Modern Wisdom - #005 - Dominic McGregor - Controlling The World's Social Media, Building a 400 Million Person Network and Overcoming Addiction

Episode Date: February 20, 2018

Dominic McGregor is the COO and Co-Founder of Social Chain, the UK's largest Social Media Agency. I visited him in his Manchester office to talk about how he started Social Chain and grew it to have a 400 million person online reach, his thoughts on the ethical impacts of social media on individuals and society as a whole, and how he dealt with alcohol dependancy whilst running Social Chain - to now be 20 months sober as he prepares to take on one distance-run every month in 2018. Extra Stuff Follow Dom online - www.teetotalrunner.com Check out everything I recommend from books to products and help support the podcast at no extra cost to you by shopping through this link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So I'm writing saying that you guys have got access to about 400 million people, is that right? Yeah, the total combined reach. Facebook, 400 million people. Yeah, yeah. Across the world. Which is... We have followers in like Taiwan. Fucking stupid.

Everybody. Who's got 400 million of anything? I know. Like, he's just crazy. When you put it into a graphic, it's like... Okay, big course. It's a lovely great day. Welcome Mother Whiston. How are you? Good, thank you.

Good drive. Yeah, good drive down from Newcastle Manchester in the rain. It's aical British weather. So it's crazy to come into this office which is several thousand square feet and looks like a lab room with sleeping pods and a bar and a fully functioning kitchen with a chef in and all the rest of it and this is where memes are made. They've run around the UK, right? It's the meme factory, yeah.

I don't like that title. But it's all when that article went on. It's only, it was on the Guardian. It was a Guardian, yeah. It just coddles the meme factory, which we are. You know, we make a lot of content here, but yeah, a little bit about us. So we started in the room next door with like a white table

which like the same one that we're on here there was anything as it was far of them on for every single person and we were start and I think these are very similar to the white tables we had we got them as a little bit of a memory and we we're working in the room starting social chain which is a marketing agency and it took us, you know, three or four months to really find out that we're actually on something and what was different between us and any other marketing agency is we own big communities, so we own big social media pages from student problems, spa, love food, motivation, and we were in work with brands on them communities.

So I'm writing saying that you guys have got access to about 400 million people, is that right? Yeah, the total combined reach across the world. Facebook, yeah. Yeah, yeah, across the world. Which is, we have followers in like Taiwan. Fucking stupid.

Everybody, like what? Who's got 400 million with anything? I know, like he's just crazy. When you put it into a graphic, it's like Taiwan. Fucking stupid. Who's got 400 million with anything? I know. He's just crazy. When you put it into a graphic, it's ridiculous. That's terrifying. I found out about you guys about two years ago from one of my best mates who actually worked for you. What he explained to me about social chain at the time felt absolutely groundbreaking that you guys have access to the network, you understand the platform, and then you do the creative. And for me, I was like, how has no one come up with this before, because influences have been around for,

what, like, five, 10 years, or, I guess, five years, and really prevalent. Yeah, I think the reason we fell upon it is that we had influence, I guess, but our influence was on our faces, so we had to fight to... Well, that's the first page that you started off with. Student problems.

Was it really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who started? I mean, you started student problems, no way. So I was at university in Edinburgh and I went out one night. I don't know, I honestly was like a really really heavy night, it was a couple of times. Actually, do you know what? I think it's exactly five years ago today.

No way. I think I'll double check. I think it was December, February. That's fantastic. So I think it is, it went out and woke up the next day and had no toilet paper in my toilet. So instead of, you, I'll listen, the shop was down the bottom of the street, I could have walked and got it. So instead of

going and getting it, I decided to start to work page and tweet about my life. You didn't have any toilet paper. If I had no toilet paper. Yeah. And then for the next couple of weeks, just tweeting everything that I was doing, literally my life through my eyes, so like realizing how expensive cheese was, for example, which is very extensive when you move out. I love cheese. And then just little things like that and then it got to like 20,000 followers in the space of two weeks and then Steve got in touch with me because he was a ruined website which was like

commentary for students. Okay, it was called Wallpark. Right. And he was kind of just doing the traditional marketing methods by leaflets and nightclubs and everything else people did to try and make students. And took a step back of it and actually realized that. So that's social as well. Students has been in their attention. Absolutely.

Looked on Twitter for students, student problems came up, emailed me, we met in Vodka Rebs in York for about an hour, had a chat, and then after a conversation I dropped out at university, moved to Manchester, started working at Wallpark with him, and then we built more and more social media pages to the point where we got about 10 million driving traffic to Wallpark, realised that, you know, what one day we're going to get money from advertisers, we could drive many people to Wallpark, but we've got 10 million people on social. Why would advertisers want to be on the website when they can just be on social media pages? You can go direct and cut them in the middle. Exactly. So we stay put in brands on social,

just got rid of the website, travel the world, found more people who run big social pages, like Hannah, who run Hogwarts Logic, which is the big Harry Potter page. Got them all together, put them in the warehouse here and just we just tried to see if this was something and it was. It definitely feels like it is doesn't it? It's it's it's created it's absolutely mad that you guys are at the forefront of a wave of social media, not in terms of adoption, but more in terms of how how the use from marketing has been delivered to people. I think that organic genuinely creative adding value kind of content. Yeah, I think it's meaningful. Yes. People, people, we as generation and pretty sure everyone's got ad blockers, Mae'r gweithio'r gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn individuals ourselves, what we purchase now actually depends much more on what the brand says about what's rather than anything, rather than quality rather than cost, instruments

and so on. We self-brammed, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. That's interesting, coming out from a club promotion perspective because everyone goes out to a club event on a night and everyone listening or no, you get tagged in the photos. Yeah. And then the next day the album goes up and then you get tagged in them.

And that tag stays on your Facebook profile with the Watermark of the event at the bottom. Yeah, and that means oh, I'm a voodoo girl like I have a voodoo. I like this kind of music Yeah, and immediately assuming that someone sees that on your Facebook profile They can make a whole bunch of assumptions about who you are and about the values that you have and they're not normally wrong No, they're not which is I guess The same way you could probably do it through Look at someone's YouTube history Yeah, I always say that you know the use if you've gone someone's YouTube suggested videos. Yeah, that is how you find out who they are

That's a really really good point. Honestly, well, it's just as well. It's just a good history isn't public isn't girls Unless it's the worst one because I'm not honestly girls a lot oniero colours. I'm hot on them. Meredes and mass meredes and serial colours. Really? Yeah. Because they're just in English. Really interesting in like crime stuff. Yeah, my ex-Mrs. Was actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because it's that one. Trying to find out, oh, they want to be just textiles. So you're working for some reason. Fair enough. So you've got yourself into social chain. Yeah, absolutely. Where did you begin the actual brand of social chain? When did that start?

Yeah, so we were at Wallpark for about, Steve started it when he was 18, so he was doing it for about three years out of about a year. And then when we saw that back to the investors, we had a bit of time out, when we went traveling the world. We had, there was this kind of talk of social chain. We came up with the name pretty early on when we used to look at Wallpark, but it didn't mean anything.

We were like, this is like social chain, to chain pages, you know, this is what it is. This is our social chain, it's what's trying to be people to Wallpark. And then we went to Thailand, went to Brazil, New York, a you know a bit of living. Not bad fact finding them. No not bad no we we did not go to Maca research. We actually spent some time into the convales. I thought he did do some work. Yeah we did do some work yeah we went to the war cup in Brazil which is cool. That's like that was really good

yeah and but I thought it was gonna be full of girls but it was the world cup and it was just full of love. Full of love it was gonna be full of girls, but it was the World Cup, and it was just full of little, full of books everywhere, Argentinian, that we were all, which is cool, but it was a little while. When you're 21, and you get to Brazil for the first time,

you're expecting like something different. Yeah. And then we came back from that, because one of our clients who we were doing consultancy for, wanted us to launch their new product. So we've launched their new product from the late 10 round and office investment. Well. Yeah, so it did really well.

It got to about 4 million users, they invested and that's when social change became a thing. Okay. Which was 3rd November 2000 and 14. So that's not long ago at all. No. We're talking like 3.5 years. Not completely air free, for a year to three years. That's crazy. And to get from there to now, accessing 400 million people,

can you think of a top three favourite campaigns that you guys have done? Anything that brings to mind the people might know. Yeah, we did. The one most people know is we did a campaign where we hijacked a billboard in Manchester and put welcome to that, that time when that time you remember it signed for the money United. Yeah, it was pretty well known. We've done some really cool things in the stuff I like that we've done is a little bit more underground so we've done some really cool campaigns in Skybet where we filmed two grounds doing taking part in Super 6, which was pretty cool, it was kind of showing

the use case of the app. And then I think you know, go back to the crazy side of things, we blew up a VW Beetle, the Super Dry on Harwin. Right, it was pretty fun. Was that on Facebook Live? Yeah, on Facebook Live, yeah. Was that one of the ones where press fire to do it? Yeah, press fire. Okay, you see it. I saw, did you guys do the one, was it pretty little thing?

Yep. Yeah, which was like, was that maybe a balloon? Yeah, yeah, a balloon, yeah. Yeah. So I've seen, I saw the one for that. Yeah, we blew it, we blew a couple of things up. And that's like one of the most highly engaged livestreams, yeah. Ever.

Yeah, 2.5 million views, about a million comments. In probably a couple of hours. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, as soon as I saw that go out, I then saw ones where ice cream was melting in the sun and people had to comment on which one was going to melt first. Yeah.

That kind of was the first foray in the scene. That sort of stuff go out live. So we were the first people to do produced live streams.. Yes, so put a phone up in live stream like the the drum and puddle. Yes. Yeah So drum and central is just from the house funny. That was the first ever uses live stream on social Was it really yeah, well the first it was accidental. It was like but it was really good But we were the first ones to do an arc straighted, yes, planned, produced livestream, which when we just blew more things up

and did some quizzes, but it's been that kind of like fast fashion space, super drag, who, pretty off it, well, it would be really successful. So everyone that's listening will use social media to some extent, and a lot of people will use it,

but in one form or another, so either raise their profile, is brings them some sort of equity back or like myself it becomes kind of a little bit more of a brand and is directly associated with what your company's doing. Are there any principles that you think that you've found out that people should be using on social media because it's very easy to get caught up and you go into this in a second it's very easy to get caught and distracted on social media because it's very easy to get caught up. You've got to listen a second, it's very easy to get caught up and distracted on social media because that's the purpose of it.

But in terms of trying to use it effectively, I mean, I'm going to guess adding a producing content that adds value, whether it's a person or a person. Yeah, I think we're usually there, like personal branding. Everyone's really got to understand where social fits into their life. It's like a shot window for who you are as a person's ureader. a'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs i'r pwyrs to how you want to come across. I think some people are on the other side of the coin that is what I use it to. Give me such a different sense. Well yeah, my mum does it. She's got one friend on Facebook and it's me.

Is it? And she like will message backwards and forwards and send videos and then the usage of it will be really heavy. But it's incredibly narrow. My grandson's the same. She's got 30 friends, which is all family. But every time I post anything, I get like 10 likes because I've got my mum, my dad,

my granddad, my aunt, it's like... Alright, so you straight, you're already boosting. It looks like a really engaged post. Yeah, you've not nailed it. Yeah, I think the key is like, really understanding, like auditing yourself, and why you should be using it. It's difficult because we say this. We say this from...

It's always like say this from someone who knows the world, like we'll go into it more, but what would be both being through a little bit older. It's very difficult for 17, 16-year-olds to really understand. To have that perspective. Yeah, I agree. So, I think one of the things that I want to talk about today is the ethical use of time on social media.

It's as far as I'm concerned an emerging topic at the moment. I wouldn't say that it's been tremendously widespread yet, but Sam Harris and a guy called Tristan Harris who was product philosopher at Google did a really famous podcast about three months ago he can find it on Sam Harris' podcast, waking up on iTunes, if you want to have a listen yourself and time well spent.com is Tristan Harris' website. And on that what he discusses is the cognitive biases that are being leveraged by apps and by developers in order to keep people's time on site and they say that there's only so many hours in the day and That YouTube is competing with Facebook is competing with Netflix is completing with everything to try and maximize the time on site

So I wanted to ask yourself as someone who is Driving engaging content online which means that people's time on site and time on screen will be increased Do you have you got any concerns about this? Yeah I think I've taken a step back also is we are very as a humans animals so we are very influenced by like social and you can see it on games like Candy Crush the way they reward yw'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r

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Mae'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio'r ymwch chi'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio. educate young people, but again, it's very difficult, because they're in, they're young, got a lot of things in the play. It's interesting, because you guys have got, you've got the access, which is, from knowing what the company is about,

I'd definitely say that everybody here, as far as I'm aware, and the company culture is an altruistic one. Now, if that sense of genuinely caring about people's well-being is to the country of what advertisers want. I guess they're in may lie a little bit more of a difficulty. But certainly for me, it doesn't feel like coming into the guys who make global trends in social media's office.

It doesn't feel like I'm stepping into someone in the world, come all out of people trying to desperately claw at young kids time and make them feel incredibly self-conscious online and like desperate for likes and things like that. There's definitely an argument to be made, I think, that you know, student problems was born of a genuine care or a genuine interest in the topic.

Could you argue now that that's been monetized and is being used as a commercial vehicle? o'r genu yn interes i'n ytog. Gyddiw gwybod yw'r gwaithio'r ymwch yn ymwch yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytog yn ytogyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ymdyn ni'n ei'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd de ffordd i'r fforddd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i'r ffordd i ffordd i' ffordd i'r fforddyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn ymdyn yn y new drug comes out onto the market, we don't have the side effects of it until it's been in circulation for a while. Yep. And the same thing with social media that we only realise what it was and it's still emerging is what actually social media is and how all of the different platforms work. Before you then move on to tech addictions. Yep. And then everyone's different though as well. Everyone has different relationship with it. Absolutely. So it's very difficult to like, know as anyone. So it's like, and I guess if you ask someone what their relationship is, then always gonna tell you

it's healthy, and they're not gonna really like, because of the thing is, you know, Instagrams are high that real, you know, you go on Instagram and you've got all your friends posting, they might be in a holiday, so you get to feel them like you're sat there and at work, not doing anything. So that, yes, it's social media, but it has a bigger impact in your life

than just the actual addiction to the phone or to the, you know, that sat in things. It has a longer lasting effect. So, it's interesting because especially with Instagram, I've read this quote online which I thought was really timely and it basically said that Instagram specifically, you compare the best of everyone else's life with the worst of yours because you view your own life through a lens

of... You complete understanding of all of your feelings. You see the blooper reel and that's what sticks because our minds are teflon for good thoughts and velcro for bad thoughts, that's how we evolved. The person that the the the um the and the fall, the human that was living in a cave that decided that they weren't worried is the one that got eaten first because they were the least risk of us. The ones that are risk of us were the ones. So it means that we're hardwired to think about things negatively and you're right when you see the

best of other people's lives, but the worst of yours, it does lead with a very harsh contrast. And it's funny in this space, I think that influencers need to be more accountable because they're creating a realistic expectation of life, which is more detrimental than us posting videos of cheese on our page. I agree. So I think that's where I think a bigger issue lies with the responsible about of influencers to to really like you know

They had to have no other ones that I mentioned it because they're they're shown unrealistic Well, if you were an influencer to a lot more of a surreptitious Delivery of the brand message. Yep, because it it comes about Relevant of whether which brand is tagged in your outfits or what supplements at the front of your training session or who it is that's paid for the video production or the photo to be taken. People don't see that, they see, look at the condition of this particular guy, look at the arsonist, look at how exciting the holiday is or she's on a boat again or.

Yep, and they always all say, for their experiences and they've had hard times, we're not, and probably haven't, they may, I may be doing it in justice, but some of them probably have, but they're having worth of influences that've got quite an easy life. They don't have stressors, they don't have strainers, and they're painted in real estate

and it's a mutation to young people. So there's maybe, there needs to be a code of ethics that influences should be thinking about using when they're putting stuff online. Yeah, I think so. I think it would be interesting to see the difference between someone who does follow influencers and someone who doesn't follow any influencers.

Absolutely. Let them touch things like a meal out or a holiday or like an outfit because if a girl, there was a lot more in the female space because they are the ones that not to sound the sex or anything, but they are more of a user of social media for certain types of things. I'm gonna guess you're exactly in the position to know what the stats are on the spot.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I don't know how to handle them, but they're what should I have it used in them. If you compare a girl who doesn't play influencers versus someone who does for influencers and you have some of their 10 favourite brands, you probably get a very different answer. I agree, and then probably satisfaction and like you say, you're going out for a meal. Yep. And if you've previously in the day seen that someone was a

Blue Marlin Dubai, one of your favourite influencers at Blue Marlin Dubai having terriakisam and Black Carden surrounded by million pound yachts and then you've gone out on Valentine's Day to somewhere that doesn't fulfill that expectation. You're right, it's not tremendously positive environment at times is it? Yep, and these are people you'll never be, you'll never be and that's what they're making you feel. Through and in relationships, it's ruining friendships, it's ruining everything, it's making such...

So if you've got affiliations with influencers and stuff like that, would you be... I'm gonna guess the answer is yes to this, but you'd be maybe pushing them to think about being a little bit more mindful with their content and try and... a'r ymdyn yw'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r g doing. Maybe that'll happen over the years. So moving on to another topic that both of us are really passionate about. I want to talk about your problem with substances that you've had over the years. Could you give us a bit of background on that please? Yeah it's always a fun story to remember. Yeah I guess my life started like so that anyone else is you know you go to university spend free answering drunk life Remember is a good night. I'm sorry. Why not to really know that was my mom I used to finish up what training and telling go straight to why not shout out J glass

And the max wins. Yeah, yeah They're still they're still doing it still killing it like why not if anyone's going to wedding room Why not like what eight years in a row, I think it's one like, basketball room, it kills it. Monday nights, it's the one. It's got them, they always tell them it's complete redesign. Yeah, it's got an LED, the room 2's LED, seeing the LED walls, it's fantastic. Anyway, so. Yeah, I live the normal life. I would describe myself the reason I think student problems was successful is because I was just, I was student, I was completely straight middle line, you know, I've not got

a privileged background, I'm not, I'm not from, I've got a very middle, middle of the road, you know, I can relate to it. Yeah, very reference, I can relate to everyone. So that's why I thought it was so successful because it was, it was just what you'd expect the students to be like. Came to the special stage of the chain. And you know what, we had a lot of success very quickly, early, and you are what age are you on about now? I'm 21, this point, so you're 21. A lot of success and a lot of disposal in CUM.

And really, no responsibility to anyone of them yourself. And a lot of spare time, a lot of spare time, but you know, unions and nights out. So you've got a concoction there of four elements which fuel really a lot of fighting because you're 21. You've done a lifestyle, right? You've got the means and the ends to do what you want. Exactly. So it starts out like that. It starts out celebrating. You know, we've got some big

client wins. We have a lot of success early on. So we all go out to team. We spend a lot of time together having meals. It's it's it's it's it's celebrating. It's this is fantastic. You know, flash, flash forward a year, a year into the business. When you start to own first rocky patches, you can't let other people know that there's issue with cash flow and that you know you're looking tight for the wages next month. You can't have that on you've got a both straight face in here and you know business as usual. But behind that kind of good face I'm struggling, really struggling. So with 22 and the celebrations continue because

there's still success but every single time of these celebrations and partying I'm drinking to success and doing drugs because you know we've got it's been a cash, it's normal But I'm doing it to a must car feel. I'm doing it to a escape. I'm getting away from the stresses, the anxieties of what real pictures is almost this oxymoron of we are celebrating everyone. Oh, staff all the team is celebrating because we've just done something spectacular. But I know deep down that things are not rosy. So I yay, happy and I'm on the other side. And then kind of allow any substances

to carry that through and then play the role. Exactly, exactly, and you know, be that person. And that continues for a bit. How will you be able to function at work? It's not bad at this point. It's not bad. It's no different than what everyone else would be doing. It's just the night's hour, Mae'n gweithio'r gweithio yn gweithio. Mae'n gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn When I sat to feel something, now I just, my whole life would start turning to that kind of thing. I've got a girlfriend who was really bad for me, really bad for me. She created this pitch that social chain was wrong

and that, you know, me and her were gonna have a happy life and that. It was just a horrible relationship. And the stresses at work are not the stresses, but the situation on that work is a little bit tighter a'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw i'r ymdw a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyndyn a'r ymdyn a'mdyn a'r ymdyn a'r ymdyn a weekdays that's when and why I always drink wine, so red wine. So I've come my mother across the wine, you know, it became my reward for a hard day, I don't have a glass of wine and it got to a point where the minute I'll pass my lips it would be a bottle, it would be two dollars, it wouldn't stop. And that would be on a weekday and I'd get up and I'd go, and a couple of things happened that really hit me hard. So it was firstly night we went to neighborhood to open in here.

It was good night. I got up to the off the head. It was the first day. And I go home and I fall down the hill and my house and break my ankle. It's a Wednesday, Wednesday, it's a Friday morning. I mean, I sat there in A&E, she was going on work and I'm like, what the hell are they doing this? What the fuck are we doing this for?

That was like straight one, straight, and then like straight two. That was my birthday. So I'm 23, I birthday, I go out, where everyone's great. It's gonna be a heavy one. Heavy one, obviously. But the day after, which is a match of birthday,

I was when they out, it's been my 23rd birthday, locked in a dark room, watching a movie, hating life. Hate it in life. Everyone went to late, let's go for a meal, it's your birthday, come on, let's go. I'm just nervous, let's stay here. I spent the whole day in a dark room at my birthday.

And I'm thinking about everything, thinking about my life. And that's when I gave up, sometimes I like it, okay, it's drugs. It And that's when I gave up, sometimes it's like, okay, it has to be drugs, you know, I can't. I can't be like this on weekends, this is ruining my, so I think you know, it'll be fine. So I do six weeks about any drugs,

and then still drinking. Still drinking, yeah, yeah. Then I go to the races. I have a great day, honestly, a really good day, I'm a little bit more happy, but I come back home at like 6 p.m. off my head. I've been invited there by a friend in a sponsor's box, I've got no to that alcohol all day and it's nice day and I've still got the problem where I touch alcohol, I wouldn't stop drinking, I always have one in my hand. And my behaviour that day was, I got thrown out of picolinos in old Leech for stealing the bottle of wine from someone's table and shouting abuse at people.

Wow. It was a different person. And I said some mean things to some bad things to a good friend of mine. Yeah. And it was the first time I've ever hurt somebody else. In a minute I hurt somebody else and you only need to stop because I'm not as mummy. I could deal with hurting myself. I was beating myself up and I enjoyed that a little bit because it was punishing myself. I could feel the sense of that. Yeah, but I couldn't deal with that hurting somebody else.

but I couldn't deal with that hurt in somebody else. I would, I'd only got run over by a car once, you know, a couple of other things, and really, really drunk when I was drunk. But I could deal with that because it was me. It was me. But the minute it moved into me, doing damage to someone I cared about, and you had to stop. And then I worked with that day.

I had a very, very frank conversation with Steve, who wasn't there that day, but heard about it. And I said that I'm going to stop. I'm not going to drink again. Never going to drink again. So, how long so right, you know? Well, for 20 months. 20 months.

For 20 months, yeah. From that day. From that day. Never gone back. Cold turkey. Cold turkey. And what was it like for the first couple of weeks? It's tough, because it's changed your life. It's not cool, the alcohol.

I always have this funny. The first weekend I woke up on the other. I didn't go out, my body... My body was technically recovered. So it was the problem with binge-cooked drinking. Your body gets used to this shock in its system every five days. It's functioning, organism, it's used to repetitiveness. I work upon it however, because our body goes dehydrated because it was probably producing

more things in the liver, pancreas, the breakdown, the alcohol. It wasn't that. It wasn't that. You were right, Don. What's going on? We need some wine. It wasn't there. You were right, Don. What's going on here? We need some wine. Yeah, we need some wine.

So that was weird. So the first week I felt hungover. So you don't, I didn't feel the benefits. It wasn't until this is my problem with dry, dry, dry, I knew it. You don't feel the benefits until like week six. So it's, dry, dry, dry, dry, great, the real benefits don't come to laugh towards.

It's kicking afterwards. Exactly. It felt difficult because I had to change my entire lifestyle. It wasn't the alcohol, it was my lifestyle. I had to remove myself. We've taken it far beyond social drinking here haven't you. This is habitual, needing drinking. John Beats makes a really interesting call

about people that have got substance abuse addiction. And he says that the addiction isn't a problem, a serious problem, until you need to take the substance to deal with the withdrawals from the substance. Yeah. And until you're drinking to cure a hangover because you're always hungover,

you're kind of in a different realm and as soon as you cross that line. And that's what my weekend was, because someone broke it down to me. Friday, my body used to get ready. I used to feel getting ready for it to be, this is honestly, it used to feel like it was getting on a seven day cycle.

It's getting ready for alcohol to be in it. So I'd get this natural high, come Friday like three o'clock, where I'd get energy. It knows that it's got the volume coming in. Yeah, it knows it's going for it. So three o'clock I'd be like, yeah, come on, you know, feeling it. It's kind of like, and my mind knows I'm a wreath, I'm the end of the week, I'm away from

this stress I've been called. I don't have to reply to emails or something for a couple of days. So I'm putting it excited. So it's Friday, yeah. That's Friday at three o'clock, so you mind that I'll work, you mind already somebody else. You got a Friday, Saturday right now, you can't know who's during the day, you got Saturday. So Sunday you were covering from Saturday and Friday. And then you know what, I was seeing this girl, you know what we invented, Tequila Sundays. Fantastic. Fantastic, we had a couple of Tequila Sundays.

You can't fix the hangover at least. And that'll fix the tape right off a little bit. Exactly, so we had a couple of drinks, Sunday nights together. Yeah. And that then, it's Monday. In Monday you're recovering. Monday's tough, so you've got to have a glass of wine at the end of the day because I've got through a day on over. Exactly. And then maybe not Tuesday or Wednesday because you're a little bit fresh. And then you wind up for the weekend. Exactly. It's interesting, it's really interesting. I think that it'll be very enlightening for people

to hear someone who has, from the outside looking in, definitely made it up the dominant hierarchy, has got an awful lot going for them, but has struggled with something that most people elect to do and find enjoyable. And I think one of the key problems when you're talking about sobriety or when you're talking about trying to control alcohol is that every drink that you have makes the source of drink more difficult to not have. It's like a feedback loop. You have one

and you're inhibitions lower. And then you have another and you're inhibitions lower. And then before long, you're oh, well, like, what's getting a bottle of wine? And if it's, you know, you're on a night out, what's getting about your drugs? What's getting this, what's getting that? And you know, I mean, and then who says no to the after party at your house, who says no to telling your friends something the turtful or doing whatever, the inhibitions just continue to get broken down. And then you also go into the bad food. Yep.

And that's a whole number catapest. Because you just, then you just, you look at what you put, you know, and the guy said it here is your brain cells are made of every single thing that you put into your mouth. Yeah, that's right. Your brain cells, yeah, it's first time you've heard that. Yeah, that's really true.

That's gonna change your mind to other things. But I'm like, okay, everything that goes to my mouth makes my brain. Okay. And you look at it. That's my brain built up. Domin other things. But I'm like, everything that goes to my mouth makes my brain. Okay. And you're not going to get it. That's my brain built up. I'm not brain. Dominos and Tiki.

Dominos and Tiki, that's God. Yeah. What sort of life is that going to be? I think it's really interesting. It's very, very insightful to hear from someone. Could you hear these stories of child prodigies and, you know, Macauley, Colganesca characters that have got too much to soon? Yep. But it's very interesting to hear it first hand from somebody who

definitely did have that. And I think that alcoholism is usually perceived by people to be or a problem with alcohol is usually perceived by people to be mid fifties guy with a bottle of scotch whistle, laid on his couch, sipping it from that, he's unemployed, he's on benefits, he's this and the other, but it's not. A problem with alcohol is that you cannot deal with what alcohol does to you in your body. If you have a number of friends that range from introvert to extrovert from depressive to happy, and the guys that are depressed or that have a depressive personality, they need to restrict their dinking.

100%. Because you say in that they need to. Well, it's me, that's me speaking from personal experience. I do not deal well with hangovers. And then if you throw into that mischief, it makes if one of your personality traits is being industrious, and you've got high goals

and you have high standards for yourself, they say the ultimate pain is when the person you are makes the person you could have been. And that's the difference in pain of what you feel. Like if you set your goals very, very high and then you start to bring yourself down in your performance suffers, performance at work, performance in relationships, performance with everything. If you do that to yourself, you're electing to make yourself slower. o'r ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn y So you're here, guys that go out and they go on a stag day, and they go Vegas. You travel halfway around the world to go to Vegas, and they get absolutely blitzed out of their mind. Can't remember half the night, and then they'll take a drug

that is so immersive that they literally could have gone down the road to the pool and had the same experience. The only difference that you choose when you go away on holiday and you decide to fill yourself full of alcohol and drugs is what environment I want to have my come down and hang over it. That's the only thing that you choose when you go away on holiday and you decide to fill yourself full of alcohol and drugs is What environment do I want to have my come down and hang over it? Yep, that's the only thing that you change. Yeah completely

Completing you know what I had the perfect Come down environment either dark room I was just like it's like cinema cinema room dark room full of stamps black outline Everything honestly and it would be pitch black. So, you know, that's the dream. I used to, I used to remember planning my Sundays. A lot of dominoes, the weekend around, around the come down, you know,

this is the, this is the treat for myself. And mentally rewarding yourself, or come down, how's that ever gonna get you to where you want to be? And you're completely right in the point that when you get to, when you get to like the pain of staying the same, you know, you sat there looking like this isn't me, this isn't who I want to be. I don't want to be as person in five years. The person I want to be in five years is doing it, I need to do something to make a change. Yeah, I mean, there's absolutely some people who don't have a problem with substances. I have a club remote, right? That's what I do for a living. Like, we see this, we see every single

person strata. Can you see the people who are suffering? Are done a night out? Not on a night out, no, because everyone on a night out, again, you've got alcohol, right? The guys are on a night out, not in night out, no. Because everyone in night out, again, you've got alcohol, right? The guys that are in night out, even the ones that have got a depressive personality are the ones that are suffering. It needs to be chronic, like real severe, for someone to be in the middle of a night out, 10 B is deep, and still not happy.

Because again, the alcohol and the drugs, they wash the environment with the rose tinted, killing glasses, and then everyone's having a good time and that the life and solid party but a lot of the time it's the people if you want to try and identify the people that are struggling the most with the substances look at the ones that are the most outgoing and annoying. Yeah, do you know my my my not bad one is that it's just a drink alone. Yeah, that was the one that's what I knew.

I sat there. I called the nights where rope, just like, I remember drinking, come up all the way and I learned on Saturday because I wasn't going out, I don't know why. And I lived at 45 minutes away, and I texted friend to ask me to bring some coke to the house. For an hour away. An hour away.

On your own. Oh my god. So you can just rack up lines and stuff away. Can you imagine that? Yeah. That's that's right. Man, if you know what it is, I like to say that there's absolutely people for whom substances aren't a problem. I have a wide range of friends who party to different, differing degrees. Yeah. People who go out on a solver because they choose to, people who go out on a solver, they're so unconsciously, because they know it's bad for them, people who drink and people who part your excess. And within each of those categories, you have people who are able to recover from it and for whom

it is absolutely fine. But you know if you're one of those people, you know if you're not, you absolutely know for me if you are waking up the next day, you might not know it's because of the alcohol, but if you're waking up the next day and you feel worse than a hangover should make you feel, and you know what the cat I think you know how a hangover should be, but if you start becoming self-referential, and if you can't get out of bed for the day, and if you start thinking that I'm not actualising my potential, all the things that you've identified, that's a highlight. So talk to me about what sobriety's done.

God, what hasn't it done? I've lost about three and a half stoke. You see a picture? I'll put it up on the screen. I'll put it up on the screen, but this is old. Three and a half stoned. So that's like, well, like 18 kilos, 15 kilos. Something like that.

21? 21 kilos. Yeah. I was. So that's me. That's me. Oh wow, that photo looks like it's been stretched. That photo looks like it's been stretched in widescreen,

but it's not you just massive. Just massive. I'll show you from Cypherophor. So this was me. You're completely spherical. I know, I know. That isn't it. It's crazy.

That's really crazy. And that one though. Oh wow. Yeah, that's a different guy to the one that I'm looking at at the moment. Yeah. That's a different shape face. Different that I'm looking at at the moment. Yeah. Yeah, that's a different shape of face. Different shape of face.

You've got some pleavy round. It is. For sure. So, you take on sobriety and then... I get time. I get time. I... I...

I... I acquired myself a lot, but a lot more time. Well, you're not spending a game. Not spending a game. It's not spending a game. It's not spending a game. It's not spending a game. It's not spending a game. It's not spending a game. It's not spending a game. Not spending a game. Smash.com is down. It's to interject at that point on the time thing. Even if anyone's listening, even if you think that maybe you don't have a problem in terms of being self-referential with your own opinions on your own substance use, if you look at your

year, times the only thing we can't get back, right? If you look at your year as a set of year end accounts for a company, and you wanted to maximise profitability, which would be available time to do with what you value. Yep. What you would do is you would look at the biggest costs that you could get rid of on that time. And if you look through that, and every single week, you go, your accountant looks at you

and he says, what's between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. every Saturday, you do fuck all. And then on a Sunday, you're working up at 50% capacity. And then on a Monday, you're still on your 80% capacity. What the fuck you do? And you think, right, okay, even if I don't have a problem with it, just from a pure time efficiency perspective, if I want to maximise my experience of life in the near 80 years that we've got on this planet, I need to make sure that I'm not spasticating myself on a weekly basis. Is the problem that the thing is, it's the routine, is if you do it every week.

That's when it starts to become like question, that's when I think so much of question themselves because there's so many, so many more things to do out there. We do live busy lives, we do work hard, everyone does work hard. So having that sense of doing something you want to do, and it's despite what people think, it's not going to mess up with their friends all the time, there's other things they will find that they enjoy. Absolutely.

So I found that I love running, I love working out. You would have known that the guy in those photos loved running. Honestly, genuinely doesn't look like you could have run a burger king in back. I would have run to burger. I would have run to burger. You would have run a burger king in your license of the deal. Exactly. They're doing face-out the gun sick.

Yeah. So, fun out of love, I loved running. I got, I guess I replaced one addiction with another. But I love how running made me felt. That run a timeout. Yeah, it's true. Run a timeout's so true. Because there's an element that you run away from your problems

as well, a little bit out of it. But defeating them as well with every step. Exactly. So you've got the polystips as well. So I fell in love with that. I fell in love with the outdoors, just in general being outdoors, being around. And then, you know, other things like writing, writing, I've got a blog,

hashtag, ad. Yeah, I did it in that. Tetotalrunn.com, right? Yeah, I just talk about what I do and then the running, the running side of things, it's taking me all over the world, I want it to go to see some places with it, so I'm going to Lisbon next weekend to do that. How many more things have you got planned? I've got, I'm doing 12 runs, one a month, building up different sizes.

Like 5k 10k. Yeah, so I'm doing half marathon next month in Lisbon. Okay. I'm doing one in Allowa in Scotland, because I'm going to go to Edinburgh. That's going to be cool. I've been really cool. And then I'm doing London Marathon in April. Nice.

And then I'm doing Ironman. No way. Nice. And then I'm doing Iron Man. No way. Where's the Iron Man? Barcelona. That's sick. It's just for the weather. Worst place, yeah, for sure. So it's the scariest couple of days.

It's a bit of a bike ride, a bit of a run. That's amazing. I mean, you know, that's it. There will definitely be people listening to this that think that's not me. Like, I don't have a problem with substances. I like to go out with my friends. And that for me is what I want to do in my weekends and that's sweet. But I said during a podcast

that I did with the CrossFit guys that I think that around about 25, there's like a fitness menopause, that occurs where you stop being concerned. If you've been like a gym bro for a while, you stop being concerned with leanness at all costs and you start to realize you're chronically aware of your own mortality as you approach 30. And you think, I need to be functional. I have to be able to put my socks on and get out of the set of stairs without getting out of breath. So you start to think about more functional stuff with that.

And I think that the same, you can go through a party manopause as well. And it's delivered at varying ages. You've maybe had an early indoctrination. You went straight to pro. You went straight to pro level at the party. varying ages, you've maybe had an early indoctrination. You went straight to pro, you went straight to pro level. Yeah, I went from student to professional. Yeah, professional.

You missed out everything in between, I did. Yeah, no, there was no club games, you went straight to World Cup. Straight, yeah. And I think with that as well, people realize, and like, there's some people, it's like being in a relationship, like that kind of opens people's eyes, because the girlfriend doesn't want you going out and get red all the time Yeah, and the boyfriend feels uncomfortable about you being in clubs with the guys or just generally want to spend time together because you've got someone around

yeah, but Even without that I think that it is really important for people to realize that there's more to life than going out and getting Let it and you know, I'm saying this from I'm the guy that makes it. Is it the living with the back of the camera? Yeah, I'm going to go to the social media and you're going to want to walk it mate when we chill with people in the clubs every week. And what can I say? It's, you know, my business partner, who have 10 years had a chat with him

the other day and he was talking about he'd gone to go and see one of his friends who was in rehab. It was 44 now. And he was thinking to himself at the time, like, what is it that we're doing to people when we get them to go out on a night out? Like, but what you hit the nail on the head, that the problem is going out and getting blitzed every weekend. Yeah. Some people can go out and they can have, I've got a number of friends that can do it that are in the division two and division three parties, and they're able to go out,

they can do a five-point night, they can wake up the next morning and maybe they shouldn't drive but after they've had a bacon sandwich they're sweet to go. Do you know what I mean? And that's fine. Now things about everyone really has to ask themselves their relationship with alcohol. Do they think it's healthy? To hard question, to ask yourself because you never want to self-analysed negatively, I do think that there is a subculture, this is my thinking, that there is a vegan trend that's come up in the last couple of years, it's been, it's got really grassroots, it really is run by the youth people, run by the youth who are passionate I guess, passionate about and of protection, but also what being a vegan does for you.

You know, there's a lot of stuff to be doing. No, I may end up being a vegan. No, no. Vegetarian? No, neither. I mean, I'm aware that I definitely don't eat anywhere, you have enough vegetables. So I need to push that. One of my friends put an interest in Facebook today, it's obviously the day talking about

it's trendy to be vegan at the moment. It is really really trendy But the same people that are Giving someone grief for any kind of degoose jacket will also be the same one that will spend a hundred quid on two bags of coke It's been done off the back of dead children in Columbia. Yeah, you know gang walls and all the rest of the stuff that get your Get those drugs of your nose. Yeah, I just as damaging and to a lot more sentient beings than the coyote that's died to make a jacket or whatever it might be. So, but again, with that, what are people doing? They're being very selective about what they want to be self-referential about.

Exactly, and also it works in social media for how they've perceived. Absolutely. The self-brounding of that's fine. Yeah. You're never going to put a video of you snorting a line, but you can definitely put up a video of you saying that it's bad to share a video of someone trapping a coyote for a jacket.

By the day, I think the tea tiles over movement will come soon. I think there'll be a rise in young people, which you've always seen at universities. There's actually a decrease in time students go out mainly because of money but I think there'll be a little bit more education on this basically that you'll have generations of young people who choose not to. I mean my master's dissertation was the effectiveness of anti-alcohol advertising on students in Newcastle and it basically found that none of it was. That people wear the crazy

stories as a badge of honor. They literally say like how was you night out man it was crazy. I woke up in hospital. Yeah. Like that. Just re-frame the conversation. They did the same thing with smoking when smoking bank came in place. Yeah. They try for years and years and years to help us to get people to smoke less. Saying how it was going to do to your fingertips, what it did to your Mae'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio. Mae'n gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio I said people stop working. Yeah. It's interesting. I think what's specifically interesting about this conversation is that we've got two people coming at sobriety from opposite end to the spectrum. So for the people that don't know, I did six months of the last year, which began December 2016 and finished in May 2017. And then I did six months of partying again and drinking.

But after my six months of sobriety, which I only did to see if I could do it, I knew that I, based on the time availability, set of accounts that I came up with, I knew that if I wanted to be really successful for a period, and I had some plans of things that I wanted to achieve, I needed to get some more time out, I needed to squeeze more time out of my day,

and that sobriety enabled me to do that. But we're coming out from someone who has used sobriety to stop an addiction or to stop a habitual problem with substances. And then someone who's coming from it, who wouldn't have classed myself as having a problem with alcohol, and a lonely drink maybe once every two weeks. But the times that I did, it wasn't good for me.

So I guess you've got a fairly wide spectrum of people there that are covered, for whom sobriety. So you were talking really interesting what you touched on about the six-week point. So I didn't track it at the time. I should have written a diary and I didn't about what the sobriety was doing to me,

because I think I guess a lot of what sobriety for you would have meant would have been not doing negative things before they start to do positive things. Whereas for me I was kind of starting, I guess, from a baseline of okay day to day and then improving from there. But I've always said to my friends that have talked to me about it. After about two months, my mental agility and my verbal dexterity just went through the roof. Radiccose, yeah. And on that point, it's, I think,

people, everyone listen, I think it's, think deeply about when was the last time you can pitch yourself going a month for alcohol, from been 16 years old. I use this story all the time. You can't. I couldn't, you know, you do a dry, if you do a dry, dry January, you'll work a whole new year, home over. So you won't have alcohol out of your system to the second or third. And then you know what, you'll give in the last weekend because it's still a January. So you only do like three, four weeks.

But wait a little bit, everyone that's just completely dry January. It doesn't dry January, it's dry three weeks. It's the dry three weeks, you know, it's got a bit of a refresh rate back into the gym. It's not long enough to really know it's a difference. I agree. I think six months is a really intimidating amount of time, but for me the changes that it made for me were absolutely fantastic. Like verbal dexterity, mental agility, quality of sleep, ability to regulate emotions. Yeah. Evidence.

Evidence. Absolutely, yeah. And what it does is I think it starts to let you deal with some of the things that are more chronic, that have been around for a little bit longer. The problems that require a deeper look at yourself, things to do with the values and whether you're a'r ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am fynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ffynor am ff that is actuating my potential when you're hanging out with your ass, filling your mouth full of donkeys on Sunday, or you waking up with some girl whose name you don't know. It's a complete complication because the questions you ask yourself in them situations are very small, you don't ask yourself big questions. You know, when you're in a state of hungover,

your body is telling you I need food, they drink, I need, it's a very short term, right? Graphication urges, this is what I need to get over the current situation. And then, like you say, when you've got a bit of head space and a bit of mental bandwidth to ask yourself these difficult questions, I've never ever thought of what my values, what are values.

Someone actually did see a therapist for a bit to try and get over it. And one of the things he said to me is, you need to write down your values. All your actions need to be in line with your values of who you want to be as a person. I was like, what the hell am I going to use? I'm going to clear. I'm going to clear. Because it's all being washed under the rug, man. And you write, like, if you're from 16 and spending time recreationally for you,

it's going up and getting blitzed with your mates. We don't actually know what life is outside of them. And then all that you need to do is add in a little bit of vicariously living your life through other people, through social media, through TV and all the rest of the stuff. And before you know it, like... You're beating yourself up over where you are. Yeah, you're causing the problem or you're creating...

You're building the wall that is so high you can't climb over anymore and you want to see the other side. And I think that that level of sort of helplessness or just dissatisfaction, it's just dissatisfaction and I think that it's something that people don't have to deal with and I think that's the key takeaway from this is that you don't have to go out and get absolutely blitzed. Because again, like we say, there's different leads of part yet, right? Yeah.

There's the ones who've gone to the absolute extreme and there's the ones that are able to manage their alcohol use. And for the ones that do, then crack on, sobriety will help. And it will be a really, really good test for you in terms of can you win something, can you win a battle that most people couldn't?

That's the big thing there, it's like proven to yourself that you can do something that you don't know, that 99% of the rest of the population can't. And I think that is a big thing because it's a sense of achievement. It's not like it's like a real... It's a badge of honor.

Yeah, I'm a badge of, yeah, yeah. I'm not that I work with a hospital, but I'm so over. And there's an interesting thing. I met a guy who I've known for years from York who's probably like, probably the one that I like the best body guy, but I'm from Chris. Yeah. I know. on the like the fittest, like best body guy, but from Chris. He's the best bodybuilder. I know, he's bodybuilds,

and I met him when I must be like mum for free and to have been sober. And he was like, I could never do what you do. I was like a minute, like, I was so disciplined with his fitness. This guy's so disciplined in his life, he looks like a god, he lifts up, and you could never do what I do.

That was like, hang on a minute, I'm doing something here that is so far away from not, but I'm just like, I'm going to just go and new things to people that people don't do. It's really rare for people to take notes of much of what you've passed online, if it isn't something that's really monumental about your family. Like if it's not, I'm having a kid, I'm getting married, I'm moving away. Like for the most part, unless it's something really funny that bans. Like it's like a 300 Liker about someone that's parked on your street. Keep me following my two weeks, I bet. Yeah, unless it's one of those ones, like you don't and people don't come up in

speechy, but I only post about maybe three or four times last year and the number of people that came up to me, you write and said, mate, are you still doing that six months sober thing? Like, yeah, four keen hell, like, what's going on? Like, it's not that big of a deal. I didn't know how you do it, you know, it's just like, it's just one of them things, like, you've got, you know, how do you not, like, and after a while, when people search for a drink and you go, no, and you can say to them, without it being twatty, you can say, no, I'm doing six months over, I'm doing a period of sobriety. So, I'm not pointing it as well. The biggest reason why people say they can never do it is because they don't have fun. And you're there in a

situation where you still out with people, your friends, you go out, you're actually in the night out, you're out later, probably than any other club. And you're actually having more fun. And that's like the biggest thing I hear from people is I can never do it, so I feel like I'm boring. I don't know what my friends all think of me. So here we go. People use alcohol 100% on a night out to mask the fact that they're not as extroverted as their friends think that they are. Then they're worried that they're not as good.

So that is the equivalent of taking a performance and enhancing drug to be able to perform at an adequate level at your sport of choice. So if you're on a night out and you've got the pro-changiety as pick a part is to recall it, but going up and speaking to a girl, I'd remember when I was in uni, I'd be like, I can't go talk to that girl,

not back five egg abombs, and then you wake up with the next morning. Yeah. Because you're like, oh, I don't know what I said. Pretty well. So it got rid of the inhibitions got lowered and the approach anxiety went away. And the same thing goes for being with your friends.

Like, there's this funny quote that I know from online that says, nothing good ever happens after two in the morning. And you're like, the last hour of a club night, unless you're in somewhere like a late night venue, if you're in a typical club that's 10 to 3 or 11 to 3, the final, and I watch it, I sit and I look, like, if you want a bit of advice, leave the club at two in the morning, leave the club at 2.30 in the morning, because nothing good happens in the final half an hour or the final hour. It's people stungly now, it's issues at the bar, it's people getting inscraps, it's this thing, you're like, you can have the lion's share of the night with none of the regret the

next morning and none of the problems the next morning and on top of that you can remember it. Yep. And you know what, if you drive, it's cheaper. Yeah. Because you drive, you drive your friends, drop off, you go and you want to. And, you know, I've been out. I got out as much now as I did then, and have a better time.

And I'm completely agree with the point of two. Because this is the moment, right, when you're your friends, okay? And it's, it's, it's, it's not my about one thirty two o'clock, where things deteriorate for them. They go from having normal conversation to just being a mess and it's, you sit there and you're completely fine. It's like, that's a time of leave, that's a calling bell. So here's the next point.

We did this discussion once I completed the six one so with the guy called James Bailey who is from Basel and he brought up this really, really interesting point. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. He said that curing an addiction doesn't involve going to Kentucky. It involves the reintroduction of the substance on your terms. So can you ever see yourself in the either short, medium, or long term reintroducing or attempting to reintroduce alcohol. If you can tell me what reason why, if anyone can tell me what reason why, I should have

in my body. Okay. So because alcohol and other substances are as much of a part of the experience of life as anything else is, now you could say, as I do to people when they ask about why I'm not drinking as much, my main reason is I've served my time. Like the same way you do you you military service. I'm like I've served my time part in I did a decade a part in and right now I don't need to. But you could argue that by not reintroducing alcohol or by not using alcohol that again you're now living in limited limited

limited life on one side because don't get it wrong like I've had some fucking wicked nights absolutely out of my tree like I have had some really really fun times yeah and that's not to I absolutely would not have been able to achieve those nights out so but there's an element of the night like we can sing the praises of sobriety all we want, but there's some nights out that you just get going because everyone's blitzed. Yeah, completely, I think, definitely definitely not for the very foreseeable future.

I don't think, I don't think it aligns with me and my values at all, the same, and this goes on really stupid. The same way some people let's try to let you know it doesn't start then. I don't honestly feel that. I don't need it. I have fun. And I guess on the second part, and maybe I'm not aware of the addiction. Interesting. I think that there's definitely...

It shows the fact that you're able to make that admission, shows how much time you'd spend being self-reflective, because a lot of people wouldn't have even been able to identify the addiction in the first place, or the habit was a problem. That'll allow 20 months down the line to be able to identify the addiction in the first place or the habit was a problem. Yeah. Let alone 20 months down the line to be able to say, I've still got more of this journey to go before I can actually consider going back into the direction. Yeah, there's a huge fit. I live my life running away from that moment where I knew I had to stop.

Like I live to never feel that ever again. So there's an interesting thing I'm doing Jordan Peterson Day at the moment. There's an experiment that was done with rats. I put rats at who were a tube. And they haven't been fed for a while. They touched the spring round the tail. And they put cheese at the end. And they wafted the smell of cheese in,

so they could smell the food. And the rats pulled a particular force on this spring. Then what they did was they wafed it the smell of a cat in from behind them. I need a thought the rats are starving. They're gonna pull as hard as they can already but they didn't. The amount of force they exerted increased and what he says is that in life you don't just need to run towards something that you want. You need to run away from something that you fear. Yeah, that's why I run so much.

Tom, man, I've really, I've really, really enjoyed this. I'd love to do it again. I'm going to put the links to T-Tall runner and everything else. Social chain, guys, if you want to check it out, or Hogwarts logic, or just look on your Facebook feed or your Instagram feed, there's probably going to be something from you guys that pops up on there. I really appreciate your time. Thank you, Chris. Thank you for your attention. Cheers. Thanks a lot.