and catch you next time.