Success guru breaks down one of my worst alcohol traps

I love reading and, especially, listening to books about success and productivity. One of my main reasons for quitting drinking (among many, which I went over here), was that I felt I wasn’t living up to my potential.

Actually, I wasn’t even in the same area code as my potential. It’s crazy for me to look back now on all these high performance audiobooks I bought and downloaded, searching at the time for some magic intellectual potion that would unlock my abilities and make me rich and successful.

Yet the answer to improving my performance was always right in front of me, and intrinsicly I knew what it was: in order for me to reach my potential, I needed to stop drinking alcohol.

It caused me to waste countless productive hours at night (while I was drinking myself into a stupor), and more productive hours throughout the day (because I was exhausted from the crap sleep quality that alcohol produced). Because my brain had been hard-wired to crave the dopamine blast that alcohol provided, I just didn’t have the mental bandwidth to do things that were mentally, professionally and financially fulfilling.

The road to success

And while I’m mildly successful — though not yet what I would call “rich” — the gains I’ve made in the 20 days are really encouraging. My finances have gotten a real boost from not wasting money on poisoning myself almost every night, and with the extra energy I have I’ve developed two new revenue streams. I love writing here and many of you seem to enjoy what I’m putting out into the world. Thank you for that!

With my mind now clear and the alcohol barrier shattered, I’m now starting to re-listen to the success books I’d gone through in the past before letting the lessons drown in glasses of booze.

One of my favourite authors in this space is Grant Cardone. Grant’s biggest book is called The 10x Rule, which I understand is something of a holy book in the sales world. Grant admits he’s a bit of a lunatic for performance, which I can appreciate because, as an ADHD introvert, I get a little obsessed with things too.

(Quick side note: I’m going to throw some affiliate links in from this point on, which I 100% would not do if I didn’t think you’d get something really valuable out of what I’m linking to. If you wind up purchasing something, I may get a ‘lil kickback. Again though, I have personally used all of these and can vouch for these resources).

(Quick side note 2: I’ll be referring to books a lot in my space, but what I’m really referring to is audiobooks. Audiobooks have played an enormous, critical role in me finally kicking alcohol, which I’ll get into in the coming days and weeks in this publication. I use Audible for this, and with this link you can try it for free and get two free audiobooks when you sign up. It’s risk-free if you want to give it a shot. OK, back to our regularly scheduled programming).

If you want to meet the Devil…

Today on a walk, I was listening to one of Grant’s books called Be Obsessed or Be Average. There’s a lot of great stuff in there for aspiring Medium writers too, but one thing the recovered drug addict touches on frequently is how he needs to keep himself busy or he knows he’ll get himself into trouble.

This is a common theme for me too, and I wrote about it in this piece on what the musician James Taylor taught me about sobriety (and myself). A lot of my drinking issues were grounded in boredom. Drinking was a way to alleviate that tension in my brain.

Grant talks about two things in the book I linked to above that I think are really relevant to active-minded people who are trying to quit drinking.

One, in his words: “Nothing good happens after 9 p.m.”

He goes to bed at 9 p.m. every night because, in his experience, staying up later than that gets him into trouble. Whether that means drinking alcohol or smoking pot for some people, or eating a tub of ice cream while watching reality TV for others, his point is that staying up late for the sake of it never really produces any good results. His routine allows him to be up before the sun the next day and at peak productivity before most people roll out of bed.

Now, I have kid-related activities at night and I’m a natural night owl, so I make sure that night hours that would normally be a trap are used for trips to the gym. That’s how I stay on track for that one.

Grant also had this gem: “If you want to meet the devil, have white space on your calendar.”

I’m not a religious person — though I know a lot of AA people who might be reading this are and are comfortable with the terminology — but the main point is well taken. For restless people like myself, like Grant Cardone, like James Taylor, we’d better have something to do, or there’s a decent chance that some substance will try to fill the void.

Perfect timing

Maybe the universe is looking out for me today because I probably needed to hear that from Grant at this moment.

Typically I’m pretty busy in the evenings because I have two kids in competitive sports, but today would have been a real trigger day for me re: drinking. I have the house to myself and no obligations, which normally would have been a nice invitation to sit on the couch and drink while watching something stupid or just aimlessly scroll through Netflix shows and never actually pick one.

Instead, I’ve managed to keep on track and fill my time by writing the very piece you’re reading now!

So, folks, be sure to fill that calendar with things that’ll keep you on track!

I hope you’re all doing well, and I’d love to hear some of your tips and tricks for keeping your calendar full and your nights accounted for in the comments.

Thank you so much for reading — I really do appreciate it! If you enjoyed this article, please give it a clap so others can find it!

Looking for more inspiration? Here are some more pieces I’ve written over the past couple of weeks:

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